Grabbing some reading time: Dec 2008 book thread

[EffiePerine]

Hope this works OK (PC v slow today). Could we start with recommendations? Then if people would like to swap books we can organise a method.

I suggest dividing your books by subject area so people can skim for what appeals to them. A quick post from me: will try to elaborate later.

Adventure
John Buchan, Huntingtower
(OK so the Richard Hannay books are great, but this has sinister Russians, a princess in a tower and a ragtag bunch of Glaswegian toughs. Great stuff)

Romance
Jennifer Crusie and Bob Meyer (Mayer?), Agnes and the Hitman
(Crusie's solo works are well worth hunting out, but this has the CIA and big explosions as well as cooking and relayshunships)

Biography
David Niven, The Moon's a Balloon
(in case you haven't read it already. Mostly outrageous lies but a very good read)

Fiction
William Boyd, The New Confessions
(just great)

Poetry
Roger McGough, Blazing Fruit
(if you only know his kids' stuff, read this. Funny and moving)

You'll note these are all pretty old, hope some of you have some more recent recommendations!

I like the headings, Effie. That's a good system and we can add others. Will be back on later!

To clarify: I'd suggest posting your own headings rather than utting and pasting or the list will get huge! I can then do a super table thingy once we have enough titles for those who like a handy reference

Some more from me:

Travel
Patrick Leigh Fermor, A Time of Gifts
(read the intro as well, v funny)
Wilfred Thesiger, Arabian Sands

Short stories
Saki (H H Munro) - any you can find, they're all brilliant
A S Byatt. Elementals

Children's books
Ann Brashares, The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (and the following 3 books)
Cynthia Voigt, Homecoming

Gah! Try again:

Travel
Patrick Leigh Fermor, A Time of Gifts
(read the intro as well, v funny)
Wilfred Thesiger, Arabian Sands

Short stories
Saki (H H Munro) - any you can find, they're all brilliant
A S Byatt. Elementals

Children's books
Ann Brashares, The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (and the following 3 books)
Cynthia Voigt, Homecoming

Just posting to book mark - will add when have a chance, great idea! Lovely to see your suggestions already - lots of things I haven't read!

Literary Fiction

These are my favourite books ever - beautifully written, but hugely involving human dramas.

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh - I know quite a few have read this but anyway - lush, posh, indulgent tale of a rather cold chap who gets drawn in by a posh family and ends up suckered by a stack of Catholic guilt.

The End of the Affair by Graham Greene - a short, elegant and passionate tale of a love affair which is far more about being left than love itself - and even spirituality (laced heavily with Catholic guilt again, can you see a theme here? I am not even a Catholic.

The Rabbit books by John Updike (a series of four books about the same flawed character: written roughly in 1960, 1970, 1980 and 1990 and set when they are written, so they have a really flavour of the times. I have heard Updike called misogynist, that he is a little too sympathetic to his selfish and rather unbrainy hero, but to me, he is incredibly insightful about human beings. Other books by the same author I have enjoyed are Couples, and Marry Me. He wrote a stack of novels and some of them are duds, but I don't hold it against him, he was a wonderful writer.

The Rotters Club and The Closed Circle by Jonathan Coe. The ins and outs of a bunch of grammar school lads and their families in an affluent suburb of Birmingham in the 1970s, and then a sequel when they are older. Moving.

Cynical Lad Lit with some genuine laughs plus touching bits so well worth reading but probably dogged by annoying main characters

Stretch, 29 by Damian Lanigan
Natural Selection by Bill Dare

For those who like Fairytales

The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly - a magical book, literally!

Cosy, comfort reading but still well written

The Cazalet Chronicle by Elizabeth Jane Howard - already recommended this to Turnip - there are four books in the series, about a posh family again, starting in the 1930s - hugely evocative, wonderful about details like clothes and nice houses and food, but really beautifully drawn characters that you care about and with whom one gets so involved.

Poetry for the Indulgent Romantic

Brian Patten (a companion to your Roger McGough, Effie) - Collected Love Poems or else Storm Damage

I am LOOKING for recommendations for easy reads, actually. I know nothing about chick lit but feel sure there must be some great ones out there and am in dire need of something easy and contemporary to read before bed. I really enjoyed the Twilight books, for instance (I know they are daft) and so anything anyone thinks is gripping in the same way...

I will be back with more I am sure....

Hello!
I am a bit nervous to join your reading thread as you all seem very high brow! And also you all seem to know lots of authors so I will probably mention something and you will actually have met the author or something! Haha. So you have to be nice to me. Also I am a poor geeky girl with a degree in Maths - not an English degree in sight.

However, LadyT I currently like easy reading books as well, am struggling to make it through anything! Not finished the Twighlight books yet but quite enjoying them, shall try and read the last two soon.

Right enough waffle, onto my recommendations

literary fiction

The grapes of wrath - put off reading for years after trying at aged 13, and expected it to be really hard going, read it in my 20s and couldn't put it down. I was sneaking out for a long lunch at work to finish it. God it is pretty harrowing though.

Catch 22 - bloody funny and moving at the same time. This is probably about the only book I will mention though that gets a bit hard going at times though. Well not hard going but LONG and kind of goes round in circles (but that's part of the point)

Jane Eyre - read a few times, always makes me cry. What a softie.

Catcher in the Rye - school book reading-tastic, but I love it!

Modern fiction

I think these are all quite well known, award winners, etc, but some may not have heard of them. They are kind of off the top of my head as well, so maybe not all time faves. All are in my opinion easy reads.

The Kite Runner and that chaps other one (forgotten its name). Khaled Hosseini

Life of Pi

Lots of Ian McEwan, in particular Atonement, A child in Time, On Chesil Beach, Enduring Love. Hated Saturday though. and amsterdam.

Monica Ali, Brick Lane

Half a yellow sun and Purple Hibiscus, loved these - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The time travellers wife.

chick lit

Partial to a bit of Bridget Jones

I like Kate Longs books. Trashy though.

Partial to Adele parks. They are really really trashy though.

Marian Keyes is the Queen of Chick Lit but I am not so keen. Particularly her later ones, the earlier ones are quite funny in places.

Children's/Teenage

Noughts and crosses - Malorie Blackman - LadyT these are really easy reading and gripping. But not romance in the same way as Twighlight - but similarly teenage fiction. I have only read the first one.

Adventure/thriller

Ken Follett - Pillars of the Earth - pillage, rape, adventure, a bit of romance, more pillage rape and adventure, and a bit of building churches thrown in. Gripping, a bit trashy, but massive fun.

Papillon - Henri Charriere, a classic.

scifi/fantasy
The chronicles of Thomas Covenant - stephen donaldson. Read these loads of times, also his "Mordants need" series. I LOVE them. I suspect it may be a teenage throwback though.

Oh and finally, Effie I have read New Confessions and I really didn't like it! I suspect I may be missing something as a friend whose opinion I trust lent it me as well as Any Human Heart. I really don't like the protagonists in either of his books. They are so mysognistic!! I have to confess to enjoying the bit at the end of any Human Heart where the protagonist has no money and has to eat dog food. Haha. I have the John Updike Rabbit books LadyT and have been avoiding them because of the mysoginist (is that spelt right?) thing. Have either of you read both? Should I give updike a try?

Right DS is grumpy with me (don't blame him).
Back soon if I think of more.

oh and children's - The Neverending Story - Michael Ende. I LOVE this. Better than the film!

LadyT - I'm with you, I love a bit of light chick lit, but I tend to get annoyed with it, so much of it is desperately poorly written (Bridget Jones being a noble exception). I find some of the republished early 20th century stuff is very good - not quite so literary, not exactly chick lit either, but a really good human stories. I'm thinking things like Cold Comfort Farm (Stella Gibbons), I Capture the Castle (Dodi Smith), Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (Winifried Watson). Written by women in the 30s/40s with no real aspirations to be "literary" but just really well observed human books. These are probably some of the best known/easy to get ones (mostly because they have all been made into films), but there are others. Persephone is great at publishing these kind of books - I've read a few in the list by Marghanita Laski. Also loved Hostages to Fortune by Elisabeth Cambridge - it kind of seemed very right about our time of life, all about a young woman having her children, watching them grow up. Very honest about the boring/difficult bits.

I also love Jonathan Coe - I'd add "What a Carve up" to the recommendations - its the first one I read and I have a soft spot for it, even if it is a little dated.

SL - Loved Half of a Yellow Sun etc - one of the best new books I have read in a long time.

Updike is one of these things I have been meaning to get round to, but haven't. I'm slightly put off by those big macho American "Important" authors, but that's probably unfair reverse prejudice. And I am partial to a bit of Philip Roth (especially the Plot Against America).

For "so called" childrens books I do like the Philip Pullman Dark Materials trilogy and also the older Susan Cooper, "The Dark is Rising Sequence"

Better stop, once I start on books I don't shut up, but I am sure there are more!

I'll be watching this and try to add a few myself (but as a geek like SL, I'm not v sophisticated when it comes to words). Can't wait to see your spreadsheet Effie!

For those looking for a bit of light reading, one I enjoyed is called Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips. Its a kind of romcom, but with a clever premise that makes it more interesting - the idea is that the Greek gods are down on their luck and living in a run down dump in Hampstead and get mixed up with a nerdy non-couple etc etc. Author was a couple of years below me at school, but that's neither here nor there really.

Effie - am very excited about John Buchan recommendation. I love the Hannay books. Also LadyT The End of the Affair is one of my all time favourites. Also love Jonathan Coe. Aye me. So many books. Here are my recommendations for now...

The Story of Lucy Gaunt - William Trevor. Bleak, but beautiful gripping writing. Actually love all of his books - Love and Summer was nominated for the Booker this year.

Sebastian Barry - A long long way. Set in Dublin in 1915-18. Really interesting perspective from Irish soldier serving in British Army. Modern Irish again. His most recent one is brilliant as well.

A fine Balance - Rohinton Minstry. If you've ever been to India, or want to go this is so evocative of Mumbai. A Family Affair is brilliant as well. Proper involving novels - really richly textured but enough of a plot to keep you reading.

Richard Yates I've yabbered on about before. Think The Easter Parade is probably my favourite.

Poetry
I like Brian P too. But am big Carol Ann Duffy fan. This is probably my favourite (why oh why do I sound like an 8 year old whenever I try to talk about literature I like)

Prayer

Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer
utters itself. So, a woman will lift
her head from the sieve of her hands and stare
at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.

Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth
enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;
then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth
in the distant Latin chanting of a train.

Pray for us now. Grade 1 piano scales
console the lodger looking out across
a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls
a child's name as though they named their loss.

Darkness outside. Inside, the radio's prayer -
Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.

Funny
PG Wodehouse - Jeeves and the Song of Songs. Hard to pick which one. But brilliant.

Thrillers
Robert Harris very good. Hard to beat Fatherland. But I really like the Roman ones as well - especially Pompeii

Aargh battery in laptop dying and I haven't even got onto biographies

Have just re- read cold comfort c too - great
.

Oooh. Very excited to find this.

I currently seek a varietal of book that I call "easy reads with a semblance of literary value". Just a semblance, mind. Have tried a few Marian Keyes and other quite trashy, but find them just OK.

LadyT - We have very similar favourite books!

SL - V similar re: Ian McEwan. I have loved, loved some of the ones I have read, but am on Saturday now and...meh. Not sure.

Here are some that I have read since the DS was born that were not terribly challenging reads (some more than others) but were satisfying:

Margaret Drabble - A Summer Bird Cage, Jerusalem the Golden, The Millstone

W. Somerset Maugham - Up At the Villa, The Human Factor

Edith Wharton - Glimpses of the Moon

Sebastian Faulks - On Green Dolphin Street, Charlotte Gray

The 3 Margaret Drabble books and Maugham's Up At the Villa are very short and readable.

Off the top of my head, Other favourites of mine are:

-Ronan Bennett - The Catastrophist
-Shirley Hazzard (one of my all time favourite contemporary authors) - The Transit of Venus, The Great Fire
-Tom Robbins - Skinny Legs and All
-Graham Greene - The Heart of the Matter, The End of the Affair
-And a catalogue of Canadian writers, mostly quite dark and depressing - but happy to pass on a list for anyone interested!

Some more Chick Lit type ideas:
-Katherine McMahon - The Rose of Sebastopol (very pacey historical fiction/love story)
-Melissa Bank - The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing, The Wonder Spot
-Helen Fielding - Cause Celeb (another one by Bridget Jones author)
-Sarah Waters - The Night Watch

OOh, just wanted to say that I LOVED the Mordants Need books. A teenage throwback for me too! Though I susepct the Thos Covanent books would be just as good on a re-reading.

More from me later...

Oooh, Mom - is The Catrastrophist the one set in the 60s in...Congo? If so, that's a great book.

And the baby, or rather, the millstone in The Millstone is called Octavia

Urbane, I enjoyed the CAD poem, thanks! I may very well read A Fine Balance. I am interested in books about India.

Summer, I think Updike is probably a love or hate. Maybe start with Marry Me (I would lend you mind but it's in storage) or pick it up in the book shop and flip through, and if you like the style of the first few pages, have a go. If you don't, avoid all his books! FWIW I have never got on with Bellow or Roth so am not neessarily a pusher of The Great American Novel.

Oh and for any Maths graduates and the like everybody I know seems to have done English or History or summat like that so anything else is hugely exotic to me.

My own tastes are so varied that it would be a shame if someone was worried to come on here unless they were wearing a purple smoking jacket and were well versed in the obscurer novels of Balzac.

Personally I just want to hear about stuff people love, whatever it is!

Lady - Yes, the Congo one. Such a beautifully written book. I have been a bit disappointed by other Ronan Bennett books because they don't compare for me. But he has new ones I need to try.

A Fine Balance is wonderful. I worked on urban poverty projects in India and I can tell you that the story is quite truth to life, unfortunately.

Ooh Effie, excited to hear someone else who like teh Stephen Donaldson books! I thought it was just me, he has written a new series of the Thomas Covenant ones and they are a bit rubbish I think!

Urbane I know what you mean about sounding like a 6 year old. Mind you I would rather sound like an enthusisatic 6 year old (This book was GREAT! It was funny!, etc) than a pretentious fool which is how I suspect I would sound if I tried too hard to describe what I think of things! Also with limited time it's hard to be eloquent I think.

oh and what I said about you lot all likely to know the authors or something, I now have to say that I acutally know Marie Phillips who wrote Gods Behaving Badly. I was at uni with her. I can second invisible's recommendation, I was going to recommend it myself but I couldn't figure out if I was just recommending it because I know her! It is light reading, funny and clever. Probably more clever if you know Greek Classics, as I think lots of references went whoosh over my head.

SL - I was friends with Marie's big sis at school, so didn't really know Marie that well. In fact, I also have a dark past as a mathmo. One of my favourite popular maths type books ever is "Godel Escher Bach" (Douglas Hofstader) in case anyone is interested. A fascinating really aborbing meld of maths, music and art. Although I last read it in my teens so will probably be sorely disappointed if a try it again...

urbane - love the mistry books. If you like them, also try Vikram Chandra if you haven't already. Same subject matter, but somehow a bit gustier, good but in a different way.

I am going to the library to see what I can find!

Wow, some great recommendations on here. Will def be trying the Mistry book, John Connelly and may even try John Updike (have avoided him till now). I like the sound of the Greek gods book as well, I did a couple of years of classical studies at uni (long since forgotten). Am def up for nice light reads.

Malorie Blackman: have never got round to reading her stuff but DH (who worked on school reading clubs in a former life) rates her highly.

Wodehouse: would recommend any tbh, even the potboilers are well-written. My favourites are the Blandings ones as I like the idea of Lord Emsworth reading his book on pigs under the dining room table. But now we've found the complete Fry & Lauries Jeeves & Wooster on Love Film's online service I'm remembering how great the Jeeves books are.

Urbane: I can bore for Britain on Buchan, he wrote vast amounts so I keep an eye out for second-hand stuff. If you liked the Hannay books I'd recommend the Courts of the Morning which is a Sandy Anstruther book. His best (IMO) is Sick Heart River but it also v gloomy and v Presbyterian.

Another recommendation from me:
Fiction Vikram Seth, An Equal Music. Never managed to get through A Suitable Boy but this is a lovely lovely book. And some geeky interesting bits about playing in a (IIRC) string quartet.

Also, since I can't actually find my copy of the Count of Monte Cristo I pinched...

Crime/Thriller
Kyril Bonfiglioli, The Mortdecai Trilogy. A bit slow to start with, but I'm on ch 5 of the first book and it's shaping up to be a corker.

Also, any Dorothy L Sayers, but if you haven't read aby of hers then start with Whose Body. In fact, Googling it I came across a free online version here: digital.library.upenn.edu/women/sayers/body/whose-body.html. Her best is prob Gaudy Night but it's also the most serious, there's a charm in the earlier, lighter books that gets lost along the way IMO.

Apologies in advance for the epic post, my longest MN one ever I think!

Adventure/ Thrillers

I love Sherlock Holmes and Father Brown stories for comfort reading

Lots of American crime fiction:
Elmore Leonard
Robert Parker
George Pelecanos
Tony Hillerman (novels are all set on Navajo Reservation, great stuff)

Classics

Wilkie Collins is my favourite, Woman in White and The Moonstone but also No Name and Armadale and some of the short stories (novellas really I think)

Also do love a bit of Dickens

Am a big fan of Robertson Davies, Canadian writer who is a bit unknown here (I think?) but huge over there ? wrote several brilliant trilogies set in the early part of the 20th century through to, I think, the 80s. Cornish Trilogy is my favourite, which deals with stage magicians, operas and adultery, amongst other things.

Biography

Don?t, to my shame, really read enough of it - or non-fiction generally. But best I?ve ever read though is Jenny Uglow?s Hogarth biography.

Fiction

Absolute favourite books of recent years are

Carter Beats the Devil ? Glen David Gold (new one Sunnyside also good)
The adventures of Kavalier and Clay ? Michael Chabon (actually anything by him, think he?s my favourite writer)
Cloud Atlas ? David Mitchell
Poisonwood Bible ? Barbara Kingsolver
Wolf Hall ? Hilary Mantel (have banged on about this a lot recently)
Love a lot of magical realism: Garcia Marquez, Italo Calvino (Invisible Cities)

Anything by Jane Smiley, Thousand Acres (modern version of King Lear) is great but my favourite is probably Horse Heaven which is like, if you can imagine such a think, a high class version of Jilly Cooper..

Anything by William Boyd (new one is by my bed)

Salman Rushdie - all of em really

Poetry
WH Auden
TS Eliot (I?m feeling more pretentious by the minute here but I do love him!)

Plays
Tom Stoppard, anything really, but particularly Arcadia which makes me cry

Childrens
ANYTHING by Diana Wynne Jones, best children?s writer ever
E. Nesbit - Five Children and It/ Wouldbegoods/ Railyway Children etc etc. Never dates, probably because she was a bit ahead of her time anyway
Susan Cooper - Dark is Rising sequence
Ursula le Guin - Wizard of Earthsea books (gave me terrible nightmares as a kid though!)
Neil Gaiman's kids books (actually he is a great writer, his adult novels are superb too particularly American Gods)

Comfort reading
Don?t really do Chick Lit, I just can?t get into it any more ? I like Kate Atkinson who I think is quite easy reading but very well written too, plus have a real fondness for Terry Pratchett. And I could read Douglas Adams over and over and over again. And do.

Mom ? DH plays chess with Ronan Bennett! Very nice man. The Catastrophist is wonderful but I think his English Civil War recent novel is even better: Havoc In Its Third Year

Urbane - Sebastian Barry ? Long Way Home is superb isn?t it? One of those books you have to read slowly because the prose is so dense and so poetic

Lady T I also love What a Carve Up ?for a book pillorying Thatcherism it seems strangely undated

Effie - John Buchan?s other books sound great, will look out for them. Can't beat a bit of swashbuckling adventure. One day I will find out what a swash is and buckle it.

Invis ? I LOVE Vikram Chandra, partiaulrly Red Earth & Pouring Rain, what a fantastic novel that it. Did you like his latest? I couldn't really get into it, which was a great shame as it was SUCH a long time after Red Earth and I was so looking forward to it.

Oh and someone mentioned William Trevor ? he used to be my grandparents lodger about oh, must be 40 years ago!

Phew, I need to sit down now. And walk AWAY from the computer, and Amazon...

invisible xposted with you back there when you said you know Marie's sister. Small world!

effie I have an Equal Music on my bookshelf, I shall have a look at it, as I don't think i have even tried it

ladyT I have Updikes Rabbit books in an omnibus, been on my bookshelf for at least since I moved here (4 years), bought 2nd hand ages ago. So I will start with them and if I don't like maybe I can post to someone on here to enjoy!

kp I have read lots of the same books as you, though I couldn't finish Carter Beats the Devil and although I loved Cavalier and Clay to start with I got fed up of it towards the end, and found it a bit depressing. loved cloud atlas, poisonwood bible and like garcia marquez as well, paticularly 100 yrs of solitude. Strangely can't do Rushdie though, just find it too hard going, though am constantly saying I will try midnight's children again.

Oh and I failed to finish the Sebastian Barry book I started, I find his writing quite detatched and I didn't really enjoy it, however I keep thinking about the storyline of it and wondering how it ends so I should finish it. I have been doing a lot of not finishing books lately, except trashy ones, I have a brain made of mush.

Oh and re chicklit, i should say I am not really recommending Adele Parks books, I think they are a fair bit trashy, but I was trying to think of a chick lit author that I have read a few of and didn't think was absolutely awful. I don't know why I read them really!! BUt i thought seeing as I will admit to reading chick-lit I should at least come up with an author I think is ok.
Oh also I liked Polly Williams The Rise and Fall of the Yummy Mummy (what a bloody awful title though) - read another by her though and it was rubbish.

Oh and does anyone have any historical fiction authors to recommend? I am partial to a bit of Philippa Gregory, nice and easy to read, anyone know anything similar??

Oh and my haul from the library today is the first of the Cazalet books, The Rotters Club and The ROse of Sebastapol. AS recommended by LadyT (first 2) and Mom. I want to read them now and quit what I am currently reading (which is Emma Darwin's A Secret Alchemy, recommended by my mum but which I am not really enjoying). But that will be another book quit!!

SL - I love Rushdie, but not Midnight's Children. I can dig up others I've liked and you might try those instead? "Shame" comes to mind as one I liked.

And I would def quit what you're reading. There's too little reading time these days and too many good books waiting out there! I might take my own advice and cut "Saturday" free. Just can't get into it.

Mom Saturday does get better but still not one of his good ones. A bit pretentious I think.

Oh I just remembered another thing I like reading, I LOVE the Ladies Detective Agency (Alexander McCall Smith) books, which obviously everyone will have heard of and probably tried, but they just put a smile on my face! They are one of very few books that both DH and I like as well (along with Harry Potter - yes I am a fan and also Robert Harris)

MoM shall check out other Rushdie then - I reckon they will be easily obtainable from teh library too. Right I am now going to take your advice and start on the first Cazalet book in bed. mmm.