Great Reads

There are a lot of terrific book lists out there, but after reading some of them, I have noticed that many of them list the same books over and over, usually best-sellers and ones you've already heard about it. It's kind of like listening to a Top Forty radio station and hearing the same twenty songs being played over and over. Sometimes you'd like to hear (or read) something different. Not radical, not difficult, still entertaining, but different. And if you can pick up more by that author, well that's even better. So, herein I offer you ten different series of books that I have loved. The only order that they are in is alphabetical. I refuse to have to pick "favourites". I read a lot and I read a lot of different stuff, so these are not all in the same genre.

1). Agatha Raisin - M.C. Beaton

This is a charming series set in the Cotswolds. Agatha Raisin is a delightfully flawed heroine who solves local mysteries and tries to deal with her nosy neighbors and her penchant for falling in love with inappropriate men who don't appreciate her. She's in her fifties and terrified of becoming old and yet can't stand younger people. Her mode of solving crimes revolves around asking questions and using her fierce PR skills to gathering information. It would be more successful if she wasn't quite so prickly and quick to anger. She's a bit of a cross between Miss Marple and Inspector Clouseau.

2). China Bayles - Susan Wittig Albert

A series of mysteries that center on a small town in the hill country of Texas and feature a really nice protagonist in the form of China Bayles, a former attorney turned shop keep and herb grower. Each book revolves around a specific herb and includes recipes, folklore and tips for growing and using herbs. I just love authors that give you extras and Albert doesn't disappoint. She gives lots of recipes and herblore, and she does a lot of hands-on research and it shows. China is good heroine - smart, has her act together, compassionate. One of the things that I like the best is that Albert lets her heroine have real relationships with other women. Lots of authors seem to think that "flawed" should be translated as "broken" and that women are only interesting when they can't have successful relationships. China has several real friendships as well as a successful love life. Healthy female energy, I love it!

3). Maisie Dobbs - Jacqueline Winspear

A very different type of investigator, Maisie is a single woman living in England during the time after World War I. She is an intuitive and uses the new field of psychology, as well as Eastern philosophies to help solve cases. These are less murder mystery/police procedurals, and more about life in Great Britain after the Great War. Very different and Maisie is a very interesting woman. The twenties and thirties were a volatile and often sad time for the people of Europe. Over a third of the men of Europe where killed in action and then millions of people died in the influenza outbreak. After things calmed down, there weren't a lot of men to come home and take back the jobs that women had been performing during the war years. So the new century was the beginning of the modern woman and Maisie is very modern. She's single, she has a career and she drives around England in her own car. Most of her cases deal with people still trying to heal from the war and she handles cases with a great deal of compassion and always works to facilitate true closure. These books are meticulously researched and lovingly written. Highly recommended.

4). Mrs. Pollifax - Dorothy Gilman

Don't judge this series by the poorly made movie. This is a wonderful story about finding and being true to yourself, seizing the day, finding a life's purpose and following your bliss. Mrs. Pollifax is an older widow who feels like her life is over and, on a whim, volunteers to work for the CIA as a spy courier. The books were started during the cold war and finished after the first Gulf War, so the change in history is documented well through her eyes. Mrs. Pollifax is not a bumbling clown nor is she a busybody. The respect of her colleagues is earned and she does a great job under sometimes tortuous circumstances. This is not a character fighting her age and she delights in meeting younger people and younger people seem to like and trust her. Mrs. Pollifax is ethical, compassionate, humorous, ingenious, intrepid and very human. They are a light read, but they are very well written and extremely well researched.

5). Open and Shut - David Rosenfelt

A series of stand-alone books that follow a New Jersey attorney as he solves high-profile cases, tries to hold together his love life and rescues abandoned golden retrievers and Labradors. Well written and laugh-out-loud funny. Rosenfelt has a deep appreciation for the sarcastic and he uses it very well. I love a book that makes me chuckle out loud and all of his books have that. Rosenfelt balances his character's smartass humor with a sharp brain and an overwhelming love for dogs. My kind of guy. . . .

6). Outlander - Diana Gabaldon

Really terrific series by Ms. Gabaldon and defies labels. It's part time travel, heavy on the romance and action, lots of herb-lore and 18^th century medicine, and saturated with historical fiction. It's fun and well-written and sexy as hell and will keep you going, book after book. The stories bring you right to the battle of Culloden and then take you through to the awakenings of the British American colonies as they begin to struggle against British rule. Claire is a nurse from England, circa WW II, and she time travels back to the mid-18^th century through a Stonehenge and lands in Scotland where she and a younger Scot fall in love and begin an amazing love affair. It's the story of a modern woman who decides that she would rather be with man she loves and have fewer conveniences than be without him and have central heating. And that's true love!

7). Speaks the Nightbird - Robert McCammon

This is the first book in the series. The Queen of Bedlam follows and the third is on the way. The story focuses on the eastern United States in the late 17^th century. Matthew Corbett is a young law clerk who is summoned to the Carolina colonies to assist a traveling magistrate with a case dealing with witchcraft. A truly incredible story, as is the Queen of Bedlam. Meticulously researched and written in Robert McCammon's incomparable style, it gives an unflinching look at the people who helped settle the eastern seaboard and who "civilized" the raucous town of New York.

8). The Fire and Ice series - George R.R. Martin

Deeply engrossing and very hard to put down! Martin's tour-de-force is filled with carefully constructed worlds and a ton of action. This man has no problem with killing off a beloved character, so a word of warning, don't get too attached to anyone. You've got a little bit of everything in these books - romance, intrigue, patricide, dragons, knights and ladies, rogues and kings ( and sometimes it's hard to tell the difference), lands of snow and ice and lands of sun and sea, good guys who are kinda bad and bad guys who you can't help but like. It's epic and it's fantastic and it will grab you right from the very first chapter.

9). The Tales of the Malazan Book of the Fallen - Steven Erikson

Ok, words are hard to come by that do this series justice. If you like Tolkien and you love the constructs of Middle earth and the attention that was paid to every detail, you are going to love the Malazan series. It is massive, comprehensive, ambitious, delightful, engrossing and did I mention massive? The series will cover 10 books, eight of which are already in print. It covers an entire world and is one of the most complete works I have ever read. Erikson is an anthropologist and archaeologist and he brings that love of languages and idioisms and cultures to the series. Start with book one "The Gardens of Moon" and be prepared to live in another world for quite awhile.

10). The Temeraire series - Naomi Novik

These are the very best books I have read in a very long time and rival only my Harry Potter books for my affections. Novik is a truly gifted writer and like J.K.Rowling, she writes characters that you immediately "know" and that you love from the minute you meet. In her world it is a given that dragons exist and these books are set during the Napoleonic Wars. Dragons are used in aerial combat and when Temeraire is hatched and set to harness, he turns his captain's world upside down and in so doing, turns all of the dragons who fight for His Majesty, the King of England upside down as well. Beautifully drawn and exquisitely written, it is the relationships that drive this series. In fact, after reading the first book, Peter Jackson bought the movie rights. He said in an interview with Variety that he loved the relationships between the characters and that he needed to be the one to translate that to the screen. Since I loved his rendition of the Lord of the Rings, I feel safe knowing that my beloved Temeraire is in his excellent hands.

Well, there you have it. These should keep you busy for awhile. And feel free to leave me comments, pro or con. Also please let me know about authors that you like and recommend, as I am always on the lookout for a new book.