To think so many books these days are fairly crap and unoriginal

[goddessoftheharvest]

I'm going away for the weekend, so I decided to get some new books for my kindle.

There's thousands of books in the Kindle store, it shouldn't be so hard to locate something decent!

They all seem to be trashy crime (there's a time and a place for a good crime thriller, but really)

Or else they have awful twee names, along the lines of "The Cotton Candy Teashop For Hopeless Cat Ladies In Badly Patterned Retro Swing Dresses"

Or they look ok, then you read the description and it's one of those plots where Mandy finds a letter in her granny's shoe, and for some reason this means that every other chapter flashes back to Cynthia in 1914, who has a dark secret that is actually bloody underwhelming, once you are 554 pages in.

Then there's the ones where the author can write well, but they try to be a bit too highbrow, and they churn out some huge fucking tome which tarts itself out as "a moving depiction of the disintegration of a marriage",when really it's about Barbara finding out that Cyril has been shagging round with the lady in the chemist.

I love books, and I'm not even that picky. I don't think it has to make big statements about love, or war. I'm not adverse to trash, especially when it's fairly well written, you can tell the author has just had a good time writing it, tongue firmly lodged in cheek

Everyone seems to feel their book has to be deep, to say something really original and meaningful and subversive. Either that or it's a story about Mary Sue opening a fucking organic cupcake shop

AIBU? Suggestions welcome, by the way. So far I've only downloaded a book about Nepalese cookery,which is lovely but not exactly what I'm looking for

K turns into a bug, though, and that is widely accepted to be a litererary classic.

A FUCKING CHAIR?!

Weirdly, that's kind of made me want to read it now

YADDNBU OP. Your post was far more interesting than anything I've read recently. I like big American family sagas such as Jonathan Franzen might write. If anyone has any similar recommendations, I'd appreciate it.

I must confess as a lit grad my first thought on seeing the thread title was memories of my first lecturer telling us there's no such thing as original since the Bible and Greek and Roman myths and that there's only 7 plots.

This is basically true but a good writer will refresh and entertain, a great writer will make you forget that this is true.

Kate Atkinson is AMAZING. But whenever I experience fiction fatigue I return to old favourites and the classics.

If quirky is your thing it doesn't get much quirkier than Tristram shandy and pretty much anything by James Joyce!

There are some interesting new writers coming through thanks to the new ease of self publishing, but they're hidden by the overwhelm amount of bad ones.

Remember how amazing having 300 TV channels was meant to be? Still fuck all worth watching

I couldn't agree more. Like an earlier poster I gave up on modern fiction years ago.

Recommendations:

Only one for kindle unlimited and that's Bill Wahl The art of impossibility. Also his short stories collection Existence.
His books are also cheap to buy as first novelist but I loved them.

Where'd you go Bernadette? was enjoyable.
K pax Gene Brewer (but only the first and original novel).
Hey Nostradamus! Doug Coupland.

I love Lisa Jewell novels. I think she is very good at exploring the emotions of her characters and the dynamics of their relationships. 'The House We Grew Up In' was a fascinating story about a woman who obsessively hoards and the effect it has on the rest of her family. It made me think a lot about how families cope when a relative has mental health issues. I have just finished 'The Girls'. I enjoyed it so much I wanted to download another one straight away but I'm trying to watch the pennies at the moment!

Non fiction: Shame Jon Ronson was excellent.

Bander Yes but Kafka let us know that in the first sentence. Mercifully it was also a short story. Not the 'twist' to pages of flowery prose that ended up going nowhere. (The brother disappears. The protagonist works out he's some kind of Klappstuhl, folds him up and takes him home with her.) A classic it's certainly not. I might have to go and now watch Peter Capaldi in Franz Kafka's it's a wonderful life though

Raskolnikovs I assume with that name you've read Russian authors?

Also waterland Graham swift
Behind the scenes at the museum and life after life by Kate Atkinson
Various by Alice walker (the color purple) Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou,

Cheesy but good - Master of the game.

Very very cheesy - Lace

One of the things I dislike about Lisa Jewell is her name she chose it to be girly and sparky or some such crap.

Maybe I'll call myself Daisy Diamond!

Anyway, I find her characters a bit shallow/ unreal.

Just when I lost all hope of decent fiction I discovered Alice Munro.

Am rationing myself, so I don't read them too quickly.

I saw her at a lit festival around the time of 'When will there be Good News?' and she was fabulous. I'm a total i total jealous fangirl!

Behind The Scenes is my fave book of all time

ha epic fail - my lap top is being a huge wanker !

K turns into a bug, though, and that is widely accepted to be

Due in no small part to the calibre of the execution, not the premise alone.

he turns into a chair. Yep, a fecking chair.

I was offended enough at the twee title but a brother who turns into a bloody chair? It's more than I could cope with. NO to books with characters turning into furniture.

YOU CAN SAMPLE BRIAN BLESSED'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY ON KINDLE YES BY MY BEARD IT IS THIS SHOUTY!!!!

I ONCE HAD A SEX DREAM ABOUT DEAR BRIAN. TWAS ALSO QUITE SHOUTY. AND I WAS DISMAYED TO WAKE UP IN A STATE OF AROUSAL.

Sorry OP for sullying your thread.

Yes for behind the scenes - awesome book! Also LOVE Louis de bernieres - the South American trilogy he did before captain Corelli are breathtakingly brilliant

just abandon the idea of reading any new fiction and download a stack of Daphne du Maurier

Agree. Just read The Miniaturist (don't) and now reading Jamaica Inn and, oh, the difference. That's not a fair comparison really but...

I loved Americanah. fresh and original voice and she writes so well!

( ain't no damn cupcakes in it neither...!) 😁

I have always insisted that that story of Kafka's is a literary classic only because novellas are a convenient length for academic study. Long enough for there to be substance enough to analyse, short enough that you can get in done within a couple of terms.

As an ordinary reader without looming examinations, you can brag you've "read a book by Kafka" (as opposed to short stories by the same) after 50-70 pages (depending on whether you're reading it in German or English), which is incredibly good value, compared to the commitment required to say the same of Tolstoy.

I've just discovered Maggie Shipstead and although she only has two books so far, they're both fantastic.

Seconding Lionel Shriver, although you can't read too many in a row or you will end up hating the world (if you don't already).

If you fancy dipping your toes into Fantasy I am devouring Robin Hobbs' Farseer books.

Oh yes, they're excellent, and the first in the set and following sets is on offer at present!

Don't give up on modern fiction, there's loads if good stuff out there. Better than some of the canon. Just be discerning. I am.reading Marlon James A Brief History of Seven Killings and Kazuo Ishiguro's The Buried Giant. Great books and great writers.

www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/brian-blessed-talks-peppa-pig-ellie-goulding-collaboration-and-his-trend-setting-beard

www.theguardian.com/stage/2015/oct/07/brian-blessed-i-helped-a-woman-giving-birth-under-a-tree-deliver-her-baby

for you mitzy as you are such an...erm....ardent^ fan! Adore the man.If I have to use the term national treasure, I'll have him.