Ralph's Official List of Books to Read

The Ralph Page Official List of Books to Read
We Shall Assume, Shall We Not, that the Bible is Already on YOUR List?

1. Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury.

This 1962 novel Mr. Bradbury continues to fascinate readers today and does not seem to age. It is about two 13-year-old boys, Jim Nightshade and William Halloway, who have a harrowing experience with a nightmarish traveling carnival that comes to their Midwestern town one October. The carnival's leader is the mysterious "Mr. Dark" who bears a tattoo for each person who, lured by the offer to live out his secret fantasies, has become bound in service to the carnival. Mr. Dark's malevolent presence is countered by that of Will's father, Charles Halloway, who harbors his own secret desire to regain his youth. The novel combines elements of fantasy and horror, analyzing the conflicting natures of good and evil, and on how they come into play between the characters and the carnival. This book was suggested to me by Senior Sergeant Karen McGhee of the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office who reads an incredible number of books every year. She’s right about this book – it’s fantastic. Creepy, scary, creepy, nerve-wracking, creepy – but fantastic. Creepy, too.

2. Body Farm by Patricia Cornwell.

Ms. Cornwell was a crime reporter for the Charlotte Observer but began to write novels and created a fictional Chief Medical Examiner for Virginia and named her named Kay Scarpetta. There are many such novels by Ms. Cornwell with Scarpetta as protagonist. Here she is called in to assist in the investigation of the brutal murder of eleven-year-old girl in rural North Carolina. To help with the investigation, she turns to a clandestine research facility in Tennessee known as the Body Farm which is very real and where human bodies are left to decompose for forensic reasons. [Be forewarned: for reasons of her own Ms. Cornwell makes two of my favorite investigative agencies – the FBI and the SBI – look bad in this novel. It is still a good read, but I do not care for such unjust criticism, nor will you.]

3. L.A. Requiem by Robert Crais.

Here, at this point in my life, is my favorite novel. First, the word requiem means, at least in the Roman Catholic Church (of which I am a member), a Mass celebrated for the repose of the souls of the dead. Otherwise, it merely means a musical composition for the dead; a dirge. Crais has a long series of novels with two private eye partners, Elvis Cole, and Joe Pike, solving murders in Los Angeles. All novels take place in the 1990s. Cole is a former U.S. Army Ranger and Vietnam Veteran and Pike is a former member of the USMC and Vietnam Veteran who also owns a gun shop. PIKE IS THE ABSOLUTELY COOLEST GUY IN ALL OF FICTION! This novel begins when Pike’s former girlfriend is found dead and her wealthy father hires Elvis and Joe to find the killer. Joe and his once potential father-in-law remain very, very close. The police begin to suspect that Pike killed her and it looks very much like he did. Complicating matters further is the fact that Pike is a former member of the LAPD who resigned because everybody believes his negligence caused him to shoot and kill his partner during the arrest of a child molester. IF YOU READ THIS NOVEL WATCH FOR THE MANY INSIGHTFUL COMMENTS CRAIS PLACES IN THE THOUGHTS OF ELVIS COLE AS HE PONDERS LIFE AND DEATH AND THE WORLD AS HE SEES IT. I have never before seen any such philosophical musings of such power, intensity and truth in any novel. This book begs to be read several times. Do it.

4. The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett.

Although this does not sound as if it is a great read, it is. My wife loves this novel and she has high standards for fiction. This is a historical novel about the building of a cathedral in Kingsbridge, England. It is set in the middle of the 12th century (1150AD), primarily during the time known as The Anarchy, between the time of the sinking of the White Ship and the murder of Thomas Becket (which, I suppose, is only meaningful if you read English history.) That is not important; it merely sets the timeframe. The book traces the development of Gothic Architecture (think: Duke Chapel in Durham) out of the preceding Romanesque Architecture and the fortunes of the Kingsbridge priory against the backdrop of actual historical events of the time. Although Kingsbridge is the name of an actual English town, the Kingsbridge in the novel is actually a fictional location representative of a typical market town of the time. Until this novel was published, Follett had previously been known for writing in the thriller genre. The Pillars of the Earth became Follett's best-selling work. It is his fans’ favorite and I have read it several times. It is a powerful read and will make you happy that you are so fortunate to live now with electricity, flush toilets, clean drinking water, and enough food every day of every year and dentists with anesthetics. You will appreciate what you KNOW to be FACT as opposed to hundreds of ill-guided superstitions.

5. The Fist of God by Frederick Forsyth

This is a 1994 novel mixing known fact with fiction to tell a story of the coalition forces in the Persian Gulf War racing against time to discover the true nature of Saddam Hussein’s secret weapon, 'The Fist of God.' The story begins with the assassination of Dr. Gerald Bull, a real Canadian space researcher, who developed a super gun for the Iraqi nuclear weapons project. It then continues with various edge-of-your-seat covert and overt missions by Israeli, American and British military to uncover and destroy the Iraqi nuclear capability. Now folks, I have a friend who has a son who is in the military and who… is, well, in the military if you get my drift. So, let me say you need to read the part about the coalition soldier openly living but as a gardener in the garden shed on the property of a high ranking individual in Iraq who is … read it and find out. It’s a thriller.

6. Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier (who lives in Wake County, North Carolina).

You probably saw the movie; it was crap! Shot mostly in Romania with Nicole Kidman and Jude Law hopelessly miscast. But the novel is superfine. It tells the story of W. P. Inman, a wounded deserter from the Confederate army near the end of the American Civil War who walks for months to return home to Cold Mountain to Ada Monroe, the love of his life. The plot shares several similarities with Homer's The Odyssey (and so many novels and movies do because it is such a great, timeless story). [If you have not read The Odyssey you should and please read it in the translation of Robert Fagels.] The novel alternates chapter-by-chapter between Inman's and Ada's stories. Cold Mountain is a real mountain located within the Pisgah National Forest, in Haywood County, here in North Carolina for you flatlanders. It is based on the diary of one of Frazier’s family members and is a heckuva read.

7. Painted House by John Grisham.

Grisham’s best book in my opinion and it has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with the law. But it is a compelling story that will grip you and carry you along. Inspired by his childhood in Arkansas, set in the late summer and early fall of 1952, its story is told through the eyes of seven-year-old Luke Chandler, the youngest in a family of cotton farmers struggling to harvest their crop and earn enough to settle their debts. The novel portrays the experiences that bring him from a world of innocence into one of harsh reality and involves migrant workers from Mexico and from other states near Arkansas. Luke’s favorite baseball team is the St. Louis Cardinals and he follows them on the radio. In 1952 I was 7 years old as well, but my dad and I had to follow the Cardinals in the sports section of our newspaper. We could not find a station on our radio that picked up St. Louis so when we didn’t go see the Durham Bulls at the DAP we listened to them on WTIK – our AM station. Why is a painted house so important it is the title of a novel? Please read it and see. This novel was suggested to me by Investigator Greg Stroud of the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, a book reader himself, and I agree with him: its Grisham’s best.

8. One Door Away From Heaven by Dean Koontz.

The following I stole from an advertisement because this is a Koontz novel and is just plain weird; intriguing, fascinating, compelling, haunting – but weird. Hard to sum up. OK and I quote

"In a dusty trailer park on the far edge of the California dream, Michelina Bellsong contemplates the choices she has made. At twenty-eight, she wants to change the direction of her troubled life but can't find her way - until a new family settles into the rental trailer next door and she meets the young girl who will lead her on a remarkable quest. Despite the brace she must wear on her deformed left leg, and her withered left hand, nine-year-old Leilani Klonk radiates a buoyant and indomitable spirit that inspires Micky.
Beneath Leilani's effervescence, however, Micky comes to sense a quiet desperation that the girl dares not express. Leilani's mother is lost in drugs. The girl's stepfather, Preston Maddoc, is educated but threatening. He has moved the family from place to place as he fanatically investigates UFO sightings, striving to make contact, claiming to have had a vision that by Leilani's tenth birthday aliens will either heal her or take her away to a better life on their world.
Slowly, ever more troubling details emerge in Leilani's conversations with Micky. Most chilling is Micky's discovery the Leilani had an older brother, also disabled, who vanished after Maddoc took him into the woods one night and is now "gone to the stars." Leilani's tenth birthday is approaching. Micky is convinced the girl will be dead by that day. While the child-protection bureaucracy gives Micky the runaround, the Maddoc family slips away into the night.
Micky sets out across America to track and find them, alone and afraid but for the first time living for something bigger than herself; and she finds herself pitted against an adversary, Preston Maddoc, as fearsome as he is cunning. Yet Micky pursues her quest, and her passion, her courage, draw a burned-out detective to her side. Hundreds of miles away, a motherless boy and a homeless dog begin an even more astonishing journey. Ahead for them all lay incredible peril, startling discoveries, and paths that will draw them through terrible darkness to unexpected light."

Me again: A motherless boy and a homeless dog – crack! That was my heart. Read this, please – at the end you will be astonished and THRILLED and I didn’t even mention the female twins who are drop-dead gorgeous and are travelling in a state-of-the-art motor home and become involved in all the issues. LA-DE-DA! And say – I did not mention Micky’s aunt – and you are gonna love her, too. Thanks, Dean!

9. Mr. Paradise by Elmore Leonard.

People either like Elmore Leonard’s gritty realistic writing or they do not. I do. Some of his novels, Get Shorty, Be Cool, Hombre and others have been made into movies. He has written a ton of novels. This novel is named after eighty-four year old Detroit lawyer Anthony Paradiso who likes to hire lovely female escorts to dress up as cheerleaders and do some cheering as he watches tapes of previous Michigan football games – victorious games. The night the book opens escort Chloe Robinette convinces her friend Victoria's Secret model Kelly Barr to accompany her to Paridoso’s. Chloe's running out of tricks and maybe an additional woman will make the standard routine seem fresher. Kelly reluctantly agrees to go.
This turns out to be the baddest of bad choices on the worst of all nights. Paradiso's man Montez Taylor, an idiot really, has paid two hit men - the stock company choices for Stupid Criminals, bigger idiots, and I mean it - to kill Paradiso. Enter Detroit PD Detective Frank Delsa who'll not only disentangle all the entanglements but falls quickly in love with the babette Kelly Barr – and who wouldn’t? Delsa is a few years older than Ms. Barr and his wife just died and they had no children. He has been forlorn until he meets the lovely Ms. Barr who … hmmmm. Well, its Elmore Leonard so there is a lot of violence, a lot of great patter, more violence and some great man-woman stuff (not all sex, mind you, just how to correctly relate one with the other) and then some more violence. Mr. Leonard gives you your money’s worth of entertainment and then some more violence. Still, I really like this book. Read it, won’t you? It’s worth it. There is not one extra word, not one unnecessary word on any page.

10. The Source by James Michener.

This a historical novel first published in 1965 when I was a sophomore at UNC. I immediately read it and was hooked. It is a survey of the history of the Jewish people and the land of Israel from pre-monotheistic days to the birth of the modern State of Israel.
The Source uses for its central device a fictional tell in northern Israel called "Makor" (Hebrew: "source"). A “tell” is a hill or mound, is a type of archaeological site in the form of an earthen mound that results from the accumulation and subsequent erosion of material deposited by long human occupation. A tell mostly consists of architectural building materials containing a high proportion of stone, mud-brick, or loam as well as (to a minor extent) domestic refuse.
A parallel frame story set in modern-day Israel supports the historical timeline. Archaeologists digging at the tell at Makor uncover artifacts from each layer, which then serve as the basis for a chapter exploring the lives of the people involved with that artifact.
The novel begins with a Stone Age family whose daughter begins to realize that there is a supernatural force, and then leads us to the beginnings of monotheism, the Davidic kingdom, Hellenistic (Greek) times, Roman times, etc. The site is continually inhabited until the end of the Crusades when it is destroyed by the victorious Mameluks (as happened to many actual cities after 1291 - and is not rebuilt by the Ottomans (from modern day Turkey). The Book follows the story of the Family of Ur from the age of cavemen to modern times, with its descendants now living in Galilee - though, naturally, they themselves are not aware of the ancient antecedents revealed to the reader by the all-knowing writer.