Recommend me contemporary fiction based on my likes please.

[nevergoogle]

So i loved

The long song, Andrea Levy
Small Island, Andrea Levy
The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
Brick Lane, Monica Ali
The kite runner, Khaled Hosseini

I was thinking about 'a suitable boy' by vikram seth.

What do you recommend?

TIA.

anyone?

Hmm how about any of these:

A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

The Little Stranger - Sarah Waters

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks - Rebecca Skloot (haven't read this but it's on my to read list - looks really interesting)

Gave my mum for Christmas The children's Book - A.S. Byatt and The Help - Kathryn Stockett and she thought they were both good.

You might like Paul Scott's Raj Quartet - it's a bit older, but not a bad read.

you might like Zadie Smith, and Kashuo Ishiguro (Never Let Me Go) as well.

yes, similar tastes there.
i have half of yellow sun, book thief, cloud atlas and the book seller of kabul all only half read on my book shelf.
not sure why i didn't finish them as was enjoying them but got distracted and never picked them up again.

the reluctant fundamentalist looks interesting.

i'm off to google the others.

thanks.

i've been disappointed with zadie smith.
thought 'on beauty' went nowhere.

thanks for the ideas kurri.
i'm searching them on amazon.

Amin Maalouf "Samarkand"

I was going to say A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry too. It is the most wonderful wonderful book, though not cheery!

Just read David Lodge Deaf Sentence, which is great.

The 19th Wife is a page-turner. I really enjoyed it, but it isn't top-quality literature.

A Fine Balance... very good book.

And Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children if you haven't read it. It is a masterpiece.

Poisonwood Bible first introduced me to Barbara Kingsolver, & there are a lot of other excellent books by her - mostly not the same (although the most recent, The Lacuna, is equally heavy & hard to get into)

The Bean Trees & Pigs in Heaven, which share the same characters (as each other, not as Poisonwood Bible!), are lovely . Prodigal Summer & Animal Dreams good too.

Have you read Life of Pi?

sorry, not clever enough for midnights hcildren, i tried that.

i'm going to go to the bookshop tomorrow with your suggestions and see what i can find.

life of pi. another unfinished book.

why do i have so many unfinished books?

Seconding 'Deaf Sentence' - very good

I really enjoyed susan hill's stuff, the ghost story stuff rather than the detectic=ve stuff, nd howards end is on the landing is a nice dip in and out of book]

michelle paver dark matter is a really good creepy ghost sory set in the antartic (sp?)

the little stranger by sarah waters as someone has already mentioned is good, a good, strange book for a cold winter afternoon is the peoples act of love by james meek.

Margaret atwood, the magic toyshop, the handmaids tale and alias grace

Grace owens short sories are good too, if not a bit depressing!

Life of Pi also hard to get into but worth persevering.

(I struggled with Poisonwood Bible, ditto, did you not find that?)

i think the longer a book is, the more likely it is that i'll get distracted by something else. a decent pace is required to keep me reading.

no, the poisonwood bible got my attention all the way through.

Ponders - Do you like Alice Munro too?

I'm pretty fond of The Bean Trees - do you have any other recommendations?

I have a list to take to the bookshop tomorrow.

vikram seth, a suitable boy
mohsin hamid, the reluctant fundamentalist
david ebershall, the 19th wife
rohinton mistry, a fine balance
kazuo ishiguro, never let me go

lots of other good ones there too, so will return to this thread when i'm done.

thanks.

I have read some Alice Munro, animula, but can't remember what

recommend nearly all the B Kingsolvers (not the non-fiction, there are a couple of eco/foodie books which are a bit disappointing when you realise).

I love most of \link{http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=anne+tyler&x=0&y=0\Anne Tyler}

most of \link{http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_1?_encoding=UTF8&search-alias=books-uk&field-author=Clare%20Chambers\Clare Chambers}

some of \link{http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_9_15?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=barbara+trapido&sprefix=barbara+trapido\Barbara Trapido} (liked Juggling & the Jack books iirc, but not Frankie & Stankie - haven't tried any others, will get some!)

& \link{http://www.amazon.co.uk/Family-Album-Penelope-Lively/dp/0141041226/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1\Family Album by Penelope Lively} - bookpeople had a 3-book deal of hers recently inc Family Album, worth a look

HTH

Many thanks, Ponders. Which Anne Tyler would you recommend starting with?

Now you're asking, animula - I'll have to do some flicking through. I know I always enjoy the Accidental Tourist, & I've read that one several times; I'll have to get back to you on the others

Many thanks, Ponders.

Have been tapping busily away on the Kindle, pinging orders to Amazon ....