A Reading list

One of the things I do when not making glass!

Someone asked me recently for a book list because reading is one of the things I do most when not making knobs and pulls. She said she liked detective stories, but like any lifelong reader I had to add some of my favorites. Check it out below.

I excluded books I knew she wouldn’t like because they were, as they say, an acquired taste – most science fiction books, for example. I also left out books I read when younger that would be classified YA. I also avoided most non-fiction.

When I got done and looked at the list it was pretty eclectic. These were books that created a strong mood or sense of place as opposed to covering a specific topic. Some were current popular fiction and some were detective stories, as requested. The Complete Sherlock Holmes seems like a must for anyone who enjoys detective fiction. Some are classics and some just stayed with me.

Another thing I realized is how different it is to listen to a story as opposed to reading it. I listened to the first three books on the list as well as The Shadow of the Wind. The readers’ voices created a completely different experience than the imagined world of reading. For example, just the pronunciations of names and places in The Shadow of the Wind made the book more Spanish, even in translation. The hilarious compendium of British insults in A Long Way Down is even more enjoyable when spoken.

Well, here’s the first list I made. I hope you enjoy some of them.

Book

Author

Case Histories

Kate Atkinson

A Long Way Down

Nick Hornsby

The Girl on the Train

Paula Hawkins

The House on the Strand

Daphne du Maurier

A Prayer for Owen Meany

John Irving

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Stieg Larsson

The Thirteenth Tale

Diane Setterfield

State of Wonder

Ann Patchett

The Goldfinch

Donna Tartt

The Historian

Elizabeth Kostova

The Shadow of the Wind

Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Interview with the Vampire

Ann Rice

The Keep

Jennifer Egan

The Lover

Marguerite Duras

Miller’s Valley

Anna Quindlan

Slaughterhouse Five

Kurt Vonnegut

Station Eleven

Emily St. John Mandel

The Time Traveller’s Wife

Audrey Nifnegger

Of Human Bondage

Somerset Maugham

Ready, Player One

Ernest Cline

The Dinosaur Feather

S. J. Gazan

Gone Girl

Gillian Flynn

Shutter Island

Dennis Lehane

The Cuckoo’s Calling

Robert Galbraith

Duma Key

Steven King

Night Heron

Adam Brookes

The Rent Collector

Camron Wright

The Alienist

Caleb Carr

Fingersmith

Sarah Waters

One Hundred Years of Solitude

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Blow Up and Other Stories

Julio Cortazar

The New York Trilogy

Paul Auster

Swann in Love

Marcel Proust

Ice Limit

Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

The Complete Sherlock Holmes

Arthur Conan Doyle

Under the Skin

Michel Faber

The Group

Mary McCarthy

The Magus

John Fowles

Book of Shadows

Alexandra Sokolov

Middle Age

Joyce Carol Oates

The Deptford Trilogy

Robertson Davies

The Broker

John Grisham

Natural Causes

James Oswald

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