 | Lonesome Dove Part 1 Of 3 by Larry McMurtry
Buy used from: $84.99 More than a thousand pages. Finished it in 3 days when I was 17.
All I could do was sleep and read. I even skipped school because it was so good I couldn't bare to put it down. McMurtry's very best.
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 | Speaks the Nightbird by Robert McCammon
Buy new: $12.24 / Used from: $4.05 Three books by McCammon where he stepped away from his horror roots (I grew up reading nothing but horror) and managed to write some of the finest, heaviest, most affecting literature I've ever read.
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 | Boy's Life by Robert McCammon
Buy new: $12.48 / Used from: $5.46 |
 | Gone South by Robert McCammon
Buy new: $12.48 / Used from: $0.01 |
 | A Painted House by John Grisham
Buy new: $10.40 / Used from: $1.01 I love everything John Grisham has done (altough I skipped Skipping Christmas), but A Painted House is by far my favorite, which is kind of funny... there is not a lawyer or courthouse anywhere to be found.
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 | A Time to Kill by John Grisham
Buy new: $10.40 / Used from: $0.01 His first novel, and his deepest. If this book doesn't move you, you're not human.
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 | The Traveling Vampire Show by Richard Laymon
Buy new: $7.99 / Used from: $0.69 Evokes the same kind of nostalgia that Boy's Life or Stephen King's The Body does, only with a losing-your-virginity edgy sex appeal, and a much higher body count.
Might appeal to the boys more than the girls. If you've ever been a 13 year old boy, you'll be able to relate.
Laymon nails it.
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 | Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
Buy new: $5.99 / Used from: $0.51 One of the best stories I've ever read. The characters were absolutely real to me, and the end blew me away. I've bought countless copies at used book stores and given them away to friends who like to read; it's a bit like spreading the gospel.
It's surprising to me that many people don't know about it.
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 | Ender's Shadow (Ender, Book 5) by Orson Scott Card
Buy new: $5.99 / Used from: $1.76 The exact same story, told from the perspective of a supporting character from Ender's Game. Not a sequel, but a new and expanded way of experiencing the story. The same, et completely different. Bean rocks.
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 | The Great and Secret Show by Clive Barker
Buy new: $13.67 / Used from: $1.63 Blew me away. Barker's mind is amazing. This one will certainly replace the real world for as long as it takes you to finish it.
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 | Everville by Clive Barker
Buy new: $14.00 / Used from: $3.95 His follow up to the Great And Secret Show, and every bit as good. I really wish he'd start publishing on a regular basis again.
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 | From the Corner of His Eye by Dean Koontz
Buy new: $7.99 / Used from: $0.01 Dean Koontz is another one who graduated from his roots to real honest-to-God literature. Hard to pick a favorite because there are so many really good ones.
From The Corner Of His Eye is my personal favorite.
Below are two alternate choices
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 | The Taking by Dean Koontz
Buy new: $7.99 / Used from: $0.01 If they're not talking about Dean Koontz a hundred years from now as one of the greats of our time, then literature professors of the future should all be fired
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 | Intensity by Dean Koontz
Buy new: $7.99 / Used from: $0.01 |
 | The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower, Book 1) by Stephen King
Buy new: $11.02 / Used from: $3.73 The Gunslinger is my favorite Stephen King novel. Minimalist and surreal, it has a feeling like no other book.It engulfs you and seems to bleed a sepia tone into your life. It's gritty, exciting, tragic and gloriously bloody. You will feel like you know Roland personally. Stephen King at his best, without the tongue-in-cheek.
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 | Blaze: A Novel by Richard Bachman
Buy new: $9.99 / Used from: $0.01 Mr. King does literature so well I think I'd rather have more of it than the horror, but I'll take whatever he gives me. This slot could've gone to It, or Bag of Bones, or The Stand, or Firestarter, but it goes to Blaze because it affected me, moved me, and made me think.
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 | Red by Jack Ketchum
Buy new: $31.96 / Used from: $22.99 Jack Ketchum is a favorite of mine. One of the most talented writers I've come across. And I'm a dog lover, so Red is an easy favorite.
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 | The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum
Buy new: $7.99 / Used from: $4.14 He writes so well, and tells such an important story, you want to reach into this book, godlike, and intervene on this poor girl's behalf. You want to save her.
This book is so honest it's difficult to read. But you won't be able to stop.
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 | Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane
Buy used from: $15.94 Dark, cold, heroic, disturbing, and brilliantly written.
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 | Shadowland by Peter Straub
Buy new: $7.99 / Used from: $0.30 This is an incredibly dark, beautiful novel about the magic of young love. Peter Straub is a poet.
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 | Wildwood by John Farris
Buy used from: $0.06 Hard to explain, but it fits the criteria. If you've never read Farris I recommend anything by him.
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 | Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
Buy new: $7.99 / Used from: $0.01 How many authors can write a fairy tale for adults, without letting on that it's a fairy tale until the reader reflects on it, make the darkest subject matter sort of amusing, and keep you enchanted throughout every single page? This one can.
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