Favorite Fiction

Here's where you'll find some great reads for the beach, the backyard or the sofa on a rainy afternoon.

I love Tom Wolfe and I am excited about his most recent novel. This one is my next read. I don't know of a better commentator on popular culture. Bonfire of the Vanities defined the 80s. Let's see what he has to say about the 90s.

What a wonderful book. My friend Val says it restored her faith in Western Literature. This tale of a wounded man's walk away from the Civil War toward his sweetheart and of her parallel journey toward self sufficiency is both vivid and spare. How does he do that? (paperback) (audio)

Strong Poison
Dorothy L. Sayers

Our heroine, Harriet Vane, has been accused of murdering her cad of an ex-lover. Lord Peter comes to the rescue, falling in love in the process. Harriet's pride gets in the way. Boy, can I relate. It's really quite a bit more intelligent than I am making it sound.

This is an intelligent, civilized, romantic love story and a great mystery to boot. Read it and visualize men and women who really talk this way. Yowza!

Peter masquerades as a copy writer in this one.

The Nine Tailors of the title are bells and Sayers rings the changes with verve and skill. Perhaps the most literary of a very literary series, it repays your careful attention with interest.

Can you believe it? Harriet and Peter get married. Who pays for her cloth of gold wedding dress? Where will they live? Who dies? How come? One reason I can reread these darn things is that I can't retain more than the barest outlines of a plot for more than a few hours at a time. Oh, blissful flaw!

Have His Carcase

Clouds of Witness

The Documents in the Case

Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club

Whose Body?

Unnatural Death