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OT: Need Book Recomendations, I'm stuck inside

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Prefer fiction.

Just finished Grishams latest The Guardian. Read it in 3 days. Wished I didn't read the Follet trilogy, because would love to have it now.

Got a lot of time (and I'm sure many of you all too). Tired of computer gaming, computer work, etc.. Looking for books to sit for hours and escape.

I'm willing to read classic old novels.
Any book by Nelson DeMille...Adventure stories with great entertaining male/female interaction. Suggest starting with Gold Coast, Cathedral, Word of Honor and then all the rest.
 
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A couple of really good recent Sports books:

The League (the history of the NFL)

Boxing Kings (The history of Heavyweight boxing)
 

XLCenterFan

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I bought a great looking book yesterday at B & N that I can't wait to read. By Mark Titus - a kid who played college hoops for Ohio State, and rode the bench his whole time there.
Don't Put Me In Coach: My Incredible NCAA Journey From the End of the Bench to the End of the Bench

Also bought:
Dodge City: Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and the Wickedest Town in the American West, by Tom Clavin

let my people go surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman, by Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard.
 

StllH8L8ner

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I bought a great looking book yesterday at B & N that I can't wait to read. By Mark Titus - a kid who played college hoops for Ohio State, and rode the bench his whole time there.
Don't Put Me In Coach: My Incredible NCAA Journey From the End of the Bench to the End of the Bench

Also bought:
Dodge City: Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and the Wickedest Town in the American West, by Tom Clavin

let my people go surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman, by Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard.
Funny I just posted about the Titus book. It is a good, quick read.
 

StllH8L8ner

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For basketball fans, I read these two last summer:

Tough Juice - Book about our Uconn guy Caron Butler's life

Don't Put Me In Couch - By Mark Titus who rode the bench for Ohio State during the Greg Oden days. Somewhat crude, but funny take on life in a big time program.
*Coach
 
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Anything by Harlen Coben, David Baldacci, Robert B.Parker, Michael Connelly and Lee Child.

Coben also has three series on Netflix, Safe, The Five and The Stranger.

Connelly has the Bosch series on Amazon, fifth season coming up.
 
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If you are into finance, Red Notice by Bill Browder is fascinating. He is an "activist" of sorts, living in Russia in the mid 90s and goes up against the oligarchs during a transfer in power and ownership.
 

Pgh2Storrs

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I went and picked up The Miracle of St Anthony the other day, so I’m looking forward to that.

Those of you who were/are into running or are looking for a great sports read over the next however long, I highly recommend the following:

“Once a Runner” by John L. Parker
“Running With The Buffaloes” by Chris Lear
“Sub 4” by Chris Lear
“Bowerman” by Kenny Moore

Hockey fans should check out the books by Bob Probert and Sean Pronger. Both are great reads.

“Play Their Hearts Out” by George Dohrmann is an in-depth look into the AAU basketball world.

“Meat Market” by Bruce Feldman follows a year of recruiting when Ed Orgeron was at Ole Miss. Really interesting stuff
 

SubbaBub

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Use the opportunity to learn something.

Creativity Inc is the best book I've read in years. The first few chapters cover the founding of Pixar but the rest of the book is about how to avoid being a mindless knob.
 
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The Travis McGee series is the only one of this type I've ever read extensively. I've had no idea that Baldacci is anything like John D. MacDonald or any good. Thanks for this.

Baldacchino has 5 series with approximately 5/6 books in each one. Like the Travis McGee series you don’t necessarily have to read in order, but it’s better to. I loved the 20+ TM series. Baldacci’ shorter series still does a great job with character development/consistency. Each book is maybe 450 pages compared with the shorter 250 page TM books.
 
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Some more popular/classic ones. Worth reading if you haven't crossed them off your list yet.

  • John Irving - A Prayer for Owen Meany, The Cider House Rules.
  • John Steinbeck - East of Eden. My favorite novel. Bonus points for its opening chapters taking place in Connecticut.
  • Cormac McCarthy - Blood Meridian. Crazy, crazy book. The Road would be an appropriate read during these weird times. More than any other book, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed The Road. People seem to love it or hate it.
  • Philip Roth - The Plot Against America. The HBO series just launched. Roth was such a gifted writer. Might be up your alley since you like Follett.
  • If you really want to kill some time you can go through John Updike's Rabbit tetralogy. He's as talented a writer as there was during the 20th century IMO. Most of the characters are deplorable but if that doesn't bother you they're great reads.
  • Since you mentioned Follett, I enjoyed The Eye of the Needle (a rare quick/short Follett read). Quite different from The Pillars of the Earth, etc. but it's good.
 
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If you haven't read Tom Clancy, there are a ton of his label around (and by multiple other authors after his death). Robert Ludlum's 'Jason Bourne' series.
 

Drumguy

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Anything by Harlen Coben, David Baldacci, Robert B.Parker, Michael Connelly and Lee Child.

Coben also has three series on Netflix, Safe, The Five and The Stranger.

Connelly has the Bosch series on Amazon, fifth season coming up.
Add Lee Child's collaboration with Douglas Preston - Author Preston Child. I'm not a big fan of the Pendergast novels but I like the other ones.
 

storrsroars

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To my previous recos, let me add Carl Hiaasen's books. Start with Tourist Season. They are all mysteries, with the typical murder, graft and whatnot, but they're all in Florida, each with a cast of characters that only Florida could produce. Many based on real stories that Hiaasen covered for the Miami Herald, but he adds just enough exaggeration to them to make the books sometimes LOL funny yet still believable. He's a crazier Elmore Leonard.
 

ClifSpliffy

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well, since someone else already mentioned nonfiction, my cup of tea, I will recommend my personal gold standard, read by generations of my-un's 'The Outline of History, Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind,' by H.G. Wells, 1920. like many before me, I've been reading it for decades.
 
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Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.

Our eBooks may be freely used in the United States because most are not protected by U.S. copyright law, usually because their copyrights have expired.

 

intlzncster

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IMO the stormlight archive puts mistborn to shame--mistborn always felt kind of juvenile to me. SA is as good as epic fantasy has gotten in years. It's an investment--books are 1000+ pages, but worth it.
I've heard those are better, that's next on my list once I finish Mistborn

Pretty much everything Sanderson has done is good, though some are geared towards YA. All his book and series are slightly related, that is they take place in the same universe (what he calls 'the omniverse'), and you will see some of the same characters pop up in different series...as some are able to travel worlds/times/places.

Before you read Stormlight, I suggest you read Warbreaker. There's an interesting origin story/character that shows up later in Stormlight. Warbreaker is a stand alone novel that is a quick read.

I've read a ton of fantasy. For something a little different in the same arena:

Book of the Ancestor series by Mark Lawrence. A little YA, but interesting and very different world building. Also a female protagonist which is different.

The Gentleman Bastards Sequence by Scott Lynch. Very interesting caper series

Powder Mage series Brian McClellan

Raven's Shadow trilogy by Anthony Ryan

Six of Crows duology by Leigh Bardugo
 
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Drumguy

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Pretty much everything Sanderson has done is good, though some are geared towards YA. All his book and series are slightly related, that is they take place in the same universe (what he calls 'the omniverse'), and you will see some of the same characters pop up in different series...as some are able to travel worlds/times/places.

Before you read Stormlight, I suggest you read Warbreaker. There's an interesting origin story/character that shows up later in Stormlight. Warbreaker is a stand alone novel that is a quick read.

I've read a ton of fantasy. For something a little different in the same arena:

Book of the Ancestor series by Mark Lawrence. A little YA, but interesting and very different world building. Also a female protagonist which is different.

The Gentleman Bastards Sequence by Scott Lynch. Very interesting caper series

Powder Mage series Brian McClellan

Raven's Shadow trilogy by Anthony Ryan

Six of Crows duology by Leigh Bardugo
I'd add Throne of Glass to those as well, by Sara Maas! Maybe also the Heir series by Cinda Williams Chima. Easy fun reads.
 
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Re-upping what a couple other posters have said:

The Count of Monte Cristo - so damn good (and don’t get the abridged version). Great last sentence.

A Prayer for Owen Meany - love that little guy, culminates with a scene that is somehow both tragic and happy.

And I’ll also throw in Winds of War by Herman Wouk as a recommendation for a great historical novel.
 
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I thought City of Thieves was a real page-turner. It was written by David Benioff who became one of the show runners for Game of Thrones after.

A book written by one of the guys who killed game of thrones is not a great selling point.
 

QDOG5

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The Overstory by Richard Powers
 

Waquoit

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The SO just asked me if "Love In the Time of Cholera" would be good for the book club. Yeah, it would. It's great. Read that.
 
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i’m actually in the middle of reading this right now. would never have expected to see it pop up on the yard.
I LOVE Stephenson. He’s a lot like Pynchon-challenges you.
 
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The SO just asked me if "Love In the Time of Cholera" would be good for the book club. Yeah, it would. It's great. Read that.

Seconded.

Marquez is one of my absolute favorite authors. I have probably read 100 Years of Solitude 5x. He is brilliant.

I teach "A Very old Man with enormous wings" every year to my class as kind of the "intro" to magical realism.
 

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