STEP INTO MY LABORATORY

by John M. Floyd

Recently several of us at Criminal Brief have done briefs about our own workspaces and home offices. What I’d like to do this week is take that a bit further, and cover what’s in my little writer’s retreat (besides me, that is).

The following is a partial list of the fiction I have sitting on my own floor-to-ceiling shelves here at home. For each author, I’ve also included what I consider my favorite novel/story by him or her. Why add that little tidbit? Because it’s fun, I guess.

Okay, here goes. I’m swiveling my chair away from the computer, looking up at the shelves, and tilting my head so I can read what’s on the spines. The contents of my writing cave include, in no particular order . . .

All of the novels by:

James Michener (Centennial)
Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park)
Stephen King (The Dead Zone)
Nevada Barr (Deep South)
Peter Benchley (Jaws)
Martin Cruz Smith (Rose)
Ian Fleming (Goldfinger)
Arthur Hailey (Hotel)
Robert Ludlum (The Matarese Circle)
Thomas Harris (The Silence of the Lambs)
Charles Wilson (Extinct)
James Clavell (Shogun)
Greg Iles (Turning Angel)
John Grisham (A Time to Kill)
Martin Hegwood (Jackpot Bay)
Ken Follett (The Eye of the Needle)
Scott Smith (A Simple Plan)
Nelson DeMille (Plum Island)
Ira Levin (A Kiss Before Dying)
Tom Clancy (The Hunt for Red October)

Most of the novels by:

Harlan Coben (Tell No One)
William Goldman (Magic)
John Sandford (Mind Prey)
Dick Francis (Come to Grief)
Robert Crais (The Two Minute Rule)
Janet Evanovich (Three to Get Deadly)
Dennis Lehane (Mystic River)
Pat Conroy (Beach Music)
Tom Wolfe (A Man in Full)
Scott Turow (Presumed Innocent)
John Irving (The World According to Garp)
James Lee Burke (Cimarron Rose)
John Godey (The Taking of Pelham One Two Three)
Peter Straub (Ghost Story)
Christopher Buckley (No Way to Treat a First Lady)
Frederick Forsyth (The Day of the Jackal)
John Fowles (The Collector)
Alistair MacLean (Bear Island)
James Carroll (Family Trade)
Colleen McCullough (The First Man in Rome)
Trevanian (The Eiger Sanction)
John Le Carre (Smiley’s People)
Steve Hamilton (A Cold Day in Paradise)
Robert B. Parker (Night Passage)
Marcus Sakey (The Blade Itself)
John Dunning (Booked to Die)
Elmore Leonard (Out of Sight)
Clive Cussler (Raise the Titanic)
Mario Puzo (The Godfather)
Irving Wallace (The Fan Club)
Louis L’Amour (Hondo)
Ernest K. Gann (The High and the Mighty)
Carl Hiaasen (Nature Girl)
Len Deighton (Berlin Game)
E. L. Doctorow (Ragtime)
Douglas Preston/Lincoln Child (The Relic)
Edward Rutherford (London)
Tom Franklin (Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter)
Larry McMurtry (Lonesome Dove)
Joe R. Lansdale (The Bottoms)
Herman Wouk (The Winds of War)

Short story collections by:

Jack Ritchie (“The Green Heart”)
Jeffery Deaver (“The Weekender”)
Richard Matheson (“Nightmare at 20,000 Feet”)
Frederick Forsyth (“There Are No Snakes in Ireland”)
Edgar Allen Poe (“The Tell-Tale Heart”)
Eudora Welty (“Why I Live at the P.O.”)
Alistair MacLean (“The Dileas”)
John Grisham (“Michael’s Room”)
O. Henry (“A Retrieved Reformation”)
John Cheever (“The Swimmer”)
Dick Francis (“Blind Chance”)
Agatha Christie (“The Witness for the Prosecution”)
William Faulkner (“A Rose for Emily”)
Somerset Maugham (“Rain”)
Maurice Walsh (“The Quiet Man”)
Shirley Jackson (“The Lottery”)
Louis L’Amour (“The Ghost Maker”)
Jeffrey Archer (“The Commissioner”)
Lawrence Block (“Strangers on a Handball Court”)
Joe R. Lansdale (“The Mule Rustlers”)
Stephen King (“The Last Rung on the Ladder”)
Woody Allen (“The Kugelmass Episode”)
Ernest Hemingway (“Hills Like White Elephants”)
John D. MacDonald (“Noose for a Tigress”)
Tom Franklin (“Poachers”)
Roald Dahl (“Man From the South”)
Bill Pronzini (“Incident in a Neighborhood Tavern”)
James Lee Burke (“Jesus Out to Sea”)
Anton Chekhov (“In the Ravine”)
Elmore Leonard (“The Tonto Woman”)
Ray Bradbury (“A Sound of Thunder”)

Other favorites:

To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler
Voyage, Sterling Hayden
Giant, Edna Ferber
The Thin Man, Dashiell Hammett
The Searchers, Alan Le May
Seabiscuit (nonfiction), Laura Hillenbrand
The Sands of the Kalahari, William Mulvihill
Double Indemnity, James M. Cain
The Sundowners, Jon Cleary
Fail-Safe, Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler
L.A. Confidential, James Ellroy
Gone With the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
The Exorcist, William Peter Blatty
From Here to Eternity, James Joyce
The Last Child, John Hart
Time and Again, Jack Finney
The Perfect Storm (nonfiction), Sebastian Junger
Seven Days in May, Fletcher Knebel and Charles Bailey II
Shane, Jack Shaefer
Deliverance, James Dickey

What good, you might well ask, is a list like this? Well, not much, I admit—at least not to most people. To me, though, it was helpful in a couple of ways: (1) In the process of taking this inventory I discovered several books I should donate to the library, and (2) it fulfilled my need for a column for this week.

For next Saturday, maybe I’ll list my favorite DVDs. . . .