the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork.

Largely disinterested observer sucked into a soap opera. Kind of like my life.

A Ute Indian, authored by James D. Doss

if I have to come up with just one without thinking too hard. I love the way she sat and watching, listened, bided time. She had a plan, just knitting and knitting. And she had passion without believing that she would see the day when her hopes and plans were realized. That is hard to do.

I have been in love with him since I was a teenager and I am now 72. It is the longest relationship I have ever had!

And Yossarian.

with your direct questions. Harry Bosch, Camel Group, Dave and Clete, Elvis and Joe. On and on
but I guess I'll have to settle on Marlene Ciampi and Butch Karp !
Thanks for all your posts !

Robert Tannenbaum's books are among the best I ever read. I wanted to crawl inside and live with those people...

But I think they weren't quite as good after the ghost writer left....the characters stayed, but didn't have as much "soul."

the author got to wrapped up in terrorist plots.....

Ahh well, back to Archer Mayer!

the plots - but the characters lost something. They became more like paper cutouts and didn't have the unexpected comments and adventures.

I like Archer Mayor too, the Vermont guy? Can't think of author/characters, and I'm maybe one behind in the series...

Just joined Seti@Home and am so absorbed in it that I can't remember book stuff...

One book you should read is Grandmother Spider - you will laugh or smile all the way thru it.l It sounds like a kid's book, but it's not. If you like it, go back and get the first in the series. If not,, sorry...



http://www.stopyourekillingme.com/D_Authors/Doss_James.html

http://www.amazon.com/Confederacy-Dunces-John-Kennedy-Toole/dp/0802130208

Meet Ignatius J. Reilly, the hero of John Kennedy Toole's tragicomic tale, A Confederacy of Dunces. This 30-year-old medievalist lives at home with his mother in New Orleans, pens his magnum opus on Big Chief writing pads he keeps hidden under his bed, and relays to anyone who will listen the traumatic experience he once had on a Greyhound Scenicruiser bound for Baton Rouge. ("Speeding along in that bus was like hurtling into the abyss.&quot But Ignatius's quiet life of tyrannizing his mother and writing his endless comparative history screeches to a halt when he is almost arrested by the overeager Patrolman Mancuso--who mistakes him for a vagrant--and then involved in a car accident with his tipsy mother behind the wheel. One thing leads to another, and before he knows it, Ignatius is out pounding the pavement in search of a job.

Over the next several hundred pages, our hero stumbles from one adventure to the next. His stint as a hotdog vendor is less than successful, and he soon turns his employers at the Levy Pants Company on their heads. Ignatius's path through the working world is populated by marvelous secondary characters: the stripper Darlene and her talented cockatoo; the septuagenarian secretary Miss Trixie, whose desperate attempts to retire are constantly, comically thwarted; gay blade Dorian Greene; sinister Miss Lee, proprietor of the Night of Joy nightclub; and Myrna Minkoff, the girl Ignatius loves to hate. The many subplots that weave through A Confederacy of Dunces are as complicated as anything you'll find in a Dickens novel, and just as beautifully tied together in the end. But it is Ignatius--selfish, domineering, and deluded, tragic and comic and larger than life--who carries the story. He is a modern-day Quixote beset by giants of the modern age. His fragility cracks the shell of comic bluster, revealing a deep streak of melancholy beneath the antic humor. John Kennedy Toole committed suicide in 1969 and never saw the publication of his novel. Ignatius Reilly is what he left behind, a fitting memorial to a talented and tormented life.

from Craig Johnson's Longmire mystery novels are among my favorites. Sorry, I can't just chose one, they are all great characters.

Last edited Thu Apr 11, 2013, 05:07 PM - Edit history (1)

I liked the big Indian that Johnson killed off before he got obsessed with weddings...

Jacopo Belbo, from Foucault's Pendulum(Eco)
The Magician, from Fools Run(Patricia McKillip)
Repairman Jack(F. Paul Wilson)
Edgar Freemantle & Jerome Wireman, from Duma Key(King)
Matthew Swain, the 21st Century private eye(Mike McQuay)
William Tell Sackett, from Louis L'Amour
Jack Brennan, from Protector(Larry Niven)
Meg Murray, from A Wrinkle in Time(L'Engle)

If I really had to choose.

Pretty easy choice for me. This character is incredible for encouraging proper thought - it's not just common crime that one can apply the habitually-learned Sherlock-Holmes-patterns-of-proper-thought, but society and problems the universe over including the problems with our current society are all unravelable with his careful methods. One simply has to be on constant vigilance to increase the scope of their applicability.

Jane Eyre and Brother Cadfael...coulda given about 10 more!

Something about the Luggage is charming and lovable.

But I really enjoy Tyrion Lannister in Martins books. Great character. And Peter Dinklage is sooooo good at playing him too.

so I don't have much of a list to choose from.

Michael Haller would have to be it.

Ever since I've read Trunk Music I've been addicted to Connelly books. However, I didn't want to read any more Bosch books until I started from the top. The Black Echo is rarely available and my library only has a couple copies so I started with the Lincoln Lawyer books. I just started on The Reversal and I like The Brass Verdict(reminds me a lot like Trunk Music) so far.

The evil uncle in Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby. Makes Ebeneezer Scrooge seem sweet and loveable.