Alexander Dumas (1802-1870) wrote great adventure novels about France in the 18th Century. The Three Musketeers, The Man in the Iron Mask and The Count of Monte Cristo were some of my favorites because the action is so intense and the historical setting is so vivid. I also enjoyed the movies that were adapted from them.
Dumas was the son of a white planter from the French West Indies and a black slave woman. The West Indies connection is also a fact that I relate to because my family if from the same area. Despite his literary and financial success, being of mixed race affected his acceptance in both the literary world and in French society.
Once when someone insulted him about his racial background, he said, “It is true. My father was a mulatto, my grandmother was a negress, and my great-grandparents were monkeys. In short, sir, my pedigree begins where yours ends.”




Mark Twain (1835-1910) is America’s most distinguished author in my mind. William Faulkner called Twain “the father of American literature” and I can understand why. His thoughts and observations about American society in his essays is always honest and straightforward.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is still on the mark that today, some 100 plus years after the Civil War.Mark Twain’s insights into the provincial mindset of some Southerners still rings true today, as can be seen in the mindset of the neoconservative movement.
Although the racism is often disguised, it still shows itself on occasion, as in the recent case of the Jena Six.
I read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer when I was in grade school and I thought is was funny and entertaining. But when I read Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in high school, I saw how Twain was talking about American racism in very real and stark terms. I really appreciated him for writing so openly about reality of life in America.






Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) novels are perfect escapist fare for young readers. While still in grade school, I was thrilled by The Black Arrow, Kidnapped, Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde. His work was so exciting and imaginative, that he helped make me an avid reader at a very young age. Fortunately, I’ve come to appreciate that his works are more sophisticated than I realized. His themes of alienation from society (Kidnapped) and even from self (The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde) are as relevant today as they were in the 19th Century—maybe even more so. Many modern writers have acknowledged his influence, including literary giants Jorge Luis Borges, Ernest Hemingway, Rudyard Kipling, and Vladmir Nabokov. Regardless of his place in literature, he will always be the writer who, for many young adults, first inspired them to love reading.




Walter Mosley (b. 1952) has written some extraordinary crime novels about life in Los Angeles. His hard-boiled detective, Easy Rawlins (played by Denzel Washington in the 1995 adaptation, Devil in a Blue Dress), is his most popular character. Even Bill Clinton mentioned Mosley as one of his favorite writers.
As much as I love his mysteries, I especially appreciate the passion and insight of Mosely’s essays and political writings that describe the pain and irrationality that racism infuses into personal relationships in America. As a black American, I find that his stories resonate very intensely in me and remind me of my own personal experiences.




Sir Arthur Conon Doyle (1859-1930) is a favorite of mine because Sherlock Holmes is such a compelling character.
I started reading his works on my first NBA road trip. That’s when I became aware of the power of observation, not just in solving crimes on a foggy Scottish moor, but also in terms of being more aware of the subtle shades of meaning in things and people. Holmes is the perfect teacher of critical thinking, forcing you to examine the most obvious objects, circumstances, and even conversations to understand that more is always going on than meets the uncritical eye.
I think Doyle came by his keen observation as a writer because of his profession as an ophthalmologist. Fortunately for the literary world, when Dr. Doyle set up his medical practice in London, no patients came to see him, allowing him more time to write about Holmes. Holmes’ adventures are just pure suspenseful entertainment. No one can compare with Holmes.




Raymond Chandler’s (1888-1959) novels about Los Angeles in the ‘40’s are classic examples of hard-boiled detective writing. What distinguishes Chandler from other writers is his literary writing style that has been the envy of the mainstream literary heavy hitters like Faulkner, Hemingway, and Mailer. One of his innovations as a mystery writer was to take murder out of the foppish English sitting rooms with their bloodless poisoned tea and hand it back to the violent criminals that shot, stabbed, and pummeled their victims. His famous detective hero, Philip Marlowe, was created to be a last-resort shining knight hero in a dark and hopelessly corrupt Southern California.
Though Marlowe’s personal life consisted of lonely nights playing chess with himself and heavy drinking, when he was on a case he was incorruptible and dogged, despite numerous brutal beatings and threats to his life. And he did it all with a sly wit. My favorites are The Big Sleep and Farwell, My Lovely.
I often re-read his novels when I don’t have any new materials that measure up.
I once had a great conversation with the actor Robert Mitchum about Raymond Chandler, whom he knew personally. At the time, Chandler was also a top screenplay writer, having authored three classic films: Double Indemnity, The Blue Dahlia, and Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train.
Mitchum was always after Chandler to write a movie for him. Although it never happened, Mitchum eventually had a career resurgence in the ‘70s when he finally played Philip Marlowe in the well-received Farewell, My Lovely (1975) and The Big Sleep (1978). During our conversation, Mitchum told me that Chandler affected an English accent and wore gloves all the time because he was missing his fingernails. I also met Lauren Bacall who starred in the 1946 version of The Big Sleep with her husband Humphrey Bogart. It was a huge thrill for me to meet such an elegant whom I had admired since I was a kid.




Chester Himes was born during the Harlem Renaissance, but wasn’t strictly a part of it. Yet, his gritty crime novels succeeded in doing what so many writers of the Renaissance set out to do: portray the wide array of Harlem characters beyond stereotypes, convey the harsh realties of Harlem life as well as the joyous aspects, and do so in books that became popular enough among both white and black readers to actually have an impact. His characters reflect different strata of Harlem life: from the respectable preachers, teachers, laborers, and housewives to the underside of Harlem with its con men, gamblers, petty thieves, drug dealers, and exotic dancers.
Part of Himes appeal for me is in his life story: raised in a middle-class home in Ohio, goes to college, gets kicked out for playing a prank, commits armed robbery and is sent to prison for twenty-five years at the age of nineteen.
Reading famed mystery writer Dashiell Hammett (The Maltese Falcon) in prison, Himes taught himself to write and was soon selling his stories to magazines like Esquire. Paroled after seven years, Himes continued writing, publishing various stories and novels (If He Hollers Let Him Go) that addressed racism and its destructive effects on the black community. But it wasn’t until Himes moved to France that his biggest success came.
A French publisher asked him to write a series of hard-boiled detective novels in the tradition of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler.
What Himes produced was unlike anything ever seen in the genre. His characters, two tough Harlem cops named Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones, were inspired, Himes said, more by William Faulkner’s “ripe violence and absurdist view of life” than by Hammett’s urbane world. This series—which included A Rage in Harlem, The Crazy Kill, Cotton Comes to Harlem, and Blind Man with a Pistol—made Himes famous and brought him literary awards in France. In America, the books were regarded as mere pulp fiction, though today he is regarded as an influential literary author, whose work had a great impact on subsequent black writers, including Ishmael Reed and Walter Mosely. Several movies have been made from this series, the most famous being Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970). While I appreciate Himes’ recreation of Harlem life, I also enjoy his absurdist humor and vivid action scenes, complete with shootouts and chases and fights. Himes obviously loves Harlem and his stories are a tribute to the diversity of black life.




James Clavell (1924-1994) is a British writer most known for his novels about the Far East. His stories depict Japan, China and Singapore from the 17th Century to WWII.
Shogun, Tai-Pan and King Rat are my favorites. His ability to bring to life the complicated history and culture of the Far East is compelling and educational.
Few people know that he also wrote the screenplays for three classic, but very different films: the campy horror film, The Fly (1958), the World War II prison epic, The Great Escape (1963), and the Sidney Poitier classroom melodrama To Sir, with Love (1967).









Martin Cruz Smith (b. 1942), though American, has written several exciting novels about the Soviet Union as well as about post-Soviet Union Russia.
His literary debut was Gorky Park (made into a film in 1983), which introduced the cynical Russian investigator Arkady Renko. This was the first of a trilogy (Polar Star, 1989 and Red Square, 1992) featuring Renko that culminated in the fall of the Soviet Union. Since then, Smith has published three more novels with Renko.
Smith’s insights into the mindset of the Russian people is exceptional, a lesson in both history and anthropology. Gorky Park, Polar Star and Havana Bay are my favorites, not just because of their cultural insights, but because they are also engrossing mysteries.






Charles Dickens’ (1812-1870) popularity remains so great that none of the novels or short stories he wrote over a hundred years ago has ever gone out of print. I can understand why.
Although it wouldn’t seem like a short, pale Englishman and a tall, dark American teenager would have that much in common, I couldn’t help but be moved by his compassion for humanity and outrage over injustice displayed in my favorite works, A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations.
In many ways, his passion helped articulate my own political feelings, helping me see how universal oppression can be.