I Need Light Reading Recommendations

[Finch]

The list is getting too long , so I will add one more
I like Michael Moorcock. He is imaginative and mostly fun to read . He is also prolific , so it is hard to recommend a single book , but
The Dancers At The End Of Time ,

 

[tachyon]

Wow I would call Midnight Riot quite gruesome and bloody.
Tea with the Black Dragon is wonderful, enthusiastically seconded.

 

[hitmouse]

Jack Vance
Jack Vance
Jack Vance

 

[hitmouse]

Alternatively, try Rumo by Walter Moers.

 

[Boaz]

@nixie As for fantasy... I'll second The Princess Bride and The Mouse that Roared.

I'll also add Mistress Masham's Repose by T. H. White. It's about a little girl in post WW2 England who discovers something fantastic. The themes are courage, fidelity, and imperialism versus self reliance.

Other books that go much deeper than their seemingly young reader status are C. S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia series. Ostensibly about children and tweens adventuring in a fantastic world, the real themes are the natures of man and God, fidelity, hope, forgiveness, sacrifice, courage, and acceptance. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is the first (and an excellent book), but my favorites are The Horse and his Boy, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Prince Caspian and The Last Battle.

If you want to explore the pulp age of sci-fi, then Edgar Rice Burroughs' series on Mars. It's not too sophisticated... let me be kind and say it's uncomplicated. The hero is righteous and his cause is just. The villains are evil and debauched. The damsel is in distress... in fact she's always a beautiful princess. The odds are long.... The themes and the motivations and behavior of it's characters really shed light upon the serialized story telling in the popular magazines of the post-Victorian age. The first book, A Princess of Mars sets the stage. The next four books follow right in line. By then, any magic or sense of wonder is gone. I've read them all, but the last six are easily forgotten and dismissed. My personal favorite is the fifth book, The Chessmen of Mars, which you can guess.... human chess pieces that play to the death. (I suggest a new strategy R2, let the wookie win.)

Another book that is massively uncomplicated and yet is enjoyable is Legend by David Gemmell. He takes all the best aspects of the Battle of Thermopylae, Conan the Barbarian, and John Wayne movies and brings them together.

And the last non-fiction I read was The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss. I whole heartedly recommend this. Beginning with On Cherry Street (my first grade primer) and continuing through Interpreting the Bible by A. B. Mickelson, The Count of Monte Cristo is my favorite book that I was required to read in school. Discovering this biography of the real count was uplifting and a bit unsettling. I've always thought that Alexandre Dumas had a superb imagination, but it turns out that he just had a larger than life father from whom to take stories. I cannot imagine that five years will pass before Hollywood turns this into a major film starring Michael B. Jordan.

 

[Vince W]

Still not fantasy:
Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh.
The Barrytown Trilogy (The Commitments, The Snapper, The Van) by Roddy Doyle.
Almost anything by Alan Dean Foster.

 

[Phyrebrat]

Botswana Time by Will Randall is a lovely travel read about a man who goes there and has misadventures with the delightful villagers. Not a hilarious read but whimsical.

The Ladybird Book of the Zombie Apocalypse is a nice short read with lovely pics.

I’m having a ball reading A Room With a View at the mo with its typical Fosterian wit.

Thanks guys

I've read Teresa's Goblin Moon will get the other two. I've also read Hidden Stars and would like the rest.
Stephen yours sound a lot a fun.

Well oh well, in that case why not (re)read The Haunting of Lake Manor Hotel, it’s a scream. Funnier than The English Patient, I swear!

pH

 

[Brian G Turner]

I just glanced at my Terry Pratchett collection...

 

[Randy M.]

Still not fantasy:
The Barrytown Trilogy (The Commitments, The Snapper, The Van) by Roddy Doyle.

I still haven't read The Van, but the other two are terrific.

Non-sf/f/h:
My Life and Hard Times by James Thurber
most anything by S. J. Perelman or Robert Benchley
Getting Even by Woody Allen


Randy M.

 

[Vince W]

I still haven't read The Van, but the other two are terrific.

Randy M.

Focuses on Jimmy Rabbite Sr. and how he and his friend Bimbo get involved in setting up a chippy van.

 

[Astro Pen]

Gunsmith Cats ?

 

[tegeus-Cromis]

I still haven't read The Van, but the other two are terrific.




Randy M.

I remember going to what must have been a really early screening of The Commitments, the movie, because they were literally handing out soundtrack CDs to people coming out of the theater. I wonder if I still have it somewhere.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Nothing by me. I only do misery the ultimate not-self-promo thread

 

[BAYLOR]

Lest Darkness Fall by L Sprague De Camp. This is the story of 20thcentyr man named Martin paddy who get hit by a bolt of lightning and find himself in 6th Century. Alt history novel and it I hilariously funny and ad absolutely hoot to read !

Typewriter in the Sky by L Ron Hubbard. Its the story of man who get trap in a very bad pulp novel. It too is fun read.

 

[nixie]

Nothing by me. I only do misery the ultimate not-self-promo thread

I don't know I've just reread Inish.

 

[Bick]

Often overlooked because of the movie's (deserved) recognition, The Princess Bride by William Golding is pretty fun.

William Goldman. I don't think the Nobel prize winner wrote it

 

[soulsinging]

William Goldman. I don't think the Nobel prize winner wrote it

79% of the letters right is passing in my book!

 

[Vince W]

I remember going to what must have been a really early screening of The Commitments, the movie, because they were literally handing out soundtrack CDs to people coming out of the theater. I wonder if I still have it somewhere.

One of the best soundtracks ever!

 

[The Big Peat]

Seconding the Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart.

Also Discworld by Sir Pterry (99% sure you've tried him but...) and also Robert Rankin's Brentford trilogy.

Naomi Novik's Temeraire might be up your alley. Ditto Rachel Aaron's Eli Monpress stuff and Eames' Kings of the Wyld.

Finally, only the first book is fully light hearted and maybe even not that much, but its great so RJ Barker's Age of Assassins.

 

[nixie]

Yep I've read Discworld, there maybe one or two I've missed.
Temeraire, I've started the series need to pick up rest.
This evening my night time read will either be Lud in the Mist or The King of Elfland's Daugher.