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Original poster

Coming off a literary high - please help

438 replies

CoteDAzur · 07/04/2012 09:40

I just read Cloud Atlas and This Thing Of Darkness in quick succession, both epic, fantastic books of great scope and vision.

Now I don't now what to do with myself. Read another book, but what? What can I read now that won't be a huge disappointment after these two wonderful books that I have just finished?

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RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 08/04/2012 20:51

I've just remembered one that I bet you will like: Here. Bits of it are absolutely brilliant and bits of it are bonkers - but it is deffo a 'head hurt' kind of book.

retiredgoth2 · 08/04/2012 20:50

Thank you, Cote, I shall look that up.

...and I must confess that I read Dune thirty years some time ago, and that my view may have been coloured by the film.

I mean. It starred Sting FFS...

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 08/04/2012 20:49

I didn't like, 'Drood.' I had high hopes for it and enjoyed the first half but the second half got more and more silly. I do like Wilkie Collins though!

Original poster
CoteDAzur · 08/04/2012 20:45

re Wilkie Collins - If you are interested in Wilkie Collins and/or Charles Dickens, there is a book called Drood by Dan Simmons where the narrator is Wilkie Collins and the story is just so strange but brilliantly told. A very long book but historical detail is amazing, especially since the story it tells is so fantastical.

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RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 08/04/2012 20:42

Oh - who to trust? Grin

I finished Owen Meaney (God knows why) but it irritated the hell out of me - except for the car bit, which I liked. I read 'A Widow For However Long It Is' and was really bored by all the sex in it.

retiredgoth2 · 08/04/2012 20:40

You could read Dune, Remus.

Or perhaps you could stick pins in your eyes.

Much the same effect..

Original poster
CoteDAzur · 08/04/2012 20:39

Remus - You have to read Dune! Please trust me as I trusted you (and just downloaded Dark Tower #2 & Clockwork Orange on my Kindle [busmile])

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retiredgoth2 · 08/04/2012 20:38

John Irving.

Now. There's a thing.

I either find myself wholly immersed (A Son Of The Circus; Cider House Rules) or alienated and unable to finish the book (Owen Meany; Last Night At Twisted River)

And I don't know why.

Though I have always been a little nervous of a vague streak of misogyny...

(I should declare at this point that I'm a geezer)

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 08/04/2012 20:35

Ooh, I LOVE 'The Ninth Life Of Louis Drax.' 'My Dirty Little Book Of Stolen Time' is good too; her others less so.

Can't be doing with Owen Meaney - far, far too long and contrived.

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 08/04/2012 20:34

I absolutely adored, 'Flaubert's Parrot' and 'Arthur And George' but detested, 'England, England' and was bored and annoyed by 'A History.' Can't remember if I've read any more.

I can't stand Sarah Waters (though I seem to in a minority there!).

So, do I need to read, 'Dune?' I know nothing about it - please can somebody enlighten me?

besmirchedandbewildered · 08/04/2012 20:31

Remus I may be fick too but I couldn't get on with that Julian Barnes either.

Cote - I think I may have abandoned Foucault's Pendulum at the "it's a shopping list" bit, it made me VERY angry. I have effectively flounced from Eco now (doesn't seem to have done his career too much harm).

What about John Irving? I'm thinking you've already read A Prayer for Owen Meany? Or Jonathan Coe? Or The Corrections? I also like Liz Jensen, the Ninth Life of Louis Drax. Oscar and Lucinda?

retiredgoth2 · 08/04/2012 20:30

I didn't like Cloud Atlas either..

(it felt like he was saying 'how clever am I? Cute enough to kiss?')

But love love love Julian Barnes. Though I do see how he could be accused of the same crimes as Mitchell remus

I guess it's that very fine line, for me Mitchell's artifice was the thing itself, whereas there is a human warmth in Barnes that always draws me in.

But Sarah Waters is definitely my current favourite.

Invention, fabulous storytelling, and always an acknowledgement to the debt she owes Wilkie Collins, but has built on magnificently..

Original poster
CoteDAzur · 08/04/2012 20:26

Thank you all, by the way. These are great recommendations. Please keep them coming.

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Original poster
CoteDAzur · 08/04/2012 20:25

Beethoven etc sounds interesting, actually. It reminds me of J G Ballard's Vermillion Sands which was a great collection of his short stories. I heartily recommend it.

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RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 08/04/2012 20:24

I think you will hate, 'Oryx And Crake.' Grin

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 08/04/2012 20:22

I wasn't interested enough to care what he was trying to do tbh. I felt the same about Julian Barnes', 'History Of The World In However Many Chapters It Is' - trying to be clever but actually being tedious. Maybe I'm just not clever enough? :)

Re the Dark Tower - read number 2 first (The Drawing Of The Three), then number three (The Waste Lands) then number 4 (Wizard And Glass). He has a new one coming out soon which fills in a bit between what are currently books 4 and 5, so you could read the new one after Wizard And Glass. Then it's Wolves Of The Calla, then Song Of Susannah, then The Dark Tower. If you don't like number two, then I wouldn't bother trying the others - but number 2 is one of my favourites because of the great Mafia style gang battle in it.

Original poster
CoteDAzur · 08/04/2012 20:21

besmirched - Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum is one of my all-time favorites. I intend to read The Prague Cemetery at some point in the future, although I'm a bit worried about the negative reviews it's been getting. Have you read it?

Oryx & Crate is getting a lot of votes here so will take a look at it despite the female sci-fi author Smile

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Original poster
CoteDAzur · 08/04/2012 20:17

Remus - I do trust your taste in books so will go Dark Tower another go.

I'm not into teen fiction but "difficult" and complicated books which I need to work hard to understand, the more brain-hurty the better. Like Inception (the film), Anathem, or... ehem... Cloud Atlas.

I am actually convinced that otherwise reasonable and intelligent people Wink who haven't enjoyed Cloud Atlas just haven't completely understood what the author has tried to do - the repeated mention of Nietzsche conjures his idea that everything repeats in the history of the world therefore nothing matters, each chapter is in a different literary style (historical fiction, literary farce, dystopian sci-fi etc), Luisa Rey flying off a bridge in her car echoes the book The Bridge Of San Luis Rey (about seven inter-connected people on a bridge and the divine reason for why they each had to die), etc. Its grand themes are also brilliantly executed - fragility of knowledge, individual acts of kindness and selflessness as the only defense against our selfish and destructive nature as a race, how a single act of kindness can echo across generations.

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besmirchedandbewildered · 08/04/2012 20:07

I would also recommend Oryx and Crake. Just finishing The Tiger's Wife which is lighter but still interesting.

Have you read any Umberto Eco? Name of the Rose is v involved and involving IMHO.

Will have a think...

timetosmile · 08/04/2012 20:06

How about a change from great tomes and get stuck into some quality short stories?

'Beethoven was One Sixteenth or some other fraction! Black' by Nadime Gordimer has some breathtakingly good stories in..one made me sob out loud and has 'stuck' with me for a very long time iyswim

Or 'Cry, the Beloved Country' by Alan Paton which is a S African epic - v underrated here

CoteDAzur · 08/04/2012 19:59

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Original poster
CoteDAzur · 08/04/2012 19:49

Metabilis - I didn't quite get what you said there. Which book should I read first in the Dark Tower series, then?

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Original poster
CoteDAzur · 08/04/2012 19:48

MNHubbie - Re comic books: I actually bought From Hell after the film, but never managed to read more than a few pages of it because the illustrations were just crap. My only claim to authority is having read many comics in my youth & having lived with a rather famous comics author/artist DP in my 20s, but still, I hope you will agree that its facts story is fantastic but the drawings are quite incredibly bad.

I haven't looked into other Alan Moore comics after that but now that I saw on Amazon that his books are not always by the same illustrator, I can definitely take a look at Watchmen (loved the film, especially its anti-heroes).

Re Ian M Banks - See my earlier post below.

re Dune - The first Dune book is of course exceptional, but I actually find the whole six books saga to be very good. The consistency of the universe he has created across centuries, intricate power plays and relationships between the players, the sheer brilliance of vision is frankly unparalleled in all that come since it was published in 1965. (I am friends with the daughter of the editor who published Dune following refusals by many others, and its story is fascinating) I haven't tried reading the many prequels written by his son and some other guy, though.

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Quotationist · 08/04/2012 19:05

Have you read any Murakami? In very similar territory to David Mitchell, I've pretty much enjoyed every book of his I've read, bar Norwegian Wood.

If it's proper literary fiction you're after, I can't recommend Orhan Pamuk highly enough. My Name Is Red & Snow both are brilliant. Not an obvious leap from dystopian fiction, but do trust me! His style of writing is not entirely dissimilar to David Mitchell's (actually way better IMHO).

I do love a bit of Margaret Atwood, but The Handmaiden's Tale does feel very dated to me. The Blind Assassin was fab.

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 08/04/2012 18:55

Yippee for the new book! :) My least favourite is 'Wizard And Glass' because most of it is retrospective and because the whole Susan thing bores me (or maybe it's just because I'm jealous that she gets to shag Roland!).