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

I have just really enjoyed "Music and Silence" by Rose Tremain. Anything by Karen Maitland too is great. Both of these writers do really fantastic historical fiction - no bodices are ripped!

yy All Rose Tremain
Helen Dunmore

Colette- short stories, Claudine etc
Roald Dahl- Tales of the Unexpected
Donna Tartt- The Secret History, The Little Friend
Patrick Dennis- Mame
Patrick Suskind- Perfume
Sybille Bedford- Jigsaw
Jonathon Strange and Mr. Norrel
A.S. Byatt- The Children's Book, Virgin in the Garden
Siegfried Lenz- The German Lesson
Rosemary's Baby
Ian McEwan- Saturday (Enduring Love is good too)
The Kaminsky Cure
Alison Lurie- The Nowhere City
Amos Oz- Elsewhere, Perhaps
Paul Gallico- Mrs 'Arris
Penelope Fitzgerald- The Blue Flower

Reading the Master and Margarita atm- give that a try too, confusing as hell at first.

I keep wanting to recommend stuff and then it turns out not to be fiction!

how about Never Mind by Edward St Aubyn - and the other 4 novels in the series.

I second Wolf Hall, can't put it down at the moment. Have you read Foucault's Pendulum? I absolutely loved it a few years back and am planning to go back to it. Margaret Atwood? The Flood or The Handmaid's Tale?

Currently loving 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami - loved his wind up bird chronicle too. Could possibly be classed as fantasy in part but kind of a blurred reality really!

I also really enjoyed a Heartbreaking work of staggering genius by David Eggers ages ago. I even liked You Shall Know our Velocity by him also.
Middlesex - jeffrey Eugenides
The Corrections and Freedom by Jonathan Franzen.

JS Farrell
Annie Proulx - Shipping News
Ellen Gilchrist
Janes Gardam, Smiley and Rogers

YY to Margaret Atwood - it's good to read Oryx & Crake and Year Of The Flood within a shortish time of each other as they're parallel stories.

Also love Annie Proulx, both her short stories and her longer novels (try The Shipping News).

Have just been re-reading A History Of The World In 10 1/2 Chapters by Julian Barnes - quirky but I loved it as it's so much more than the sum of its parts.

Patricia duncker

Sinister Street by Compton Mackenzie. A stunner.

I read Jonathan Strange and Mister Norrell by Suzanna Clarke recently and I found it enchanting. Beautifully written fantasy set in a parallel version of England during the Napoleonic Wars.

just read Freedom by Jonathan Frantzen which was brilliant, funny and sad too;
and What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt is a great read.
Some brilliant suggestions on this thread so far but why, why did I get stuck on Lacuna? enjoyed her other ones very much.

The Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies

We Had It So Good by Linda Grant

Y Y to What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt, one of my favourite authors

I'm reading 'The Memory of Love' by Aminatta Forna and 'Precious A True Story' by Precious Williams. Both books are beautifully written books and I am enjoying them both immensely.

I've recently read The Kite Runner and Thousand Splendid Suns. They were both good.

^^ No no no they aren't they aren't.

Which of last year's Orange Prize books did you like best or least? Did you read the longlist as well as the shortlist?

If you read and enjoyed the Jennifer Egan, her other novels have been reissued. I enjoyed Look at Me.

Have you read Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's two novels and/or her short stories? Do you read short stories?

Aifric Campbell was longlisted for the Orange last year and has a new novel out.

Emma Donoghue's books are quite varied, they're not at all like Room but I liked her historical novels - Slammerkin, The Sealed Letter and Life Mask (my personal favourite). I've also read her earlier work though I don't remember it so well.

I recommend Geraldine Brooks' A Year of Wonders', fantastic historical novel set in the RL time and place of Eyam plague village in 1666.
All of her books are good tbh.

Thousand Splendid Suns was awful. Written in English by an American who left Afghanistan as a child. Shallow stereotypical crap gathered from American media - Taliban blew up Buddha statues, and they beat women up. That's about the insight you get into Afghanistan.

This is fab. White Horse

May I recommed Curtis Sittenfeld? I've read Prep and The American Wife, both brilliant, and have another of hers to start on soon. Also love Zoe Heller, who wrote Notes on a Scandal - her others are brilliant too.

Also, Donna Tartt's The Secret History. Didn't like her second one, The Little Friend, as much, though. Also I've heard really good things about Natasha Solomons' The Novel in the Viola - have it on my Kindle but not read it yet. And pretty much everything on Hullygully's list .

yy The American Wife. Not prep so much. And agree Secret History but little Friend borrrring.

I'd second/third Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies. And if we're talking about Margaret Atwood, I have to add Cat's Eye and one of my favourite books in the world, Alias Grace ? historical, but IMO a stone-cold masterpiece and much better than the book that won the Booker the year it was shortlisted.

Have you read Jim Crace? Beautiful writing and really fascinating settings and stories. I'd particularly recommend Being Dead (dark dark dark, but amazingly powerful), The Gift of Stones and Quarantine, in that order.

Also Gilead and Home by Marilynne Robinson (but one or both of them may be on the Orange shortlist (??Not sure), so you might know them already). Clear, thoughtful, humane; and glorious writing.

The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry is also beautifully written and a gripping, haunting story.

Pure by Andrew Miller. Lively, evocative, extremely funny as well as thought-provoking.

Lastly, The Sea and Kepler by John Banville. Extraordinary writing (the first particularly), wonderful insight and some hugely moving passages.

The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov
On the Black Hill - Bruce Chatwin
Cold Comfort farm - Stella Gibbons
Longitude - Dava Sobel
Margaret Atwood - The Robber Bride