I've read 5 of his books. Children of the Alley is my favorite, because it is so beautifully written and the translation, by Peter Theroux, is superb.

This is the book that got him into trouble with the fundamentalists. It resulted in a fatwa from the "blind sheik" (the one who is in prison for masterminding the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center) and an attempted assassination that put Mahfouz in the hospital.

The book is an allegorical history of the Abrahamic religions. It is clearly the work of a secularist, but I did not find the tone to be irreligious -- so I'm a little mystified as to why it was found to be so offensive.

Disclaimer: The author is a good friend of mine.

Even if that weren't the case, I would still rate this book very highly. It is a layman's explanation of Einstein's Theory of Relativity. The author is a teacher in the NYC School System.

There's no hard math in this book, but the concepts themselves are difficult. Yet Streeter's explanations manage to be clear and understandable.

His theme is relativity, but he tells us about it from the point of view of scientists (starting with Galileo) who asked the questions "What is the Sun? What makes it work?" Most of the chapters concentrate on a single scientist whose theories and discoveries were important in advancing our understanding of nuclear fusion. There are of course, anecdotes about the lives of these great thinkers, which keeps the narrative moving forward -- but Streeter is wise enough not to overdo it: the core of this book is the science.

I recommend this book to anyone who is curious about physics and nuclear energy.

BTW: I went on Amazon to check some details about the book (having loaned my copy to a friend at work). Amazon doesn't stock it, they show one used copy at $119. That's insane.The book is still in print and sells for around $30.

The only sensible thing to do is to read both, so you might as well start with "Tom Sawyer", even if "Huckleberry Finn" is the more important book.

His religious writings are generally delightful ("Eve's Diary", "Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven") though "The Mysterious Stranger" is pretty dark. These can be found in various anthologies.

There's almost nothing he wrote that isn't worth reading -- well, maybe "Tom Sawyer, Detective" -- that might be a bit dated.

Although my favorite is probably "Bleak House", the one I would recommend reading first is "A Tale of Two Cities", as it is more plot-driven than most of his other books.

As for a bad place to start: I would say "The Pickwick Papers" and "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" (which is unfinished). They are both wonderful books, but don't start with them.

So far, I've only read "Wicked". It is enchanting! Maguire writes like an angel, albeit one of uncertain allegiance. Just be warned though, this is no children's book!

The novel is based on "The Wizard of Oz", but told from the point of view of Elphaba, aka the Wicked Witch of the West, who is a far more interesting protagonist than Dorothy from Kansas. Her character is appalling yet strangely sympathetic and tragic. The story reminds me a lot of "Till We Have Faces" by C. S. Lewis. The writing has the vividness AND the creepy lyricism of a Tim Burton movie.

There was a great article about Maguire in the New York Times Magazine on March 11, 2007 (you may have to be a subscriber to access it): http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=FB0A10FE3E550C728DDDAA0894DF404482

Start with The Hobbit, not because it's a prequel to the extremely popular trilogy, but because it's a better book. It's funnier and the style is more down to earth. In contrast, The Lord of the Rings is a bit stilted at times and takes itself too seriously -- though I admit, that hasn't stopped me from reading it five times!

And...if you love Tolkien, you might enjoy Beowulf. I know, I know ... it's one of those books you think you should read but find it way too intimidating. That's why it took me several decades to get around to it. I recommend the recent translation by Sean Heaney. It's very accessible, there's loads of action and reading it was quite a lot of fun. I really enjoyed seeing how much of Middle Earth was inspired by this ancient tale.

Robert Penn Warren's novels tend to be about the South and often focus on race relations and the legacy of slavery, especially concentrating on the moral costs of slavery and segregation for White Southerners. They often are set in the 19th century or refer back to it.

Start with "All the King's Men" because it's so well known and truly is a classic. "Band of Angels" is also excellent.

I came across a sample of his writing in the anthology "Mexico: A Traveler's Literary Companion" by C. M. Mayo and I thought it was superb. Lately I've been reading "Short Stories of Langston Hughes", also very good. I'll probably read his memoirs "I Wonder as I Wander" next, but I'm open to suggestions.

The best novelist in the English language.

I recommend "Silas Marner" first, it's a short novel, and absolutely exquisite. Most people consider "Middlemarch" her best, though my favorite is "The Mill on the Floss". "Adam Bede" is also a wonderful book.

But some people will find it a bit over the top, and then they won't read anything else by her. If they start with "Shirley" which is a better book, then they will probably read "Jane Eyre" as well.

This is one of the best books that I've read this year.

This book is probably long out of print. I found it at my local library in a collected works of Kipling from the '90's (1890's that is).

It is a collection of letters written for publication by Kipling as he travelled through the Far East: Burma, Singapore, Hong Kong, Canton and Japan. As usual he has a sharp eye for detail and strong opinions about everything he sees -- some of the opinions are interesting, others border on intolerance, even racism.

Artists should be judged by their best works, not their worst. This should not be the first book you read by Kipling. Or the second. Or the third....

Not among his best.

It is an adventure story of sorts about a young American nurse afire with missionary zeal to help the oppressed women of India. She makes her way to Rajputana pursued by her spurned suitor who wants to win her back and steal a fabulous necklace, the Naulahka, from the local Maharajah while he's in the neighborhood. In the end she is defeated by the stubborn superstition of her patients and gives up, marries the guy and returns home. Meanwhile, he has secretly extorted the necklace from the Queen, but he realizes that the tentative hold he has on his girl would dissolve immediately if she ever found out about his actions, so he secretly returns the jewels.

This is pretty lame stuff from the man who gave us Kim and The Jungle Books, but of course it's beautifully written and full of closely observed detail. There are wonderful scenes with the son of the Maharajah, a troubled boy beset by danger from the rival factions in the palace. There is a not so wonderful scene where the beautiful but wicked Queen tries to alternately seduce and murder the American hero ... corny!

This is a collection of short stories about Father Brown, a Catholic priest who solves mysteries in his spare time. If you're looking for realistic crime fiction, this is not it. But the tales are charming and the writing is exquisite.

There is a scene in the BBC production of "Brideshead Revisited" where Lady Marchmain is reading aloud from the Father Brown Mysteries (the story "Queer Feet"). A beautiful line from that story provides one of the themes of "Brideshead": “I caught him, with an unseen hook and an invisible line which is long enough to let him wander to the ends of the world, and still to bring him back with a twitch upon the thread.”

Hearing the excerpt in that setting is what prompted me read the Father Brown mysteries! I'm embarrassed to admit that it often takes hearing a line spoken in a movie or on TV for me to realize how beautiful it is. If I had just read it on my own would I have even noticed it?

Is it my imagination, or are Frodo Baggins and his companions in "The Fellowship of the Ring" based pretty closely on Mr. Pickwick, Sam Weller and company?

I've only read this and one other by DeMille. I think that this one is not typical of his work, in that it is primarily about family relationships and is not in the "action and adventure" genre. The story is about a New York lawyer from an old-money family who agrees to represent a powerful mafioso. This causes complications in his family life and forces him to address some long-overlooked problems with his wife and his father.

Essentially, it is a somewhat pallid retelling of Robert Penn Warren's "All the King's Men". Nevertheless, it contains some interesting psychological insights and is well written and well plotted.

An historical novel set in Florence, Italy during the Renaissance.

this chilling observation is from Chapter 6:

Family likeness has often a deep sadness in it. Nature, that great tragic dramatist, knits us together by bone and muscle, and divides us by the subtler web of our brains; blends yearning and repulsion; and ties us by our heart-strings to the beings that jar us at every movement. We hear a voice with the very cadence of our own uttering the thoughts we despise; we see eyes—ah, so like our mother's!—averted from us in cold alienation; and our last darling child startles us with the air and gestures of the sister we parted from in bitterness long years ago. The father to whom we owe our best heritage—the mechanical instinct, the keen sensibility to harmony, the unconscious skill of the modelling hand—galls us and puts us to shame by his daily errors; the long-lost mother, whose face we begin to see in the glass as our own wrinkles come, once fretted our young souls with her anxious humours and irrational persistence.