Why am I passionate about this?
I’m of the opinion that good writers draw from life experience. Here are the broad strokes: a Boy Scout reporter at the 1964 national Jamboree, a drummer in country, rock, and jazz bands, a SCUBA instructor, a commercial real estate developer, a drug addict, and an inmate in the penal system. I’ve been reading and writing almost from day one. Most of my early work is crap. I’ve learned the hard way what makes a story worth telling and how best to tell it. Read my recommendations and decide for yourself. After all, it’s your opinion that counts.
Michael's book list on brilliant genre defying storytelling
Why did Michael love this book?
As a cross-genre “mystery writer,” I’m not big on fiction classifications. This book, like most great books, defies pigeonholing. Some would say “crime novel,” some “western,” others “thriller,” others still, “adventure.”
Regardless, if the first sentence of this book doesn’t hook you, nothing will. It is nothing short of mastery. Character-driven story-telling at its finest, running a reader through a gauntlet of gut-wrenching emotions with ease—poignant, gritty, tongue-in-cheek, and often horrific. Perfectly seasoned with Texas cornpone, this coming-of-age western tale is a fist full. I loved it.
1 author picked The Thicket as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
In The Thicket, award-winning novelist Joe R. Lansdale lets loose like never before, in a rip-roaring adventure set at the dark dawn of the East Texas oil boom, the perfect introduction to an acclaimed writer whose work has been called "as funny and frightening as anything that could have been dreamed up by the Brothers Grimm -- or Mark Twain" (New York Times Book Review)
Jack Parker thought he'd already seen his fair share of tragedy. His grandmother was killed in a farm accident when he was barely five years old. His parents have just succumbed to the smallpox epidemic…