Properly literary fiction vs just fiction

Also...
The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
Station Eleven - Hilary St John Mandel
Freedom - Jonathan Franzen

Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson and Pigeon by Alys Conran. Just stunning on both counts.

It's a book of short stories but it's brilliant: Battle Born by Claire Vaye Watkins. She was brought up in Nevada and all the stories are set in that area. It has such a strong sense of place, unique characters and something a little unexpected.

I agree with Elizabeth Strout, I loved Olive Kitteridge and Lucy Barton. I have also recently discovered Hannah Kent, Helen Dunmore and Sarah Moss and am very much enjoying their writing. The Power by Naomi Alderman is fantastic too, I've been recommending it to everyone!

A little life is harrowing but spectacular.
I loved The Luminaries but it was so long I nearly had to restart it once finished as there were so many intertwinings of characters.

I've made a list to start ordering.

I'd like to add
Commonwealth - Anne Pattchett
The bricks that built the houses - Kate Tempest
Anyting by Donal Ryan - The spinning heart, The thing about December, All we shall know.
Donna Tartt's The Little friend was much better then the Goldfinch.
While I know many didn't enjoy Ellena Ferrante series - Days of Abandonment - what a book!
I'd finally add any of Iain Banks fiction, science fiction is not my bag.

Great thread, thanks, OP. Most of my favourites have already been mentioned, such as Margaret Atwood, Sarah Waters, Kate Atkinson, Jonathan Coe & AS Byatt. I would also suggest:

• Penelope Lively's books. Lovely prose and always worth reading. Start with 'Moon Tiger' (won the Booker in 1987?) or 'The Photograph'.
• Patrick Gale. Again, lovely writing. My favourite is 'Notes on an Exhibition'
• 'Notes on a Scandal', by Zoe Heller, is a good read. Ditto 'Falling', by Elizabeth Jane Howard (about a conman who preys on women).

Couldn't bear 'Cloud Atlas'. A real Marmite of a book, I find. But 'Black Swan Green' by the same author, David Mitchell, is really good. And thanks to the PP who mentioned 'English Passengers' by Matthew Kneale. Absolutely hilarious.

Well, that's good to know! Perhaps I shouldn't take any suggestions from you either. I quite liked Jonathan Strange etc but wouldn't put it isa favourite - too convoluted.

I quite like Sarah Waters, though, but think her later ones aren't as good as the earlier ones. I really didn't like the most recent one.

ontopofthesunset you just listed 5 of my least favourite novels ever! You only have to add Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell and you'd have the set! I'm afraid I don't think I would be able to take a recommendation from you. A bit concerned about Americanah as that's on my 'to read' list but also one of your favourites!

As to the original question Fingersmith fits the bill for me. In fact anything by Sarah Waters - proper page turners. Fingersmith is the best though.

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox.

Couldn't finish All the Light we Cannot See.

Chavelita so jealous that you will be seeing Hilary Mantel's Reith lecture! I just googled and it's in Manchester and I'm in London, but I might apply for tickets anyway. Re the third Cromwell novel, I know the probable publication date keeps being pushed back, so I hope she isn't suffering tremendous anxiety in the writing of it - just taking the time she needs. I hope she'll produce that manuscript from under her arm! ...I am very eager to read Beyond Black now. I must also google Barbara Trapido as I've never heard of her.
Ontopofthesunset I couldn't agree more about The Goldfinch, I thought it had huge problems (although I don't want to start a bunfight about Donna Tartt!).

Do say what you think of Beyond Black putting -- I find it more genuinely unsettling than almost anything I've read, and it freaked out a lot of my third years when I taught it years ago on a Gothic novels course.

I am going to see HM give a Reith lecture in June and will be suppressing my urge to hiss 'When is The Mirror and the Light going to be done?' any time she pauses for breath. But everyone will be thinking it, anyway, so perhaps she'll say 'Funny you should ask!' and produce a complete MS from under her arm...

For anyone who hasn't already discovered her, and likes literary comic novels - Barbara Trapido? Start with Brother of the More Famous Jack (lower-middle class undergraduate fascinated by the bohemian family of her philosophy professor, then meets them again in adulthood after a long gap), and its sort-of sequel The Travelling Horn Player (focuses on the resulting marriages and children of the first novel) -- lots of characters coming together and apart and coincidences, like a Shakespeare comedy, and patterning via 19thc German song cycles and The Magic Flute, if that doesn't sound too mad.

Books I thought were great or at least very interesting in the last few years:

Cloud Atlas (and other David Mitchell)
Possession
Wolf Hall/Bring Up the Bodies (and other Mantel)
John Updike's Rabbit series
A Fine Balance
The Left Hand of Darkness (and other Le Guin)
Half of a Yellow Sun/Americanah
The Luminaries

Books I've seen mentioned on here that I couldn't stand or thought were massively overrated:

The Goldfinch - ludicrous plotting, implausible behaviours and one main character who sounds like Ali G
All the Light We Cannot See - overwritten and too highly stylised, daft plot
Narrow Road to the Deep North - just a very bad book

Many of my favourites have already been mentioned (Cloud Atlas, The Children's Book by AS Byatt, Barbara Kingsolver, Donna Tartt) but can I add A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra.

badkitty and now I am adding English Passengers to my reading pile! Agree that the ending of Golden Hill was anticlimactic.

Has anyone else read English Passengers by Matthew Kneale? Brilliantly inventive, I love the use of language and dialects to create the unique voices of the different characters, also very funny in places despite the tragic nature of the subject matter. I'm now reading and loving This Thing of Darkness as English Passengers put me in a sailing mood! Also second Golden Hill (although I didn't think the ending lived up to the rest of the book) and All The Light We Cannot See.

Sonotkylie, I knew that was for me. :) I think you are right about the female characters in Golden Hill. [spoiler alert for anyone who hasn't read it yet] The final, shocking scene between Tabitha and Smith is all about a highly intelligent woman driven mad by the repressive role to which she is relegated.
Chavelita I agree that Hilary Mantel is a goddess! (And I have just bought Beyond Black on your recommendation.) I thought the Cromwell novels were completely mesmerising. Then again, a friend who is a serious reader couldn't get past the first fifty pages of Wolf Hall. I honestly think she is one of those writers with whom your brain either "clicks" or doesn't.
One more recommendation: The Sympathiser by Viet Thanh Nguyen.

I can see why Rachel Cusk is divisive Chavelita and I need to read more of her writing to form a fuller view. I am going through a strange stage though as I am seeking out Ali Smith too! I am not sure either of them fulfil the plot criteria but the writing is worth working at and I enjoy the change of pace.
Its funny, I enjoyed We are All Completely Beside Ourselves but don't feel I loved it as many have done (or probably as I should!). Beautifully written but also great plot - maybe I read it too quickly?

Rachel Cusk is a divisive figure -- I really admired her prose when I was younger (and I thought Outline was brilliant), but I sometimes now find, rereading her earlier stuff, that it's rather overwrought for my tastes. Though Country Life remains extremely funny.

Hilary Mantel is a goddess who walks among us. Though again, I now really dislike her novels before Fludd, and still prefer the brilliant Beyond Black to either of the Cromwell novels.

I don't see that sentence as at all problematic, Cote. It's grammatically unorthodox, but the meaning in clear, and it works well in context, if I'm remembering the context properly?

I liked Elizabeth Strout's Lucy Barton because it was so slight - as I get older I am enjoying sparer novels more. (Olive Kittredge is excellent, though.) I loved the latest Gwendoline Riley, also very short.

Just reread my pp and reference to female characters was to Golden Hill and in reply to puttingthegenieback. Sorry. Not had coffee at that stage and it shows!

"Yes Hilary Mantel writes superb prose"

A what? Wolf Hall was excruciating with its ungrammatical, nonsense prose in present tense. An example:

Finally, he thinks, I must end this: can it be true, he wonders, that as a subject should, I really love my king?

Yes Hilary Mantel writes superb prose.
Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge is great. But I found Lucy Barton too slight to be great.
I agree with PP who said We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves. That is oe of the finest books I've read in years, in terms of prose quality and structure, but it clearly divides people.
Adichie writes brilliant prose but I never quite get lost in her novels the way I want to.

But I do get stuck with modern prose. If you read Graham Greene or Steinbeck or Fitzgerald or Mansfield or Austen - any of the classics, then read a modern 'great' it's like wading through lumpy porridge. Not sure why.

Oh my goodness, how did I forget Hilary Mantel? I should be shot! Maybe we were just taking her as read (apologies for pun).

I wonder whether the female characters reflect the time and lack of 'place' for women as they exist either as family or strumpet rather than having a proper 'stage'?

I also forgot Rachel Cusk. I have only read Outline, which I thought was chick lit until I read a review somewhere. It's short episodes, so doesn't build a great narrative, but I thought it was brilliant for writer's craft. Great for a change.

I loved a light between oceans as well (film isn't a patch on the book). It's great writing and most of the characters are pretty decently portrayed. It's a hard hard book to read in terms of the topic (miscarriage) but so very good. Again I cried my eyes out

I posted before I read most of the threads, I can recommend Kate Atkinson too. Read quite a few of hers and one my husband agrees are also good.
I can recommend the kite runner too. Such a moving story, I cried buckets

I am bookmarking this! I'm always looking for decent books to read and constantly disappointed with those that have 'amazing' 'fantastic' 5 star reviews.

My favourite book in the world is shantaram by Gregory David Roberts. Supposedly a true story but I highly doubt it. Nevertheless it is a wonderful tale of Indian culture and life, the descriptions are colourful and the whole book gripped me