A Land Remembered (excellent)
Alas Babylon!
David Niven’s “The Moon is a Balloon” and “Bring on the Empty Horses.”
I always grab something I’ve already read and know I enjoy, like The Hobbit, Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, Tom Sawyer, Animal Farm, Watership Down. I always find something new. I still worry about Bilbo, wonder if Eliza and Darcy will ever get together, sympathize with Jane, laugh at Tom, shake my head at the hogs and root for the rabbits.
"Gettysburg" by Newt Gingrich and J. Forschten (alternate history)
"Kim" by Rudyard Kipling
"Quiet - Introverts in a world that can't stop talking" by Susan Cain
"Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen (just a fun read)
"Day of the Triffids" by J. Wyndham (1940s apocalyptic)
"The Soul of Science" by Nancy Pearcy (Christian Faith and Natural Philosophy)
And each chapter is its own short story. So it’s easy to pick up and put down.
“Blue Highways” by William Least Heat Moon. The author took a trip across the U.S. on back roads in the 1970s. The name of the book comes from the color scheme for secondary roads in the road atlas he used for the trip.
the “Masters of Rome” series by Colleen McCullough will keep you enthralled for weeks, if Roman history is of interest to you.
years ago I read 2 different books by Jared Diamond.
‘Guns, Germs, and Steel’ and the later ‘Collapse.’ Collapse was very good and informative, but it is not dry at all and is by no means fiction. I liked Collapse because it is more like 5 or 6 short books in between 2 covers.
Since it is now banned by the woke mob, I would recommend To Kill a Mockingbird.
If you like audio books I suggest: Washington—A Life by Ron Chernow.
It was one of the most enlightening books on Washington that I have listened/read.
Any P G Wodehouse short story anthology.
Perhaps the best writing in the English language.
A kind and insightful portrayal of humanity, and humorous.
If you’re already familiar with the Jeeves and Bertie stories I suggest the Blanding Castle ones.
Have you read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s historical novels? Thought by many to be superior to his Sherlock Holmes work.
Available for free at Project Gutenberg.
The White Company
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/903
A tale of knights, men at arms, and chivalry in the 100 Years War.
Sir Nigel
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2845
Prequel to the above.
The Adventures of Gerard
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1644
The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11247
Tales of a French cavalryman in the Napoleonic Wars. Based on a true story.
I’ve been reading books from the 30s & 40s..as we’ve been going thru hubs family stuff...read Mr. Lincoln’s Wife this spring...now reading Benjamin Franking autobiography, (from Great Books) but it’s a bit tedious at times. Read SISU (Tokoi) about Finnish man who lived in US as young adult went back to Finland to become first Premier.
Last Stands - Why Men Fight When All Is Lost
Erle Stanley Gardner, the Perry Mason series.
I tend not to read current fiction, but I do like some biographies or autobiographies from the “celebrity” world for light reading. A recent book that I found interesting was Lady in Waiting by Anne Glenconner (her own memoir).
Always good for light reading - any of the Jeeves and Wooster books by P.G. Wodehouse.
Wouldn’t say these are light reading, but found them very interesting:
Dead Wake, the Sinking of the Lusitania
The Water Is Wide -Conroy
Chesapeake Requiem
Another less heralded novel: The Peaceable Kingdom by Jan de Harbor. About the Quaker movement’s origins and migration to America. The Dutch author is my uncle.
Read Faulkner’s Absalom Absalom!...better yet use audiobooks as you follow it in written word
You’ll learn quickly Dostoevsky’s wind and Hemingway’s two page sentences are the words of mere pikers
Master Absalom! and you can read Zane Grey on the treadmill listening to Waylon on acid