Literary fiction - any good reads lately?

May I recommed Curtis Sittenfeld? I've read Prep and The American Wife, both brilliant, and have another of hers to start on soon. Also love Zoe Heller, who wrote Notes on a Scandal - her others are brilliant too.

Also, Donna Tartt's The Secret History. Didn't like her second one, The Little Friend, as much, though. Also I've heard really good things about Natasha Solomons' The Novel in the Viola - have it on my Kindle but not read it yet. And pretty much everything on Hullygully's list .

This is fab. White Horse

Thousand Splendid Suns was awful. Written in English by an American who left Afghanistan as a child. Shallow stereotypical crap gathered from American media - Taliban blew up Buddha statues, and they beat women up. That's about the insight you get into Afghanistan.

I recommend Geraldine Brooks' A Year of Wonders', fantastic historical novel set in the RL time and place of Eyam plague village in 1666.
All of her books are good tbh.

Which of last year's Orange Prize books did you like best or least? Did you read the longlist as well as the shortlist?

If you read and enjoyed the Jennifer Egan, her other novels have been reissued. I enjoyed Look at Me.

Have you read Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's two novels and/or her short stories? Do you read short stories?

Aifric Campbell was longlisted for the Orange last year and has a new novel out.

Emma Donoghue's books are quite varied, they're not at all like Room but I liked her historical novels - Slammerkin, The Sealed Letter and Life Mask (my personal favourite). I've also read her earlier work though I don't remember it so well.

^^ No no no they aren't they aren't.

I've recently read The Kite Runner and Thousand Splendid Suns. They were both good.

I'm reading 'The Memory of Love' by Aminatta Forna and 'Precious A True Story' by Precious Williams. Both books are beautifully written books and I am enjoying them both immensely.

We Had It So Good by Linda Grant

Y Y to What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt, one of my favourite authors

The Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies

just read Freedom by Jonathan Frantzen which was brilliant, funny and sad too;
and What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt is a great read.
Some brilliant suggestions on this thread so far but why, why did I get stuck on Lacuna? enjoyed her other ones very much.

I read Jonathan Strange and Mister Norrell by Suzanna Clarke recently and I found it enchanting. Beautifully written fantasy set in a parallel version of England during the Napoleonic Wars.

Sinister Street by Compton Mackenzie. A stunner.

Patricia duncker

JS Farrell
Annie Proulx - Shipping News
Ellen Gilchrist
Janes Gardam, Smiley and Rogers

YY to Margaret Atwood - it's good to read Oryx & Crake and Year Of The Flood within a shortish time of each other as they're parallel stories.

Also love Annie Proulx, both her short stories and her longer novels (try The Shipping News).

Have just been re-reading A History Of The World In 10 1/2 Chapters by Julian Barnes - quirky but I loved it as it's so much more than the sum of its parts.

Currently loving 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami - loved his wind up bird chronicle too. Could possibly be classed as fantasy in part but kind of a blurred reality really!

I also really enjoyed a Heartbreaking work of staggering genius by David Eggers ages ago. I even liked You Shall Know our Velocity by him also.
Middlesex - jeffrey Eugenides
The Corrections and Freedom by Jonathan Franzen.

I second Wolf Hall, can't put it down at the moment. Have you read Foucault's Pendulum? I absolutely loved it a few years back and am planning to go back to it. Margaret Atwood? The Flood or The Handmaid's Tale?

how about Never Mind by Edward St Aubyn - and the other 4 novels in the series.

Colette- short stories, Claudine etc
Roald Dahl- Tales of the Unexpected
Donna Tartt- The Secret History, The Little Friend
Patrick Dennis- Mame
Patrick Suskind- Perfume
Sybille Bedford- Jigsaw
Jonathon Strange and Mr. Norrel
A.S. Byatt- The Children's Book, Virgin in the Garden
Siegfried Lenz- The German Lesson
Rosemary's Baby
Ian McEwan- Saturday (Enduring Love is good too)
The Kaminsky Cure
Alison Lurie- The Nowhere City
Amos Oz- Elsewhere, Perhaps
Paul Gallico- Mrs 'Arris
Penelope Fitzgerald- The Blue Flower

Reading the Master and Margarita atm- give that a try too, confusing as hell at first.

I keep wanting to recommend stuff and then it turns out not to be fiction!

yy All Rose Tremain
Helen Dunmore

I have just really enjoyed "Music and Silence" by Rose Tremain. Anything by Karen Maitland too is great. Both of these writers do really fantastic historical fiction - no bodices are ripped!

yy Lacuna and Poisonwood Bible

and Sisters Brothers

Rohinto Mistry
Gore Vidal
John Irving (pre Owen Meany)
Patrick White (partic The Vivisectors)
Dorothy Whipple
Jane Gardam
Jane Rogers
Jeffrey Eugenides
William Boyd
Cormac McCarthy (Blood Meridian)
Salman Rushdie (Midnight's Children and satanic Verses)
Paul theroux
Vikram Seth
VS Naipaul
Chimamanda Ngozi Adice (Half of Yellow Sun)
Zadie Smith (White Teeth)

(Quick bookcase glance!)

La Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver. Stick with it - it gets better and better.