on the bookshelf...

So many books, so little time to read!

I've always thought that in an ideal world, we would all have three hours in the middle of the day to do nothing except read. If such a thing ever comes to pass, here are a few of my favourite books you might want to put on your pile.

Speculative Fiction

Isaac Asimov, The Foundation novels, the Robot novels... okay, just about anything

Daniel Abraham, The Dragon's Path, The King's Blood

Carol Berg, Song of the Beast, Transformation

Ben Bova, Mars

Carey, Mike, Linda and Louise, The Steel Seraglio

Gail Garriger, Soulless

David Eddings, The Belgariad

Steven Gould, Jumper

Barbara Hambly, The Darwath Trilogy, The Sun Wolf and Starhawk novels

Cynthia Hand, Brodie Ashton, Jodi Meadows, My Lady Jane

Frank Herbert, Dune

Nina Kiriki Hoffman, A Fistful of Sky

Alex E. Harrow, The Ten Thousand Doors of January

Katherine Kerr, The Deverry novels

Fonda Lee, Jade City

George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones

A. Lee Martinez, Divine Misfortune

Anne McCaffrey, The Dragonriders of Pern series, The Crystal Singer trilogy

Vonda McIntyre, Dreamsnake

Patricia McKillip, Riddle of the Stars

Naomi Novik, The Temeraire novels

Sarah Prineas, The Magic Thief

Jennifer Roberson, The Sword Dancer series, Chronicles of the Cheysuli

Brandon Sanderson, Elantris, The Mistborn Trilogy

John Scalzi, Old Man's War, Ghost Brigades, The Lost Colony, Zoe's Tale

Sharon Shinn, absolutely everything, but especially Archangel

Robert Silverberg, Lord Valentine¹s Castle, Majipoor Chronicles, and Valentine Pontifex

Maria V. Snyder, Poison Study

Sabaa Tahir, An Ember in the Ashes

Laini Taylor, Daughter of Smoke and Bone Saga

Craig Russell, Black Bottle Man

Mary Stewart, The Merlin novels

Joan Vinge, The Snow Queen Cycle

Martha Wells, The Murderbot Diaries

Terri Windling, The Wood Wife

Chris Wooding, Tales of the Ketty Jay

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

Mystery

Rudolfo Anaya, Zia Summer

Gail Bowen, the Joanne Kilbourne novels

Christopher Brookmyre, One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night

Lindsey Davis, the Falco novels

Janet Evanovich, the Stephanie Plum novels

Elizabeth George, the Inspector Lynley and Barbara Havers series

Catherine Hunter, In the First Early Days of My Death

Alexander McCall Smith, The Number One Ladies Detective Agency series

Elizabeth Peters, the Amelia Peabody novels

Peter Robinson, A Dry Season

Dana Stabenow, The Kate Shugak novels

Laurence Shames, The Naked Detective

Josephine Tey, Daughter of Time

Mary Willis Walker, Zero at the Bone

Non-fiction

Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses

Allan Chinen, Once Upon a Midlife

Richard Coniff, Spineless Wonders: Strange Tales from the Invertebrate World

Martha Crump, In Search of the Golden Frog

Donald Johanson & Maitland Edey, Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind

Bill Laurance, Stinging Trees and Wait-a-whiles

Margaret Lowman, Life in the Treetops: Adventures of a Woman in Field Biology

Katherine Phillips, Tracking the Vanishing Frogs

Peter Lane Taylor, Science at the Extreme

David Quammen, The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinction

Daniel Quinn, Ishmael

Other Stuff

T.S. Eliot, Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats

Pauline Gedge, Child of the Morning

Betsy James, He Wakes Me

Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams

Madeline Miller, Circe

Farley Mowat, Owls in the Family

Yuko Ota and Anath Hirsh, Lucky Penny

Jane Yolen, Owl Moon