i need a book

[lupo pazzesco]

As far as history goes, I recommend any of the following:

"The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson.

Love! Love, love, LOVE!!

(Actually...I think I recommended it to you once upon a time, but can't remember. I've slept since then. )

If you like true crime, I recommend the body farm books by Bill Bass. Everyone so far has hit on my favorite fantasy/sci fi. Plus, I found some new ones and took a list of my own to my local library.

[Jester]

I think I recommended it to you once upon a time, but can't remember.

I think you did, but that I already had it and had read it by then.

If you like true crime...

I recommend Harold Schechter, Ann Rule, and John Douglas as authors.

[AccountingDrone]

so...went to the local library to pick up books. had a handy dandy list, too! wrote down all of the books you kind people suggested. and guess what!

...they didn't have a single one.
nope.
notta one.

well, they had authors like terry pratchett (5 books, not a single one was the first of a series), anne mccaffrey (a handful, again not one was the first of a series), neil gaiman (3 books. and guess what! notta one was the first of a series)
and i have issues starting half-way through a series.

i have lost faith in my library. luckily there's another library about a half hour away that's much bigger that should have the books.

gr. stupid library.

doesn't even have "interview with a vampire"! i mean common...

If you don't mind reading online Webscriptions.net has a free library of current ebooks, downloadable in multiple formats or read online.

[CaroPhoenix]

I like J.D. Robb. Her "in Death" series is based in the future (2059 or so), but it's an alternate earth PLUS it's a mystery series. (Fun side note: J.D. Robb is the pen name for Nora Roberts).

For Historical fiction/romance, I'd recommend Bertrice Small. She describes the outfits of her characters is wonderful detail. She does research into the the eras/parts of history she is writing about. I'd recommend reading "Skye O'Malley" (which is the start of the "Skye O'Malley series"). She also have modern erotic/romance and she does have a fantasy series (the Hetar series, I think the first book is called "Lara").

I'd also recommend Anne Bishop. I don't like her Fey series (I have no clue what the books are called), but I like her Black Jewels trilogy/books. Read Daughter of the Blood (the first book in the Black Jewel series). Also, I'd recommend her Ephemera series (Belladonna and Sebastian are the 2 titles in that series).

Good luck hunting!

[sms001]

i have lost faith in my library. luckily there's another library about a half hour away that's much bigger that should have the books.

Besides worldcat.org already mentioned, you might try

http://www.boisepubliclibrary.org/default.shtml

and see if starting an account there lets you do online interlibrary loans.

Whenever I want any book, I go to my local version and it looks through all the libraries in NE Wisconsin and then sends the version I pick to my local branch, and sends me an email saying so. No muss, no fuss.

[Red_Dazes]

Hmm with the genres you like I would recommend...

Simon R. Green's - NightSide Series

And perhaps-
Patricia Brigg's- Moon Called series


but definitely Simon R Green. It is a long series, but the individual books are not a daunting size and they go buy fast and fun.

[Magpie]

http://www.baen.com/library/1011250002/1011250002.htm got my mom hooked on Bujold. She actually made my dad go back to the library and get the anthology out again so she could see who the author was.

My husband is into fantasy, and somewhat into Sci-Fi, he likes cyberpunk if he's reading Sci-Fi, and modern urban fantasy. His recent discoveries are Emma Bull, Howard V. Hendrix and Seanan Macguire. Seriously, get the Seanan MacGuire books. She's a new author, and I'm hooked. Her third book doesn't come out until October. Grrrrr.

Just a warning - Anne McCaffery doesn't seem to believe in continuity. I like her stuff, but even within one book she seems to have just picked numbers out of thin air for time scales, she'll change names, etc. Mercedes Lackey does a bit of this too, but that's more variation from book to book, and it's a case where she (most likely) forgot about a single line in one of the earlier books. Marion Zimmer Bradley, on the other hand, seems to have very good continuity (as far as I can tell) in her Darkover series. Her throwaway lines in earlier books DO match the later books. It is old fiction, so some of the attitudes are really odd, just like with any science fiction from the '60s and '70s, especially by a feminist author.

[Mikkel]

Marion Zimmer Bradley, on the other hand, seems to have very good continuity (as far as I can tell) in her Darkover series.

She has some problems with travel times and distances, in some books they can reach places in an afternoon which in other books take a weeks travel.
It doesn't retract from the enjoyment of the books.

[Jester]

If you like fantasy, one of my all time favorite books is "Hawk of May" by Gillian Bradshaw. It is the first in a trilogy of Arthurian books that are simply full of awesomeness. (The other two are "Kingdom of Summer" and "In Winter's Shadow.") A higher recommendation I cannot make than these three fine books.

[tollbaby]

Cowboy Feng's Space Bar and Grille

[Shangri-laschild]

S.M. Peters has two books, Whitechapel Gods and Ghost Ocean. The first one is somewhat steampunky and they are both very good reads.