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Top 10 Airplane Books(Free Download)

来源：网络发布时间：2009-12-15

　　1. Angels & Demons, Dan Brown
　　Everyone must already own The Da Vinci Code. Angles and Demons, the prequel to Dan Brown's mega best seller, reigns supreme at airport bookstores. It's not hard to see why: the plot, which focuses on an improbable attempt by the ancient order of the Illuminati to destroy the Vatican (using antimatter, natch), makes perfect sense after being lulled into a state of travel-induced half-sleep. It's also the type of book that has made Brown lots and lots of money.
　　2. The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown
　　Don't doubt the Dan Brown juggernaut. By 2003's The Da Vinci Code, Brown had clearly honed his pop-lit formulation of improbable plot twists, historical trivia and travelogue. While travelers may have bought more copies of Angels and Demons, The Da Vinci Code started the phenomenon. Harvard professor Robert Langdon's quest for the Holy Grail might rely on some shaky historical theories, but with The Da Vinci Code, Brown indisputably found publishing's commercial equivalent.
　　3. The Broker, John Grisham
　　John Grisham had the formula for an airport best seller way before Brown started seeing Mary Magdalene in Da Vinci paintings. The author of legal thrillers including A Time to Kill and The Pelican Brief had his biggest chart topper with the 2005 novel The Broker. Unusually for Grisham, it doesn't focus on a plucky young lawyer, although by making its protagonist a disgraced Washington lobbyist, it dipped from the same murky well. The rest of the book, involving assassins, state secrets and the Italian city of Bologna, ensures there will be enough close calls and exotic locales to keep you flipping pages until the drink cart comes through.
　　4. The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini
　　Nothing about Khaled Hosseini's critically acclaimed 2003 debut makes it seem a slam dunk for casual readers. The Kite Runner details the tumultuous life of a young Afghan boy (including the rape of his best friend), set against the disintegration of his country and the rise of the Taliban. But the book has still sold more than 10 million copies worldwide — putting it in an exclusive club that many of these other airport best sellers can't match.
　　5. Blink, Malcolm Gladwell
　　Gladwell might take offense, but in the airplane reading field at least, the New Yorker writer is the Dan Brown of nonfiction. A 2005 work on the power of snap judgments, Blink is filled with fascinating and entertaining facts and people: the tennis coach who can predict double faults before the serve is hit, the marriage counselor who can peg whether a couple will divorce in the first few minutes of talking to them. While the book makes for fascinating cocktail chatter, critics say the anecdotes don't support any larger theory. Still, it's a brainy airport buy that few readers second-guess.
　　6. The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell
　　Gladwell's other entry on this list, right behind Blink, is proof that you don't need a Robert Langdon to make a best-selling franchise. The pop sociologist's first book, 2002's The Tipping Point, makes the case that ideas can spread like viruses, passing from a few initial vectors until they reach critical mass and "change the world." As in Blink, Gladwell marshals an impressive array of examples (like teen smoking or New York City crime rates) to prove his point. A master of explaining sociology to laypeople, few other writers can make you feel smarter while flying at 35,000 ft.
　　7. The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Mitch Albom
　　Mitch Albom's 1997 best seller, the elegiac Tuesdays with Morrie, should have come with its own box of Kleenex, but it's likely too old to crack the past five years' Top 10. His equally sentimental 2004 book, The Five People You Meet in Heaven, is another matter, however. The tale of the lessons an old man learns in the afterlife, with the aid of the titular quintet, clocks in at just 198 pages — an easy dose of schmaltziness just the right size for a single long-haul trip. Just don't let the flight attendants see you cry.
　　8. Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert
　　Eat, Pray, Love is the 2006 memoir of writer Elizabeth Gilbert's trip to Italy, India and Indonesia. It also covers Gilbert's unraveling marriage, divorce and subsequent attempts to rebuild and redefine her life — par for the course on this list. Still, it's the only bona fide travel book to crack the Top 10. Destination envy, anyone?
　　9. The Last Templar, Raymond Khoury
　　Murder at a famous art museum. A secretive sect fighting an ancient war to reveal explosive secrets about Christianity. Sound familiar? Raymond Khoury's 2005 debut may seem a shameless knockoff of The Da Vinci Code, but its success proves that being the poor man's Dan Brown is enough to make Khoury a very rich man indeed.
　　10. State of Fear, Michael Crichton
　　Without Michael Crichton, it's likely we wouldn't have the word technothriller. And in an earlier era, his ripping yarns of science gone wrong like Jurassic Park and Congo dominated the departure lounge — as well as the beach, pool, commuter train and bedside table. As it is, one of Crichton's last books, 2004's State of Fear and its cast of villainous eco-terrorists out to save the world by destroying it, has enough staying power to round out the bottom of this list. Though the author died in 2008, his final finished novel, Pirate Latitudes, will be released in late November.

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