Choose a few very prolific authors, and sample from each. If you find someone you like a lot, you’d have hit upon a treasure trove.

I recommend books 2-9 of the Jaine Austen Mystery series by Laura Levine.

I don’t rate characters. They are dependent on the books.

I tried to read the sequel, Iron Flame. It seems to be as crappy as its predecessor. These writers, where do they come from?

I have come to move on from Holmes. Maybe I read his adventures one time too many. Still most current mystery writers are even now vastly inferior to Doyle.

These books will be made fun of by the descendants of the books’ readers. People will titter over how quaintly and how absurdly their great grandmothers got rid of their reading itch.

Mansfield Park.

Nothing comes to mind. My favorite series are Harry Potter, Stormlight Archives, and The Years of Lyndon Johnson.

Potter is a mess in the last two books, and Archives is to me obscenely overrated, and I hated Master of the Senate.

It is just a series of adventures written by a long dead man who was of his own time period. The book is great. I will read it again for the 8th or 9th time next year. I read it last year. This time I will be reading it in French for the first time.

The Gormenghast trilogy.

The Gormenghast trilogy.

I used to laugh at his books 20 years ago, now I ignore them because they don’t have anything interesting in my opinion.

Haha, I love this post. Hope you get many more comments. I know nothing about cozy fantasy though. Can I get one or two recs?

I rarely picture or cast celebrities in the books I read. A bizarre exception to that is the case of Thomas Dewey, about whom I read in Truman, and am reading in Nixon: A life. Both times I cast the late Bill Hicks as Dewey. I think Hicks would have hated to be cast as him, or not, I can’t decide.

You changed significantly. I too read nonfiction books. But I choose nonpartisan ones. Even nonfiction has a sizable chunk of its books belonging to the gutter. Bill O’Reilly’s books spring to mind. If you read books that challenge your intellect without deceiving you about the real world (or at least not by much), then you are progressing in my humble opinion.

I think due to the way she became successful, personally I can’t think of an equivalent. But in terms of someone whose fame dims posthumous, I tentatively volunteer Margaret Oliphant, victorian bestselling author.

I tried to read the first Mortal Instruments book and was very disappointed. Worst book I ever DNFed. I lasted one paragraph into Clockwork Something. But that was years ago and I was not as picky then.

To answer your question, I am not keen on B. Sanderson. I will get the next Stormlight Archive, but I go in with low expectations. I think he has had not enough time as what he had in imagining the first SA.

Can anyone recommend me mystery books worth their salt, set in the 90s-00 era? Not cozies, thrillers, or anything supernatural please. No horror either. Maybe the OP will oblige.