Coming off a literary high - please help

[CoteDAzur]

I just read Cloud Atlas and This Thing Of Darkness in quick succession, both epic, fantastic books of great scope and vision.

Now I don't now what to do with myself. Read another book, but what? What can I read now that won't be a huge disappointment after these two wonderful books that I have just finished?

And who the merry hell is Jouce?

Pynchon is good, too. Crying of Lot 49 (little); Gravity's Rainbow (big).

I dunno. I tend to scoff at books which sincerely imagine the future 20,000 years hence. Doesn't mean they're not good.

The only Pynchon I've read is Vineland. Am I missing something? It was pure drivel, from start to finish. Author's intellectual masturbation. All about "Look how long my sentences are! Look how funny I am!". Gah.

I was wondering what you were talking about in that post, with Jouce and Vicomte. Assumed you were some minor characters in history you've read a book about

Another vote for Lessing's Golden Notebook also. (and, she wrote a great introduction for a re-issue in which she discussed ways of reading and of finding new books to read)
Also, that suggestion put me in mind of the L Shaped Room. Maybe a bit dated now, but I loved it. I remember it as one of those sort of 'life changing' books that somebody mentioned.

Not read Vineland. Probably early Pynchon is better.

Is that a passive aggressive BonsoirAnna type smiley? Particularly after your Freudian slip (kinda)?

Oh no, someone had to mention Middlemarch.

It is one of the only two books I own where the back has come off, not from being read so many times, but from being started so many times.

I have absolutely no idea what the attraction is.

I am not telling you what the other book without the back is.

oooo - just thought. On the 'big books' theme you might try Tom Woolfe's (sp?) Bonfire of the Vanities. Maybe a bit out of left field. I really enjoyed it but then I really enjoy Tom Woolf (even though I can't remember how to spell his name).

Thanks for starting this thread by the way. Is great to get all these suggestions.

Oh god, Eggsits. Now I'm going to spend all night wondering about the second book. Joy of Sex?

Yes, I second notenough's thanks. Lots I want to read now.

It was an honest question. I didn't mean to insult you or your favourite books.

I think you are wrong to write off sci-fi as a genre because the future can't be foretold. For the most part, good sci-fi doesn't aim to forecast the future, but to create a future by asking just a few "What if?" questions. What if it were possible to download personalities into bodies, eliminating death by old age, among other things? What if all computers were banned everywhere and some people were trained to "compute"? What if a lunar mission found a smoothly cut monolith buried underground? What would people do then and what kind of world would that lead to?

Many sci-fi authors prefer to call their books "speculative fiction" these days, because the term "sci-fi" brings to mind wonky fantasies about some silly future. That is not what the good ones do, at all.

Whoops - 3

OP Have you read The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass?

Now there is an interesting book.

Actually, I met Bonsoir and she is very sweet.

No, my smileys aren't passive-agressive at all. This thread isn't about anything personal. It's about books. So please don't take it personally if I or someone else say something negative about a book you liked.

I wasn't insulted. Just reflecting that one woman's daft is another's best ever.

Besides, I love a lot of science and dystopian fiction. Dick, Gibson, Atwood, etc.

Could never get into Dune. The Atreids thing was too funny to me (Vico, Nietzsche, Joyce, Mitchell again...). But on the strength of this thread I'm going to try it again.

I also have it on good authority that BonsoirAnna is v. nice. But you have to admit that she is the queen of the p-a smiley.

I'm not taking it personally (though now it sounds as if I'm protesting too much! ).

I read and loved pretty much everything Philip K Dick wrote. Some of it is brilliantly brain-hurty. Which reminds me to recommend A Scanner Darkly to people on this thread.

What do you think about William Gibson's latest books?

I've not read the latest trilogy. The earlier stuff - like Dick, I guess - just does your head in with its uncanny prescience.

I only found them in the last 10 years or so, though, after The Matrix, I'm embarrassed to say...

Hmm. Overuse of grin smiley.

Is BonsoirAnna the same person as Bonsoir who's on the S&B threads?

I failed totally with, 'Bonfire Of The Vanities' (found it completely unreadable tbh) but somebody irl (whose opinion I totally respect in most things!) recently recommended it to me again.

So, should I read the Blue Ant trilogy? (Blue Ant? - is that right? Off to google...)

I read all his books up to and including Spook Country, which was rubbish. Pattern Recognition before it was rubbish, too, but I persevered because I revered the man. I think he has just gotten a bit too old

As I said before, his Twitter feed is still great, though.

No, don't read the Blue Ant books, in case that wasn't clear. (I'm getting sleepy now - it's midnight here)

Yes, that's her. She's always Anna in my head when I read her posts.

I've not read any Wolfe. Strangely put off by him. Not sure why.

Har-har, Eggsits.