Here are the best fictions books I’ve read–at least, the ones I could think of.

• The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum). Blew me away. The best thriller I’ve read.
• The Hunt for Red October (Tom Clancy). Couldn’t put it down. Lean and mean, unlike his later books.
• The Lord of the Rings (JRR Tolkien). I’ve read the entire trilogy (plus the Hobbit) thrice.
• The Warlord Chronicles (Bernard Cornwell). A stunning trilogy which reimagines the King Arthur legend.
• It (Stephen King). Scared the pants off me.
• The Covenant (James Michener). An amazing piece of historical fiction about South Africa.
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Stieg Larsson). Introducing Lizbeth Salander, the most interesting protagonist you’ll find.
• Twilight Eyes (Dean Koonts). A superb horror novel about monsters living among us.
• The Lady in the Lake (Raymond Chandler). This was my favorite of Chandler’s books.
• Silence of the Lambs (Thomas Harris). A case where the movie was as good as the book.
• The Red Tent (Anita Diamant). Can’t recommend this one highly enough. About the women around Jacob in the Bible.
• Blood Safari (Deon Meyer). A fascinating tale from South Africa, by a South African novelist. Great protagonist.
• Presumed Innocent (Scott Turow). Turow’s first, and probably best. Great twists.
• The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough). An epic set in Australia.
• Along Came a Spider (James Patterson). Patterson’s first, and maybe still the best.
• The Firm (John Grisham). Launched Grisham’s career. This remains my favorite.
• The Winter of Frankie Machine (Don Winslow). A wonderful piece of roman noir.
• Bel Canto (Ann Patchett). A beautiful, beautiful book based on a hostage situation in an unnamed Latin American country.
• The White Lioness (Henning Mankell). The best of the Kurt Wallander series, with related stories going back and forth between Sweden and South Africa.
• Pop. 1280 (Jim Thompson). Told first-person by a lazy, laid-back–and sociopathic–town sheriff. A quick read. My favorite Jim Thompson book (though “The Killer Inside Me” is better-known).
• City of Thieves (David Benniot). Set in St. Petersburg, Russia, during World War 2.
• No Country for Old Men (Carmac McCarthy). A man comes across some drug money, and a ruthless killer hunts him down.
• The Light Between Oceans (M.L. Stedman). A couple who care for a lighthouse on an island off the coast of Australia come upon a baby girl.
• Eyeshot (Taylor Adams). A young couple fin dthemselves with a broke-down car on a lonely desert road, with a sniper trying to kill them.
• The Redbreast (Jo Nesbo). A superb thriller which goes back and forth between the Eastern Front in WW2, where a battalion of Norwegians are fighting alongside the Germans, and present-day Oslo, where an assassination is in the works.
• One Second After (William Forstchen). An EMP takes out the US electrical grid. John Matherson and his small North Carolina community try to survive amidst the chaos.