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Please help me find some literary(ish) page turners!

91 replies

FatCatSkinnyRat · 12/03/2023 21:36

Dear readers,

In the next month I will be spending 70+ hours on planes as I jet around the world for a couple of family events.

I am loading up my kindle with some novels I have not read - so far I have Frankenstein and Half of a Yellow Sun waiting to go. Am considering Lessons in Chemistry but can see it divides the masses...... I think I need at least five more.

Can anyone recommend some more page turners please - quality fiction that you can't put down? I will definitely make good progress with the two above but might need to switch to something different at some stage - esp on the 13 hour flights!

Not really into thrillers unless it's something like A Secret History (part thriller).

Thanks everyone! Dreading the flights but looking forward to reading time.....

OP posts:
LysHastighed · 12/03/2023 23:04

Mr Norrell and Jonathan Strange
The Eyre Affair and the rest of the series (literary in a different sense of the word)
Something by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

Vargas · 12/03/2023 23:03

Anything by David Mitchell - the author not the comedian

Vargas · 12/03/2023 23:02

Wolf hall
Hamnet
Days without end
Olive kitteridge
The nickel boys
The Dutch House

EineReiseDurchDieZeit · 12/03/2023 23:00

The Children's Book by AS Byatt

HaggisBurger · 12/03/2023 22:56

mauvish · 12/03/2023 22:52

There are no "crossings out" showing on my screen!

Show quote history

None on my screen either. But these fall into the beach read category for me too - not literary(ish) page turners.

I’d second the Cazalet Chronicles and Life after Life.

mauvish · 12/03/2023 22:52

Luckingfovely · 12/03/2023 22:44

I'm not sure what the crossings out above are supposed to mean, but Elinor Oliphant and Gone Girl and both are both a very long way away from being literary. Elinor is quite a long way from even being readable, imo.

There are no "crossings out" showing on my screen!

BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz · 12/03/2023 22:46

The Night Circus

Annoyingwurringnoise · 12/03/2023 22:44

Recently I really liked ‘The Muse’ by Jessie Burton.

Luckingfovely · 12/03/2023 22:44

I'm not sure what the crossings out above are supposed to mean, but Elinor Oliphant and Gone Girl and both are both a very long way away from being literary. Elinor is quite a long way from even being readable, imo.

mauvish · 12/03/2023 22:41

The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock -- Imogen Hermes Gowar
Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine -- Gail Honeyman
Gone Girl -- Gillian flynn

(the above are all well written, "literary" books that I coudn't put down, but they're also light enough that you CAN put them down if you have to, and restart them easily!)

My daughter has very different tastes from mine and would probably suggest:
100 years of solitude -- Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Unbearable Lightness of Being -- Milan Kundera
The Time Travellers Wife -- Audrey Niffenegger

Flockameanie · 12/03/2023 22:41

The Cazalet books by Elizabeth Jane Howard.

That is all you will need!

anythinginapinch · 12/03/2023 22:39

Trollope. Barchester chronicles

RaininSummer · 12/03/2023 22:36

Enjoying Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver right now. Not quite sure if it hits your brief but it's quite different.

Santasoorplooms · 12/03/2023 22:35

Anything at all by Kazuo Ishiguro

ElizabethinherGermanGarden · 12/03/2023 22:34

A few years old now but Notes on an Exhibition by Patrick Gale fits the bill for me. Loved that book.

CrossPurposes · 12/03/2023 22:06

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters