Lit Fic for ME please

[Hullygully]

Any recommendations? Need lots of books for hols. I want lit fiction eg I do not want Khaled Hossein, Harold Fry, JoJo Moyes etc etc (nothing wrong with them, but I don't want them).

I want Mantel/Mitchell/Houllebecq type stuff please and thank you.

I love Gilead.

Louise Ehlrich is a great US writer who features Native Americans in her books a lot. Barbara Kingsolver touches on it too in 'The Bean Trees', 'Pigs In Heaven' and 'Animal Dreams'. These are Arizona/SW settings which mesmerised me. I love her work so much.

I haven't read Blood Meridian but I have glanced through and it appears as sparse and spare as its landscape setting. Plenty of Spanish in it.

T C Boyles 'Tortilla Curtain' is a lovely read with a SW setting but oh my the descriptions of the desert flora and fauna make it anything but arid. No cowboy western here.

'Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil' is a steamy Gothic number and I strongly recommend Pat Conroy to all Deep South lit lovers. 'The Prince Of Tides', 'The Great Santini', 'South Of Broad' are all masterclasses in epic, generational dramas that have such a strong sense of time and place (a reason why I adore American literature)...

Then there are the oldies but goodies- Willa Cather, Faulkner, Truman Capote (A Southern Childhood)...

Outside in the barnlot he looked up and the pale moon was directly over him and all-encompassing. It appeared to be lowering itself onto the earth and he could make out mountains and ranges of hills and hollows and dark shadowed areas of mystery he judged to be timber and he wondered what manner of beast thrived there and what their lives were like and the need to be there twisted in his heart like an old pain that will not dissipate.?

From Gay's "Twilight"

Pinterest- an online pinboard site. Prepare to waste too much time looking at it.

V keen on Louise

will look at conroy

Have ordered Twilight Hully

I also like Daniel Woodrell. 'Winters Bone' is the most known but he writes wonderful atmospheric short stories too.

A great Cajun author is Tim Gatreaux.

Linda Bruckheimer, Lori Lansens, Rebecca wells, Fanny Flagg, Tom Perotta and Jeannette Wells all write great popular fiction and memoir in the case of Jeannette Wells (The Glass Castle)..

Saturday?? Pah what a pile if showy off bollocks. First third of Atonement was great, rest rather silly.

Given we agree on that, I suspect you'll enjoy Candida McWilliam A Case of Knives, been returning to it periodically for decades.

yy Winter's Bone dead good.

Hell at the Breech is better than Twilight.

Quick, cancel - or get both!

You know who else is brillian?

Paul Theroux

He hates everyone and everywhere. I love him.

Travel and fiction all marvellous.

Did you recommend the Glass Castle on another thread, mig??

Yes I probably have Gully because it is one of my all time favourites. I'll order 'Hell at the Breech' too. What the hell....Money spent on books is never a waste....

I'm really into food memoir too especially American. I'm trying to read more Hawaiian fiction/non fiction also. If anybody can recommend i'd appreciate that.

Molokai is good, about the leper colony. Odd, but interesting.

Susanna Moores 'Sleeping Beauties' is set in Hawaii and is as lush descriptively as the islands.

here is link.

Ooh this is the thread I need as well. Although of a some of Hully's highbrow choices might be beyond me, as I am the slowest reader in the world and I have the attention span of a gnat.

If you like someone who hates everywhere and everyone what about Martin Amis? A bit of a tosspot I know, but I LOVE his books. He's just so contemptuous of everything. Perfect.

Have you read The Dinner by Herman Koch? Nice and short. Perfect for me.

Ok I've just googled (well Amazoned actually) Blood Meridian.

It says 'It is a barbarously poetic odyssey through a hell without purpose.'

I'm not sure it and I are cut out for one another.

But shouldn't one read the first two first?

Fell, make yourself read Blood Meridian

really really

Yes, I should give Amis a bit more of a go, he just irritates me.

I'll look at the dinner, tho I do like longer books so it's not all over too quickly (oo er missus)

have ordered Molok'ai. I enjoy reading recommended books so thanks for that Hully

You should join Pinterest and set up a recommendations book board. I always look at those.

oh yes, I had wanted to read the dinner, have kindled it.

Look, new verb!

Ooo I might do, mig.

But it would just say, Thingy by Wotsit.

It's not one I would recommend apart from the Hawaiian angle, mind. Altho I did quite like it.

Red Dog by Louis de Berniere is a great short book or try short story collections TheRealFellatio.

Here is a good shorter book - 'In Cuba I Was A German Shepherd' and a brief description-
Maximo, a Cuban immigrant, passes his days in Miami's Domino Park refining his elaborate jokes - like the one about a mongrel who comes to the States looking for love and luck. His sleepless nights he spends struggling to recall the precise shade of his dead wife's eyes, and reliving the hardships he and she faced together on their arrival in America. In these interlinked short stories, Ana Menendez introduces us to a cast of characters young and old, and to the island with its fragrant streets, passionate music and fields of cane that compels their imaginations. Richly sensual, full of observations that catch at the heart, this is writing of rare distinction and storytelling power, and marks the arrival of a major international voice.

I forgot to mention one of my absolute favourite Southern authors- Michael Lee West. 'Consuming Passions' a non fivtion food memoir about her mad relatives and Southern life is my favourite but here are the others. The 'Mad Girls' novels are a series and really do need reading in order.

Hully you install a pin it icon onto your toolbar and then when you are on Amazon or any other site for that matter you just click on the icon and it does all the naming for you. No memory required!

I have had A Fine Balance on my bookshelf for about ten years and I can't quite bring myself so start it. I feel overwhelmed at the prospect. I loved Wolf Hall, or at least I loved what I read of it, but I put it down unfinished at the end of a holiday 2 years ago and never picked it up again. I should give it another bash but I know it requires dedication and I feel intimidated by it now. [lightweight]