Literary fiction - any good reads lately?

[JulieBilly]

I have just worked my was through last year's Orange Prize nominees (have a baby, so have been starved of reading time) and have ordered this year's nominees, too.

What else can I read? Any books you have read lately you can recommend?

I don't like chick lit, misery memoirs. Fantasy/scif fi and historical fiction need to be really, very good for me to bother.

tia

Are you only looking for something published in the last year or so?

Not necessarily@Cote.

I'll receive any suggestions gratefully

You might want to narrow down 'literary fiction' somewhat - it's quite a broad category! I'll suggest some of my favourite A level texts that I teach to start with...

The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Moshin Hamid.
The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje.
Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro.
The Bloody Chamber - Angela Carter.
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

Try Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi for something completely different - a graphic novel set in the time of the Islamic Revolution in Iran.

Have just re-read A Passage to India by E.M. Forster and that's a cracking read. Am now tempted to re-read A Room With A View and all the others.
Am also reading The Snow Child by Eowen Ivey.

The Secret River by Kate Grenville.

The Colour Purple - Alice Walker.

I went through a Toni Morrison phase years ago and enjoyed that immensely.

Postcards by Annie Proulx (she of Brokeback Mountain fame) is brilliant.

I taught a 1920s topic last year - The Great Gatsby, Tender is the Night, Fiesta and so on. Am a big fan of American fiction generally.

Have you discovered this site?

Cloud Atlas
This Hand Of Darkness

Best books I have read this year. Both are so brilliant, so well constructed, and so wonderfully written that everything else I have read since those two has paled in comparison.

Thanks, IAmSherlocked.

I was just trying to say in my own not-so-subtle way: 'No Jodie Picoult or Martina Cole' . I'm not massively fussy about themes or settings or whatever, really, I just want good writing.

I've read The Bloody Chamber, English Patient and The Reluctant Fundamentalist, but will look at the others you suggested. 'Persepolis' sounds fab.

I went through a major Toni Morrison phase, too. Have just ordered her novella, 'Home', which completely went under my radar.

Thanks for the site recommendation - having a look now.

Many thanks again.

No Jodi Picoult? But they're so unpredictable and varied in their plots!

Have you read Wolf Hall and the follow up, Bring Out the Bodies? Loved loved loved.

Willa Cather "A Lost Lady". This is one of the best written books I've ever read.

Not so highbrow, but I not long finished Me Before You and really enjoyed it. Sad though....

I'm half way through 'Half Blood Blues', short listed for last year's Booker.

It's been languishing on my bed side table for months as I didn't really fancy the premise for the story, but so far, it's fantastic - gripping, well written and unusual. Only half way through, as I said, but so far I'd definitely recommend it.

'This Thing Of Darkness' - excellent, though I'm not sure I'd class it as particularly literary (can't stand 'literary fiction' in the modern sense though).

'A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius' - don't know if it counts as literary but tis bloomin good.

Yes to Forster; you could throw in some Waugh whilst you're at it, too.

I quite enjoyed 'White Tiger' which (iirc) was a Booker winner - far less irritatingly written than Wolf Hall.

'Flaubert's Parrot' by Julian Barnes, and 'Arthur And George' ditto.

Remus - Will I like 'A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius'?

Remus - I'm reading Thing of Darkness at the moment and finding it quite hard going tbh. About halfway through. Inspire me to keep going!

I've just finished This Thing of Darkness and found it more interesting than I imagined (as I'm not normally interested in either natual history or seamanship). Later parts that I recall was the section about New Zealand ... dark history there and the changes in the fortunes of Fitzroy and Darwin once the voyage had ended. It is worth reading to the end!

If you like American writing I'd recommend writing by William Faulkner - fab. And for more modern writing, how about American Wife (loosely based on Laura Bush)?

Ah.. still wandering about the coast of South America at the moment - think we are about to disembark on the Galapogos islands so it might get more interesting.

Recent lit fic I've enjoyed - Repeat After Me by Rachel DeWoskin, The Lovers by Vendela Vida, The Call by Yannick Murphy, The Adults by Alison Espach.

Sacred Hunger - winner of the 1992 Booker Prize - is one of the best books I've read in recent years. Great storytelling, really sucks you in.

And I'm currently enjoying The Sisters Brothers which so far is a really entertaining tale about a couple of assassins in the Wild West.

I like lorrie Moore who will run the frog hospital. Sheena joughin swimming under water. Jane Elmore pictures of you.

La Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver. Stick with it - it gets better and better.

Rohinto Mistry
Gore Vidal
John Irving (pre Owen Meany)
Patrick White (partic The Vivisectors)
Dorothy Whipple
Jane Gardam
Jane Rogers
Jeffrey Eugenides
William Boyd
Cormac McCarthy (Blood Meridian)
Salman Rushdie (Midnight's Children and satanic Verses)
Paul theroux
Vikram Seth
VS Naipaul
Chimamanda Ngozi Adice (Half of Yellow Sun)
Zadie Smith (White Teeth)

(Quick bookcase glance!)

yy Lacuna and Poisonwood Bible

and Sisters Brothers