My favorite page turners

[non sequitur]

I travel a lot for my job, and find myself on airplanes a couple of times a week. When reading on a plane, page turners are the kind of book you want to read because with all the distractions you want a book that moves fast and doesn't require a lot of thought. A couple of authors that you can't go wrong with are Carl Hiaasen and Elmore Leonard.

If you're an aspiring writer and want to learn how to write dialogue, read Elmore Leonard. He does it better than just about anybody else. And Hiaasen is just dang funny.

I've read 3 Dan Brown books. I enjoyed The DaVinci Code because it introduced ideas that were new to me. I then read Angels and Demons and thought it was too far over the top. I decided to give him another chance, so I read Digital Fortress. That book was just dumb all the way around. His assertions in that book were so stupid that it forced me to rethink everything he had written in The DaVinci Code. I would be a much bigger Dan Brown fan if I had stopped at The DaVinci Code.

Another writer that disappointed me with subsequent books is Dennis Lehane. I read Mystic River and thought it was one of the best books I had read in years. So I went out and read some of his other books and hated them all. Though Mystic River is still one my favorite reads in the last 10 years.