If my ideal novel is...what shall I read this summer?

[RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie]

Okay. Going on holiday for a week soon. I read VERY quickly and I am VERY fussy (and I have read lots and lots and lots already).

If my ideal novel would be Persuasion, mixed with The Stand, mixed with A Town Like Alice and with a soupcon of Lolita thrown in, what the heck will I enjoy next? Ideally it will be BIG. Non-fiction okay too, providing it is history-related and ideally a bit quirky.

Please help!

Oh!! You might enjoy Any Human Heart, that's been my favourite. Restless is terrific but quite light, like a Rolls Royce in first gear. Brazzaville Beach is wonderful but I read it years ago so not sure how it stands up.

"Restless is terrific but quite light, like a Rolls Royce in first gear"

Don't you mean slow rather than light?

Remus - What do you mean by "non-fiction books about body snatching"?

You are not (yet) interested in Ballard probably because you don't know what an interesting life he has led. Would it help to remember that his Empire Of The Sun was autobiographical - i.e. as a child, he was actually interned in a Japanese POW camp in Shanghai.

He was considered UK's greatest living author until his death several years ago. I really think you would be interested in his story if you gave it a go.

or worth trying some of J G Ballard's fiction if autobiog doesn't grab you. He was remarkably prescient in his work, in terms of social trends, some of his books like Kingdom Come and SuperCannes pretty much predict the riots last summer and the emergence of nationalist political parties here.

What about another "JG" - JG Farrell: Singapore Grip, Troubles or Siege of Krishnapur. All big, history related and quirky.

One was called The Italian Boy, Cote - about body snatching in London Here and another about Burke and Hare in Edinburgh but I can't remember what it was called.

Ah OK. I thought you were referring to the fabled snatching of live bodies - by ghosts, aliens, etc. Hence my surprise at "non-fiction"

Pmsl :)

How about something like Operation Mincemeat? (non-fiction)

One April morning in 1943, a sardine fisherman spotted the corpse of a British soldier floating in the sea off the coast of Spain and set in train a course of events that would change the course of the Second World War.

Operation Mincemeat was the most successful wartime deception ever attempted, and certainly the strangest. It hoodwinked the Nazi espionage chiefs, sent German troops hurtling in the wrong direction, and saved thousands of lives by deploying a secret agent who was different, in one crucial respect, from any spy before or since: he was dead. His mission: to convince the Germans that instead of attacking Sicily, the Allied armies planned to invade Greece.

just thought of another couple:

Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson. Slow to start, but it really builds beautifully. It's a murder-mystery come historical thriller about Japanese fishermen living on an island off the US coast in post-WWII america.

I absolutely loved it by the end.

Have you read any of Irene Nemirovsky's novels, especially Suite Francaise? They are semi-autobiographical. She was a Russian Jew who escaped to France prior to WWII. She hid from the Nazis for years, but was eventually, very sadly found and sent to Auschwitz.

Onyl very recently have many of the manuscripts been found any published and they are truly exquisite stories about the Occupation. Suite Francaise is pretty big and very easy to read. The others are all very short, but gorgeously written. Fire in the Blood is my favourite of the shorter novels, but David Golder is a brilliant character study as well.

Just had a look through my Amazon wish list and found Angel of Death - The Story of Smallpox, by Gareth Williams - looks good.

oooh, oohh!

will leave this thread alone soon, promise! but before I do, have you considered Albert Camus' The Plague.

It's historical (set in Algeria in the 30s)
Features a Doctor (poor bugger who has treat endless plague victims whilst dealing with his own crises)
Is dead gory (a whole city is quarantined and all its inhabitants are just left to try and survive a huge plague)
Is exceptionally well-written with very interesting characters.

God, I love MN! :)

Have read 'Snow Falling.'
Have read 'The Plague' but reckon it's worth a re-read.
Smallpox sounds perfect.

Some of them are starting to sound a bit heavy now, though. I need good but lightweight too!

MysteryCat - don't go! Keep em coming...

Ooh just thought of another I read recently you might enjoy - The Blue Afternoon - William Boyd - sort of historical, medical, mystery. Good read.

I liked William Boyd, Any Human Heart a lot. Sort of historical as set through 20th century?

Spooky cross post coincidence w kurrikurri!

Right! Not only do I work in books, I'm reading The Stand RIGHT NOW, so officially in the zone.

The Stand has been reminding me a lot of The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton; have you read that? Alternatively, a book just out along the same line is The Testimony by James Smythe.

If you like Wilkie Collins, what about Lady Audley's Secret (wonderful)?

What's your feeling on C20 American fiction? John Updike's Rabbit books are great for some long-haul mic-C20 americana ... Or better yet, how about Steinbeck? East of Eden is massive and absolutely rollocking - definitely worth a look if you haven't read it ..

Will deffo get some William Boyd.

Have read all of Steinbeck's except for travels With Charley, which you've reminded me I've been meaning to read.

Have read 'Lady Audley's Secret' - I did like it but I didn't think it was brilliant, as the author let her own voice peek and pry and lecture and get in the way too much.

I've tried Updike (dp loves him) but, as yet, haven't got on very well with them. Will try again.

Michael Crichton? Really not sure about that - isn't it airport trash stuff?

Thanks though - keep your sleeves rolled up and tell me more!

oooh I know - what about EL Doctorow? I'd say you really can't go wrong, but try World's Fair, Ragtime, THe Book of Daniel (fictionalised version of the execution of the Rosenbergs from the perspective of their son). What's your position on AS Byatt?

Thanks - never heard of so will google.

My position on AS Byatt is that I find it all a bit tedious. I'm taken in by the pretty covers and then tend to give up on them unfinished. I don't like anything too 'overwritten' and I have less and less time for writers who faff around and get in the way of themselves.

Caitlin Moran's 'How to Be a Woman' made me chuckle quite a bit. I'd recommend it for the summer. (I do love her though, if you don't - avoid!)

Nope - I don't love her! Thanks for both the rec and the warning. :)

Oh no Remus! She is my 'if you like her, you can be in my club' journalist.

I may not allow you in my specially constructed den at the bottom of the garden now. And I have jam rings and custard creams and every thing...

You're one of those folk who like AA Gill. Aren't you?

AA Gill? Good god, no.

Sulks outside den with packet of pink wafer biscuits and some warm Ribena...

Oooh - I like pink wafers me.

All right. I'll let you in, but only if you let me read you my essay on 'Why I read Catcher in the Rye every five years and why I once thought Holden was a gorgeously tormented soul but he just seems like a silly little boy now'. It's jolly good.