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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.

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TapselteerieO · 02/07/2013 19:03

The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien

The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg

I go through phases with authors loved Steinbeck, Marquez, Doctorow, Hoban, Alasdair Gray, Kelman but I also love classics and read certain books over and over - I do like Dickens, his characters are just brilliant. I like Kingsolver but find Tyler gets a bit samey. I like some Mitchell.

Original poster
Hullygully · 02/07/2013 18:31

have ordered The Widow's Children and Borrowed Finery

Musn't forget Elizabeth Taylor, FM Mayor and damn can't remember

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Original poster
Hullygully · 02/07/2013 18:15

Goodness! Just read a guardian profile, she sounds amazing, will order immediately

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Hullygully · 02/07/2013 18:11

What's the best roth?
will look at Paula fox

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NotQuiteCockney · 02/07/2013 10:55

Sherwood Anderson isn't that male. (well, I mean, he was a male, but he wasn't butch with it.) I can't read Hemingway, or Updike, but Roth is fine, as is Steinbeck.

And please give Paula Fox a try, she is really really lovely.

pennyink · 02/07/2013 10:44

The Cellist of Sarajevo is a wonderful, wonderful story of the town when it was under siege. The best book I read last year.

mignonette · 02/07/2013 10:41

'The Midwife of Hope River' by Patricia Harman turned up this morning. Looks a good undemanding read. Not rocket science though.....If anybody loves food writing as much as i do then can I recommend two anthologies? Cornbread nation volumes 1-6 and Best Food writing 2000 to present year edited by Holly Hughes. Love them, re read them all the time.

Original poster
Hullygully · 01/07/2013 23:01

I can't read Philip Roth. Or John Updike. Or any of the so-called great American men of letters. They are so ravingly and horribly male.

With Calvino it was If On a Winter's Night and just the first few pages got on my nerves. It's that Oo look at me I'm clever clever and different.

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Original poster
Hullygully · 01/07/2013 22:59

Oh yes! Edward St Aubyn.

Magnificent.

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yesbutnobut · 01/07/2013 22:44

Have you read American Pastoral by Philip Roth? It's a tour de force - once you get past the first 70 or so pages.

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NotQuiteCockney · 01/07/2013 21:12

How about Paula Fox? The Widow's Children?

And what about Edward St Aubyn?

greenhill · 01/07/2013 20:14

I enjoyed reading The Stranger's Child, but felt it was better written than the plot deserved. The lack of resolution though right was disconcerting at the time.

greenhill · 01/07/2013 20:12

YY CT's Brooklyn was an annoying read as his heroine was so passive. And like so many male authors he believes that once a woman has slept with one man (her husband) she will sleep with any man that speaks to her, even if she dislikes him throughout the book. It was all about his desire and nothing to do with her.

I read a lot of Julian Barnes 15 or so years ago, now it gathers dust on a shelf.

I'm stalled in Italo Calvino's Folk Tales. I put it down ages ago and don't know why I don't want to continue with them. What gets on your nerves? Is it the sameyness of them?

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Hullygully · 01/07/2013 19:47

I like Colm Toibin (apart from the Irish girl going to the States and getting preg one) and John Banville.

Julian Barnes, not so much.

Italo Calvino got on my nerves and so I developed yet another prejudice about Mario...Really really like Primo Levi and Marquez.

I read a lot (relatively) of furrin stuff. Lot of Indian and lately a lot of Nigerian for some reason. And I had a Balkan phase

Slavenka Drakulic is superb.

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BooksandaCuppa · 01/07/2013 18:18

Stranger's Child has its moments - and has resonated longer than I expected; but I feel he's another author whose editor daren't edit him!

dotty2 · 01/07/2013 17:46

Hullygully - re judging people by their kindles, I was bored on a 7 hour flight last week and kept trying to sneak covert glances to work out what the guy next to me was reading on his. Font size too small.

Thinking about my earlier recommendation for rereading The Go Between, it would make a great pair with Alan Hollinghurst The Stranger's Child, which I also enjoyed this year.

louisianablue2000 · 01/07/2013 17:23

What about Irish writers like Colm Toibin or John Banville? If you like William Boyd have you read Julian Barnes? How much foreign fiction do you read, have you tried Italo Calvino or Mario Vargas Llosa.

This is such a great thread, a good reminder of some more classic books I've been meaning to read and some others I don't know yet.

Catmint · 01/07/2013 16:44

Just spotted your comment about Anita, OP Smile yes, indeed it is very comforting.

EldritchCleavage · 01/07/2013 09:39

Can't bear Dickens, the nauseating sentimentality...Little Dorrit. Say no more

I'm with Oscar Wilde on Little Dorrit: 'It would take a heart of stone not to laugh'-or was that The Old Curiosity Shop? But Barnaby Rudge and A Tale of two Cities (i.e. When Dickens actually did adventure) are both very good, I think.

James Salter is good, and Mary McCarthy (The Group, A Charmed Life).

If you like the sound of historical fiction with a dash of magic realism, the Neal Stephenson's The Baroque Cycle is worth a look. Most absorbing thing I've read in a long time, even spread over 3 books the size of doorstops.

NotQuiteCockney · 01/07/2013 09:06

I rate JCO's short stories much more than her novels.

Margaret Lawrence is ok. I don't like The Handmaid's Tale, but Atwood is ok.

If you like Wilder, you might well like Sherwood Anderson. He was a big influence on Hemmingway etc etc, and has a lovely sparse simple style. Oh, speaking of which, what about Steinbeck?

Original poster
Hullygully · 01/07/2013 08:27

I am thinking it will be interesting too, in a few years, to see what signifiers come into play when books/films/dvds etc are all invisible on their electronic storages. How will we judge each other? The horror.

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Original poster
Hullygully · 01/07/2013 08:26

mig - I was ever so slightly obsessive about books for many years, had to have the complete set of any author I liked etc and would rebuy those that weren't returned after lending. In a few years when dd is off I plan a much lighter more peripatetic life so I need to shed. I am trying to adjust my mindset to a love of electronic storage that can travel with me...

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Original poster
Hullygully · 01/07/2013 08:22

Jane Urquhart is great. I made a special trip to see the Canadian memorial at Vimy after the Stone one. But Away is best, yes.

Can't bear Dickens, the nauseating sentimentality...Little Dorrit. Say no more.

Like Thornton Wilder, have read a Wally Lamb, but can't remember which. Love Gissing.

YY early Atwood great, don't like Alias Grace and most of the later ones.

John Irving? Cider House Rukes an all time fave. All the others up to but not including Owen Meany after which his editor should have had the balls to tell him to cut the 400 pages about his current obsessions, be it tattoo parlours, logs...

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mignonette · 30/06/2013 21:36

Have read all Wally Lambs books. Liked 'She's Come Undone' best.

Yes to David Guterson, Elizabeth Strout- both excellent. Elizabeth Hyde recommended too as is Tom Perotta and 'Empire Falls' is an old favourite of mine from Russo...

Hully I like books as objects- the jacket design, typesetting everything. I also lend a lot out as I have so many and I can't lend a Kindle.

BooksandaCuppa · 30/06/2013 20:23

I love that whole Manawaka series. Not sure which is my favourite but I've probably read The Diviners and The Stone Angel the most.

I love earliest Atwood the most, too (with an exception for Alias Grace). Anyone else love Surfacing, The Edible Woman, Lady Oracle et al as much as me?