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?

Brilliant website MNHubbie

Have bookmarked for daily amusment.

Have you ever read Michael Chabon? My all time favourite book is his The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.

Re Holocaust related novels, a few that spring to mind:Alone in Berlin and History: A Novel. Also re graphic novels and holocaust, Maus is without a doubt the best.

I've added it to my RSS feed too.

Maus was put head to head with Schindler's Ark and other holocaust books and won. Not bad for a comic and a talking animal comic at that.

World War Z. 21% into it on Kindle and can't put it down. Clever narrative structure too.

Do I want for read about zombies? Anything special about this book or do you like zombie books in general?

'Alone In Berlin' okay but not magnificent, I thought.

Lots special about this.

It is set 10 years after the war and is a collection of interviews with various people around the world. Recollections from important military or political figures and ordinary civilians and soldiers.

It is written as an extended piece based upon a UN report. Basically the diplomat who gathered all the intel to piece together everything produced the book as a way of humanising the data he gathered.

It is brutal, intelligent and amusing at times (I've just read about soldiers attracting Zombies to them by playing Iron Maiden's The Trooper at full volume. In context it was brilliant). You don't (so far) get any triumph of the human spirit crap. It is soul destroying devastation revisited with the survivors (including a former chief of staff to the President who now spends his days literally shovelling shit).

What is good is that the supposed author very rarely makes a judgement or gives you any more background than the person they are interviewing does. You have to piece things together (later interviews reveal more about things mentioned in passing beforehand).

I'm really enjoying it. It isn't especially challenging or horrific in the conventional sense but it is dark and intelligent.

Is there any intelligent context re how people became zombies?

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The origins of it are sketchy as you'd imagine but from what is pieced together it started in China. This isn't giving too much away as a lot of it starts in the first chapter.

It is a straight pass on by a bite same as pretty much any zombie story but there are some interesting bits on the side. How the governments handle it, the med company responses, the utter lack of concious of the various politicians and so on. The psychological effects of it all on humans is explored too with suicides, people just dying and the Quizzlings folks who shut down and become zombies whilst still being human. The zombies don't recognise them as them and still attack.

The limitations of the military against an enemy like them is very much explored.

Like I said it isn't challenging but it is intelligent.

Remus - I just finished His Dark Materials #1, and am respectfully wondering if you have read it since you have turned 25 (sorry).

It is a children's book. Rather more intelligent and grim/real than most, but still a children's book. I will give it to DD in time, as I like the underlying theme of scepticism and intelligent problem-solving as the way to go about one's life (and also that the Church is the villain ) but I can't say I enjoyed it.

Yes, it's a children's book - a pretty good children's book and I think worth reading. I like the idea of encouraging children to question received doctrines etc and think it raises interesting questions for anybody who may not have questioned thus far, but ultimately, for me, it works best on two levels - characterisation (Have you met Lee Scorseby or Iorek yet? Swoon) and the fact that it is a successful (and intelligent) love story.

If you want Nietzsche etc, then read them and nothing else, but if you want thought provoking and enjoyable fiction then keep reading Pullman (but don't moan at me when you get to the blasted wheeled horse thingies, which are ridiculous - and boring).

I think criticising a book just because it is a children's book, whilst knowing it is a children's book, is a bit unfair. And besides - I'm an English teacher, so I like children's books! Often they are far better written than much of the crap that is published (and acclaimed) for adults. :)

Were you in your 40s when you first read them? Or were you revisiting an old favourite?

I'm 41 this year and at least the first book read like a children's story. Does it "mature" in later books?

Oh and I'm 42. Can't remember when they were first published but deffo after I was 25!

I thought HDM was a good yarn, but yes definitely a children's book in the first one. The next two books become increasingly obtuse and I'm not sure I can see many children having the determination to finish the third. Having said that, I struggled to finish the third too, it just had too many components and he really was heaving towards his atheistic conclusion, throwing in everything but the kitchen sink to make it stick.

Nothing more to add to this thread at the moment, pottering through This Thing of Darkness (and waiting for Darwin to hop aboard - when when when? Am 11% of the way in on Kindle and no sign yet...)

Have almost no interest in anything Zombie related. I think you're either into that kind of premise or... you're not I just don't get excited by it, intelligent or otherwise.

Well, Alice In Wonderland or Moby Dick are also children's books but they also work for adults because there are layers of meanings there. I was wondering if there is a similar attraction for adults or if it is only a children's book.

I'm not criticising it but just saying it seems to be only a (very good) children's book.

Does the story and its narration "mature" in later books?

'Moby Dick' a children's book?

Remus - oft discussed on MN, have you read the Hunger Games trilogy? I haven't read much in the realm of 'teen fiction with adult appeal' but really enjoyed that one. I agree with you that a book shouldn't be criticised just because it's a children's book - they can have a simplicity which cuts through you. I particularly enjoyed 'The Curious Incident...' book for that.

I'm not interested in the zombie premise, either. However, I would have said the same for the vampire premise until I read Interview With The Vampire, which was interesting. My interest didn't stay alive long enough for any other vampire franchise, though.

So, intelligent book can make something out of an otherwise uninteresting premise imho.

I loved Curious Incident but that wasn't a children's book. Some of the themes and all of the mathematics in there would be inaccessible to children.

Lottie - Only the first one so far. I enjoyed it a lot, except for the last few pages which I thought were unnecessary. Enjoyed the film too. Not as well written as HDM though and much more obviously 'teen' than 'crossover' in the way that I think HDM is. And Lyra is a much more interesting main character than Katniss, who whilst not being Bella Twilight, is a bit irritating at times.

Sorry, I keep forgetting that most of the world hasn't read Moby Dick as a children's novel (long story). I've probably said this before on MN, as well.