Why am I passionate about this?

20 years ago a software company I founded had been acquired and my life should have been good. Instead, it was a Herculean mess. I had just been fired by a billionaire whom I had accused of crimes, and now I was out of work and broke. It would still be four more years before Bernie Ebbers was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison (where he became blind and demented and died) for the world’s largest fraud. But when I was writing the first words of Paper Targets, the executives who had pulled me into their world of the “Lie” were freely strutting on the World Stage of Greed. 


I wrote

Paper Targets: Art Can Be Murder

By Steve S Saroff,

Book cover of Paper Targets: Art Can Be Murder

What is my book about?

Steve S. Saroff's new novel simmers with love and greed before boiling over along the twisting path between right and…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of No Country for Old Men

Steve Saroff Why did I love this book?

This book is Cormac McCarthy’s most accessible novel. It reads like a screenplay and hits all of the high spots with low blows and grit. It is political, involving drug deals gone wrong that involve Mexican cartels while also being absolutely lonely and isolated. This is noir in the bright desert daylight, mixed with some high-tech of modern criminals. Dark, terrible, and entertaining.

By Cormac McCarthy,

Why should I read it?

9 authors picked No Country for Old Men as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Llewelyn Moss, hunting antelope near the Rio Grande, instead finds men shot dead, a load of heroin, and more than $2 million in cash. Packing the money out, he knows, will change everything. But only after two more men are murdered does a victim's burning car lead Sheriff Bell to the carnage out in the desert, and he soon realizes that Moss and his young wife are in desperate need of protection. One party in the failed transaction hires an ex-Special Forces officer to defend his interests against a mesmerizing freelancer, while on either side are men accustomed to spectacular…


Book cover of Snow Crash

Steve Saroff Why did I love this book?

Cyberpunk meets old noir. It's sci-fi but dipped in lonely isolation with a cast of characters who skateboard and shoot themselves into and out of impossible predicaments. The book was published in 1992 and described and predicted the aether-connected world we now all live in. Stephenson coined the phrase 'Metaverse' in this book.

By Neal Stephenson,

Why should I read it?

14 authors picked Snow Crash as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The “brilliantly realized” (The New York Times Book Review) breakthrough novel from visionary author Neal Stephenson, a modern classic that predicted the metaverse and inspired generations of Silicon Valley innovators

Hiro lives in a Los Angeles where franchises line the freeway as far as the eye can see. The only relief from the sea of logos is within the autonomous city-states, where law-abiding citizens don’t dare leave their mansions.

Hiro delivers pizza to the mansions for a living, defending his pies from marauders when necessary with a matched set of samurai swords. His home is a shared 20 X 30…


Book cover of Hollywood

Steve Saroff Why did I love this book?

Bukowski didn't thieve, solve crimes, or use high-tech. In fact, he worked hard and was poor and isolated most of his life. But he lived in the fringe of the noir world, and beat on his machines—manual typewriters, then an IBM Selectric, and finally, with some fame and money, a computer. He was South of his No North, real and genuine for so long that when Hollywood knocked, he was ready for them. This book is his first-hand account of the dumb ego and stupid money that goes into making a movie. Hilarious and dark at the same time. A poet's novel.

By Charles Bukowski,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Hollywood as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'What will you do?'
'Oh, hell, I'll write a novel about writing the screenplay and making the movie.'
'What are you going to call it?'
'Hollywood.'

Henry Chinaski has a penchant for booze, women and horse-racing. On his precarious journey from poet to screenwriter he encounters a host of well-known stars and lays bare the absurdity and egotism of the film industry. Poetic, sharp and dangerous, Hollywood - Bukowski's fictionalisation of his experiences making the film Barfly - explores the many dark shadows to be found in the neon-soaked glare of Hollywood's limelight.


Book cover of The Maltese Falcon

Steve Saroff Why did I love this book?

This book proves that plots can both be tight and make no sense at the same time while still telling a story that holds our interest. The Maltese Falcon is a mystery that never gets solved, but by the end, you understand the point that Hammett wanted us to understand: for criminals, the world is a greedy mess, and chasing dark dreams for them is what they want more than catching the dream. The book is better than the movie, and the movie is fantastic.

By Dashiell Hammett,

Why should I read it?

10 authors picked The Maltese Falcon as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

One of the greatest crime novels of the 20th century.

'His name remains one of the most important and recognisable in the crime fiction genre. Hammett set the standard for much of the work that would follow' Independent

Sam Spade is hired by the fragrant Miss Wonderley to track down her sister, who has eloped with a louse called Floyd Thursby. But Miss Wonderley is in fact the beautiful and treacherous Brigid O'Shaughnessy, and when Spade's partner Miles Archer is shot while on Thursby's trail, Spade finds himself both hunter and hunted: can he track down the jewel-encrusted bird, a…


Book cover of The Guards

Steve Saroff Why did I love this book?

More than just a crime novel, this book has the bleak mood of a failed coal mine town in winter. A seat at the bar and the stories you should be sharing with the person next to you, but there is no one there other than the bartender who doesn't like talking. Set in Galway, Ireland, it's a drunkard's tale of redemption and loss.

By Ken Bruen,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked The Guards as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Still stinging from his unceremonious ouster from the Garda Síochána—the Guards, Ireland's police force—and staring at the world through the smoky bottom of his beer mug, Jack Taylor is stuck in Galway with nothing to look forward to. In his sober moments Jack aspires to become Ireland's best private investigator, not to mention its first—Irish history, full of betrayal and espionage, discourages any profession so closely related to informing. But in truth Jack is teetering on the brink of his life's sharpest edges, his memories of the past cutting deep into his soul and his prospects for the future nonexistent.…


Explore my book 😀

Paper Targets: Art Can Be Murder

By Steve S Saroff,

Book cover of Paper Targets: Art Can Be Murder

What is my book about?

Steve S. Saroff's new novel simmers with love and greed before boiling over along the twisting path between right and wrong. Critics are calling it "Wonderfully written," "Brilliantly done," "Succinct," "Well crafted," and "Amazing."

A loner bails an artist out of jail and sets free a deadly mistake. Enzi, a dyslexic drifter, becomes a criminal computer hacker who falls for Kaori, a displaced artist from Tokyo. When Kaori confesses through drawings, Enzi questions everything he has ever done. When he tries to extricate himself from the violent people he has become indebted to, Enzi looks to his past for answers. Character-driven and then speeding to its end, Paper Targets is a Literary Thriller that tries to explain why people sometimes do bad things.

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Girl of Light

By Elana Gomel,

Book cover of Girl of Light

Elana Gomel Author Of Nine Levels

New book alert!

Why am I passionate about this?

Author

Elana's 3 favorite reads in 2024

What is my book about?

A girl of Light in a world of darkness.

In Svetlana's country, it’s a felony to break a mirror. Mirrors are conduits of the Voice, the deity worshiped by all who follow Light. The Voice protects humans of MotherLand from the dangers that beset them on all sides: an invading army of wolf-headed men on their borders and the infectious, ever-evolving, zombie-like Enemy that plagues them at home. When Svetlana meets Andrei, a traumatized and amnesiac soldier from another war, she embarks on a harrowing journey of adventure and self-discovery that leads her to question everything she was taught to…

Girl of Light

By Elana Gomel,

What is this book about?

A voice through Svetlana's mirror guides her beloved MotherLand from behind its' electric tower. The war with Wulfstan is not going as well as Sveta and her parents hope, but Sveta trusts the Voice. When her best friend Tattie goes missing, and Sveta saves Andrei, a soldier in summer uniform in the dead of winter, it takes Sveta through a crucible of Light, doubt, and back to the altar of true belief. Girl of Light unravels Sveta's beloved MotherLand in a war-torn adventure through monsters, missing eyes and broken mirrors.

Girl of Light is a dark fantasy with a Slavic…


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