Anyone fancy a chat about books?

[Pumperthepumper]

November is always my best reading month, I love cosying up with a blanket and a good read. I’m currently reading What Are You Looking At? 150 Years of Modern Art in the Blink of an Eye, which is amazing but needs a bit of attention so it’s taking me ages to get through it, and The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, which is just ok. What are you reading just now?

Talking of bad books, a PP mentioned A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. I really disliked this and it took me aaaages to finish it. Sorry - I hope you get more out of it than I did

Just finished 2, Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine. Loved it as I idenfied with her so much.
Elizabeth is Missing, which I was absolutely hooked on. I would never have chosen it if I had known what it was about at the beginning, but it completely blew me away and taught me a great deal.

I am about to start The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto. I really like Mitch Albon but I have never met anyone else who has read his books.

Another poster above has, but I had to come on and say that I've read him and think he's rubbish and twee; and I read Frankie Presto and thought it was rubbish and twee - there's a million better music books out there.

For recent light reading, I loved Eleanor Oliphant.

Kate Atkinson can't put a foot wrong for me.

I loved "The Night Circus" if you're ok with magic.

I'm going to look out for Sweatpea

Just finished Booker Prize nominee The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner. About a woman's experience of life in an L.A. prison following a murder conviction and so much more. Devastating but I loved it.

God, keep away from Hannah Yanagihara’s A Little Life, which is pile-it-high misery porn, and I find Mitch Alborn unbearably saccharine and Hallmark card -ish.

To whoever liked Andre Acinan’s Call Me By Yiur Name upthread, he has a new novel out.

Just finished Normal People by Sally Rooney (another Booker prize nominee). I enjoyed it. She hits quite small nuances of human nature and psychology. Quite insightful at time. Though the style is irritating. No quotation marks for speech, making it like a endless stream of consciousness.

Now seeing I literally just finished it, I'm off to get the next book from my pile of to-reads (some of which have been mentioned up-thread)

@Stripy, a friend who just finished Rooney’s first novel, Conversations With Friends, described it as ‘Bridget Jones’s Diary with a better class of degree’. I think that’s unfair, but there’s no denying that both her novels to date are about clever, skinny, quirky, chain-smoking young female Trinity students who talk a lot, in a will-they-or-won’t-they relationship.

I’ve had conversations with friends on my bedside table for ages, I just can’t get into it. Just finished 7 Deaths but wasn’t a fan. It was too sci-fi for me.

Is Seven Deaths the Agatha Christie-ish murder mystery where a guy who keeps body-hopping has to solve it or keep reliving it?

I quite liked Conversations With Friends, but if you blanked out the character names, you could probably swap entire paragraphs between that and Normal People without the reader noticing.

I couldn't stand Conversations With Friends, I hated all the characters, they were all really annoying idiots who deserved all the shit that happened to them, and the writing was just juvenile...IMO. As you can probably tell, I was actually quite angry that I'd bothered reading it!

Then keep away from Normal People, salty, because the main difference is that the ‘will they get/stay together’ duo are school mates who go to university at the same time.

Love reading anything by Sarah Dunant - fantastic period books about Venice, Rome etc. She does some brilliant books about the Borgia. Riveting.

I’ve had so many people tell me they didn’t really like Normal People by Sally Rooney. I do want to read Mars Room by Rachel Kushner though!
I’m reading 9 Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty and finding it a little... odd... so far. Started off quite entertaining enough so I’ll keep going.
Also reading the proof of The Wych Elm by Tana French which is good for reading by the fire on an autumnal day...
Have ordered Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie as I’m annoyed with myself for not having read it yet. Extra annoyed as I’m pretty sure I used to have a copy and it seems to have gone AWOL.

I’m reading The Valley of Amazement by Amy Tan. Only been on my shelf for four years! It’s a long read and a slow read for me but I’m enjoying it.

ooh a book thread! Totally agree with those saying A Little Life is misery porn; good lord it's appallingly depressing and hard going.

I've just finished All The Light We Cannot See, which was very good, and On Chesil Beach. Agree that Pachinko is a good read, as is Silence of The Girls, and i also enjoyed Madeline Millers Circe.

Next on the agenda are the Discovery of Witches series, a book about Margaret Fuller called A New American Life, and Old Baggage by Lissa Evans.

I have just finished The Grapes of Wrath - really compelling.

Now I am halfway through the Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. I'm enjoying it but not nearly as much as I enjoyed her first novel.

I'm reading "Stoner" by John Williams. It's a quiet classic, and "the greatest novel you've never read" apparently.

Not much happens in it, but it's skilfully written and reasonably enjoyable.