Books recommended by James Patterson

James Patterson Reading List - 20 Recommended Books


James Patterson

James Patterson revealed 20 books he loves in different interviews and articles. Author's reading list is versatile and anyone will find something suitable for an evening read.
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Bossypants

If you could require the president to read one book, what would it be? It seems to me that Barack Obama is sufficiently well read. The president might consider E. M. Forster’s “Two Cheers for Democracy” or even Tina Fey’s “Bossypants,” which would have helped him surround himself with people who don’t think they know everything about everything: being poor, being wealthy, getting sick, getting old, fighting a war.
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Two Cheers for Democracy

If you could require the president to read one book, what would it be? It seems to me that Barack Obama is sufficiently well read. The president might consider E. M. Forster’s “Two Cheers for Democracy” or even Tina Fey’s “Bossypants,” which would have helped him surround himself with people who don’t think they know everything about everything: being poor, being wealthy, getting sick, getting old, fighting a war.
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Tristram Shandy

What book has had the greatest impact on you personally? Professionally? “Tristram Shandy” shivered my timbers as a grad student, and woke me out of my zombie state about the glorious possibilities for breaking the rules whenever I damn well felt like it. Mix first person and third person? Sure, if it helps the story. Sentence fragments? Hell, yes.
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Poems 1962-2012

What books might we be surprised to find on your shelves? I’m not entirely sure who “we” is. Some people would be surprised, I guess, to find “Train Dreams”; “Caravaggio”; “Swerve”; “What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank”; “Poems: 1962-2012,” by Louise Glück, on my bookshelves.
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The Swerve: How the World Became Modern

What books might we be surprised to find on your shelves? I’m not entirely sure who “we” is. Some people would be surprised, I guess, to find “Train Dreams”; “Caravaggio”; “Swerve”; “What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank”; “Poems: 1962-2012,” by Louise Glück, on my bookshelves.
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Caravaggio: A Life Sacred and Profane

What books might we be surprised to find on your shelves? I’m not entirely sure who “we” is. Some people would be surprised, I guess, to find “Train Dreams”; “Caravaggio”; “Swerve”; “What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank”; “Poems: 1962-2012,” by Louise Glück, on my bookshelves.
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Train Dreams

What books might we be surprised to find on your shelves? I’m not entirely sure who “we” is. Some people would be surprised, I guess, to find “Train Dreams”; “Caravaggio”; “Swerve”; “What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank”;
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What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank

What books might we be surprised to find on your shelves? I’m not entirely sure who “we” is. Some people would be surprised, I guess, to find “Train Dreams”; “Caravaggio”; “Swerve”; “What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank”;
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Civilwarland In Bad Decline

And George Saunders’s “CivilWarLand in Bad Decline.” A troubling sidebar is that for every George Saunders found, there are a dozen others, not just overlooked, but undiscovered.
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The Patrick Melrose Novels

Frederick Exley’s “A Fan’s Notes” is another overlooked beaut. Also Edward St. Aubyn’s Patrick Melrose novels.
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A Fan's Notes

Frederick Exley’s “A Fan’s Notes” is another overlooked beaut.
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The Painted Bird

Who is your favorite overlooked or underappreciated writer? Let’s assume that I’ve overlooked most of the good ones myself, but I’m a fan of “Mrs. Bridge” and “Mr. Bridge,” by the late Evan S. Connell. It was Connell, and also Jerzy Kosinski (“Steps,” “The Painted Bird”) who first made me aware of the power of short, very concise and witty chapters.
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Cutter and Bone

Who do you consider the best thriller writers of all time? There’s that gnatty “best” word again. Soldiering on, I love Pelecanos. Also Nelson DeMille, Michael Connelly, James Lee Burke, Dennis Lehane, Walter Mosley, Don Winslow and Richard Price, of course. As one-offs, “Night Dogs,”  “The Ice Harvest,” “Marathon Man,” “Different Seasons” and “Cutter and Bone” are among my “besties.”
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Different Seasons

Who do you consider the best thriller writers of all time? There’s that gnatty “best” word again. Soldiering on, I love Pelecanos. Also Nelson DeMille, Michael Connelly, James Lee Burke, Dennis Lehane, Walter Mosley, Don Winslow and Richard Price, of course. As one-offs, “Night Dogs,”  “The Ice Harvest,” “Marathon Man,” “Different Seasons” and “Cutter and Bone” are among my “besties.”
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Marathon Man

There’s that gnatty “best” word again. Soldiering on, I love Pelecanos. Also Nelson DeMille, Michael Connelly, James Lee Burke, Dennis Lehane, Walter Mosley, Don Winslow and Richard Price, of course. As one-offs, “Night Dogs,”  “The Ice Harvest,” “Marathon Man,” “Different Seasons” and “Cutter and Bone” are among my “besties.”
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The Ice Harvest

There’s that gnatty “best” word again. Soldiering on, I love Pelecanos. Also Nelson DeMille, Michael Connelly, James Lee Burke, Dennis Lehane, Walter Mosley, Don Winslow and Richard Price, of course. As one-offs, “Night Dogs,”  “The Ice Harvest,” “Marathon Man,” “Different Seasons” and “Cutter and Bone” are among my “besties.”
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Night Dogs

Acclaimed crime writer Kent Anderson's "fiercely authentic and deeply disturbing" police novel, following a Vietnam veteran turned cop on the meanest streets of 1970s Portland, Oregon (Los Angeles Times).Two kinds of cops find their way to Portland's North Precinct: those who are sent there for punishment, and those who come for the action. Officer Hanson is the second kind, a veteran who survived the war in Vietnam only to decide he wanted to keep fighting at home. Hanson knows war, and in this battle for the Portland streets, he fights not for the law but for his own code of justice.Yet Hanson can't outrun his memories of another, warmer battleground. A past he thought he'd left behind, that now threatens to overshadow his future. An enemy, this time close to home, is prying into his war record. Pulling down the shields that protect the darkest moments of that fevered time. Until another piece of his past surfaces, and Hanson risks his career, his sanity--even his life--for honor.
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The Wanderers

Also Richard Price, who seems to remember every good line and phrase he ever heard. This was even true in his first novel, “The Wanderers,” which made me sick with envy way back when I was young, carefree and more susceptible to jealousy.
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The Invention of Hugo Cabret

It’s also the most original and imaginative fiction I’ve read since “The Invention of Hugo Cabret.”
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Where'd You Go, Bernadette

Maybe that’s why “Where’d You Go, Bernadette” is my favorite novel so far this year. It’s funnier than a season’s worth of “Modern Family,”  “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and “Justified” episodes;
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