Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Talk
What we're reading

Find your new favourite book or recommend one on our Book forum.

Original poster

Lit Fic for ME please

232 replies

Hullygully · 28/06/2013 08:38

Any recommendations? Need lots of books for hols. I want lit fiction eg I do not want Khaled Hossein, Harold Fry, JoJo Moyes etc etc (nothing wrong with them, but I don't want them).

I want Mantel/Mitchell/Houllebecq type stuff please and thank you.

OP posts:
BooksandaCuppa · 03/07/2013 21:14

Was tempted by the latest one (because of lovely jacket) but it's a bit of a ghost story? Not really my thing. Which are the best since A Patchwork Planet (which is roughly when I stopped reading her)?

Anyone read the last Pulitzer winner - Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson - set in South Korea? Have got it but not read it yet. Looks like one for fans of David Mitchell (since there's a quote from him on the cover too!)

Original poster
Hullygully · 03/07/2013 20:57

The last few are disappointing

OP posts:
Original poster
Hullygully · 03/07/2013 20:56

Yes, those three AND Searching for Caleb

OP posts:
BooksandaCuppa · 03/07/2013 20:49

Breathing Lessons, Accidental Tourist and Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant are all my favourites.

Just having a look at any I've missed in the last few years as I kind of lost track of her (having read a few bad reviews). The new jackets are beautiful - they must be the same designer as Alice Munro's (both Vintage). And then came across a beautiful special edition of Carol Shields' The Stone Diaries - one of my favourite books. I need to hide my debit card...

Original poster
Hullygully · 03/07/2013 20:09

Oh good, it is SO marvellous.

OP posts:
TheRealFellatio · 03/07/2013 20:06

Hello Hulls, I am 1/3rd way through Breathing Lessons and I am LOVING it. A masterclass in the subtle, observational comedy to be found in intimate relationships . Thank you, whoever it was that brought up Anne Tyler on this thread - I'd never heard of her before but she is going to be right up my street.

BooksandaCuppa · 03/07/2013 18:39

I like a bit of Jim Crace and Patrick White too.

There must be more Europeans we haven't mentioned...Michel Faber is obvious - Crimson Petal and the White is fabulous but I like a lot of his other stuff too, especially The Apple (short stories which complement Crimson Petal but can be read alone). Who else?

Ooh, this one's good. The Twins by Gerbrand Bakker. Highly recommended, quite peculiar novel about an ageing, solitary Dutch farmer.

LizTerrine · 03/07/2013 16:57

Yes to Lanark.

LizTerrine · 03/07/2013 16:56

Has anyone suggested Jim Crace yet? I really like Being Dead and Quarantine in particular.

Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata is beautiful.

SconeRhymesWithGone · 03/07/2013 16:47

I have read some of Kennedy's short stories, which I liked, but have not read her novels. Will add those to the list. I own Lanark but have not read it yet. So many books, so little time!

As to Galloway, I know this thread is about fiction, but many people, inlcuding me, have also mentioned memoirs. Her memoir This Is Not About Me is really good. She manages to describe and examine her difficult childhood without a hint of self-pity. It reads much like a novel and has a certain detachment that I think needs to be in a memoir to keep it from being all woe-is-me (or woe-was-me).

BlueEyeshadow · 03/07/2013 16:44

Haven't read whole thread and can't do links cos on phone but it you like Houllebecq, check out Peirene Press, And Other Stories, Pushkin Press etc who specialise in translated lit fic.

Original poster
Hullygully · 03/07/2013 16:39

I have a large pile of books on my table now and my kindle is groaning...

OP posts:
highlandcoo · 03/07/2013 16:37

Yes, Bab Day by AL Kennedy is excellent - the story of a rear-gunner in WW2. Not a typical choice of subject for a woman writer really and she tackles it extremely well

BabCNesbitt · 03/07/2013 15:48

Oh, and Lanark, by Alasdair Gray!

BabCNesbitt · 03/07/2013 15:45

If we're talking about Scottish writers, can I put a word in for AL Kennedy? I've yet to read her last novel, but I LOVED So I Am Glad and Paradise. And her short stories. And pretty much everything I've ever read by her, ever.

TapselteerieO · 03/07/2013 15:43

I really enjoyed Galloway's The trick is to keep breathing when I was a teenager, but I haven't read anything by her recently.

SconeRhymesWithGone · 03/07/2013 15:40

YY to Hogg and Kelman. Also James Robertson. (I discovered the trove of Scottish literature several years ago and have been working my way through much of it since.)

SconeRhymesWithGone · 03/07/2013 14:51

I don't think anyone has mentioned Janice Galloway. I quite like her work.

Thanks for this thread, Hully. My Kindle (and library hold account) runneth over. Smile

SconeRhymesWithGone · 03/07/2013 14:04

Tyler is what I would call accessible; that does not make her brow any lower IMHO.

Original poster
Hullygully · 03/07/2013 11:44

I would also like to say

Patrick White

How I forgot him I cannot imagine.

The Vivisectors is one of my all time top 10.

OP posts:
Original poster
Hullygully · 03/07/2013 09:49

MIDDLE?

Lovely lovely Anne?

huh and tsk

OP posts:
BooksandaCuppa · 03/07/2013 07:04

Yeah, even Tyler's publishers sell her as 'middle-brow'...

I would say my favourite Roths are American Pastoral, Nemesis, The Human Stain and The Plot Against America, in that order.

mignonette · 03/07/2013 06:34

Borrowed Finery is excellent and can I vote also for Lorna Sage's 'Bad Blood' which is a magnificent memoir.

NotQuiteCockney · 02/07/2013 20:22

Oh, and how about The Brief History of the Dead, by Brockmeier?

(None of these have the linguistic inventiveness that I like of DFW/Barker/Self.)

NotQuiteCockney · 02/07/2013 20:21

Yes, I should read more Paula Fox, she was a recent "discovery" of mine, I forget from where.

I do like Tyler, but wouldn't class it as Lit Fic really.

I think Portnoy's Complaint is a v good Roth, but you need to be ok with grossness, iyswim.