Help Remus find more books please

[RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie]

HOW can I have nothing to read again (and no, Cote, I still haven't read Cloud Atlas!).

I fancy a big fat, rip roaring read akin to The Woman In White OR some crazy post-apocalyptic but really well written stuff OR something sparse and modern and a bit 'out there' like a modern Clockwork Orange maybe. Or something like 'Touching The Void' perhaps.

Please help!

I liked it, Viva - but thought there was too long on back story and not long enough on story! Will certainly be re-reading for a more considered opinion, as I tend to read books like that very quickly and if I like it enough, I then go back for a slower re-read to consider it properly instead of just gobbling it up.

Yes, I read it very quickly, probably too quickly. SIL is reading it now and isn't half way through after weeks and weeks.

2014 for the next one!

Maybe you'd like In the Country of Last Things by Paul Auster? Or Moon Palace by the same?
His later works are a bit self indulgent maybe but the earlier ones are very good imo.

I gave up on Jonathan Strange, ad I normally don't do giving up on books. I mean, I have read some absolute shite just because I couldn't bear not to read it all the way through.

By way of an off the wall idea - have you read the Romanitas trilogy by Sophia Douglas? I have yet to read parts 2 and 3 (though they are sitting on my shelf, am too busy writing stuff to read anything but non-brain-engaging rubbish at the moment) but I thought part one was a great read.

Remus, have you read Red Plenty by Francis Spufford? It is about The Soviet Union in the 1950s and 1960s, and the way they tried to use maths and computers to plan the economy. Sounds off putting, I know, but it is brilliant - meaty, clever, v well written, and a great read.

Sounds like my cup of tea, thanks

With the caveat that you never like things I recommend, would you consider an interim short read while you search for the ideal book? Jeanette Winterson's new novella about the Pendle witch trials, The Daylight Gate, is very well written and quite horrible, in a good way.

That sounds exactly my cup of tea! Have just read her memoir, 'Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?' which was quite interesting, though the second half was nowhere near as good as the first.

Thanks all, btw.

Soviet thing sounds interesting - but the mention of Maths scares me.

Hooray! At last... Hope you like it now.

Don't be put off Red Plenty, it's all about the ideas and the people rather than the sums. I know a bit about the period, and I thought he got it spot on.

Just thought - have you read any Haruki Murikami stuff Remus? I LOVE his stuff - Norwegian Wood is beautiful, Wild Sheep Chase is bizarre, etc. Just avoid his latest release - even I found that hard work (says the poster who found Strange & Norrell and Jasper F books easy to read)

Have read three:

After Dark was okay; hated Sheep Chase; have forgotten the other one but it might have been Norwegian Wood. I don't get on v well with him.

Jasper Ffffffff easy enough to read usually - just too irritating to bother anymore with!

Ok - my final suggestion would be Neil Gaiman's American Gods as an out there book - but I think you'll have either already read it or not like his work

Read it - love it!

Don't get your coat - tell me something else, as good as American Gods. :)

You'll have already read Rivers of London but if not, worth a look (though would be light popcorn reading but v interesting concept/construct). Also loved Anansi Boys (equally good and out there to American Gods) and Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman if you havent tried those.

Read Rivers and its follow up. Loved Anansi Boys even more than American Gods; Neverwhere less so.

Hmm... will ponder.

Just read thirty odd pages of 'Black Swan Green' and am liking it a lot so far.
Yesterday I read, 'Swallows And Amzaons' and loved it - WHY had I never read if before?

Ah yes, Swallows and Amazons is a brilliant book. What other classics are you missing out on?

May I suggest the inimitable Dianne Wynne Jones (though you'll probably have read her) if you feel like a touch of fantasy. Kids/young adult books but she had a lovely way of writing.

Thanks - read most of hers. Liked her as a child but doesn't do much for me now tbh.

What other classics have I missed out on? Erm...well I obviously want to read all the S&W ones now - do they have to be read in order?

re Swallows and Amazons, now you can read the rest of the series. Have you read any Diana Wynne Jones (surely an influence on Gaiman, who was a close friend and wrote online about her illness and death last year)?

Oh, I missed dinky's question and your response.

I don't think order's that important in the Swallows and Amazons books - I don't think there was the concept of a series among child readers/writers etc at the time they were written, and while there is an order I think books at that time were written to stand alone more. (And I am a series order obsessive, generally).

While we're asking you about children's books, have you read any Rosemary Sutcliffe? Obviously not sf but historical adventure stories.

E Nesbit?