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.

Fell - you have no idea how lucky you are that you haven't read Anne, so many joys ahead.

Oh yes, I agree with Hully on that, Fell. Accidental Tourist might be a very good one to start with, incidentally another fairly faithful film adaptation.

Paul Scott's Jewel in The Crown quartet.

The Map of Love by Ahdaf Soueif

Never Let me Go by Kazuo Ishigurio

Anna Karenin - Tolstoy - I was just amazed by this, thought I knew the story but I didn't & was blown away.

Blimey. OK Have to stop now.

A ragbag of favourites:

The Red of His Shadow by Mayra Montero. Amazing, poetic, intense story set in Cuba about Voudon priests.

Any book by Antonio Trabucci

The African Child by Camara Laye: beautiful, lyrical account of a rural West African childhood.

The Spanish books by Laurie Lee: As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning; A Rose for Winter; A Moment of War.

The Spanish Farm Trilogy, by R. H. Mottram: beautiful, old-fashioned story of a Flemish farm girl and the effect of WWI on her life.

The Last of the Templars and The Knight on the Bridge by William Watson. Superior, literary, haunting Middles-Ages set novels.

Also Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra.

www.amazon.co.uk/Sacred-Games-Vikram-Chandra/dp/0571231217/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372429911&sr=1-2

So much more to it than the brief description given on Amazon.

The Outcast, well I liked it, it's accessible-ish but quite dark, but we don't all like the same thing so...who knows? It's one of those books where you don't really like any of the characters, but I quite often like those.

Actually even though I have Three Men in paperback I am going to get it on kindle for nothing as well. It's nice to know I can dip in and out of it whenever I want to spend a subime ten minutes.

Ooh, I love Paul Theroux's Sir Vidia's Shadow about his feud with Naipaul. One of my favourite biogs (though VS doesn't come off at all well and House for Mr Biswas is also one of my favourite books).

Have you read the Canadian David Vann? Legend of a Suicide, Caribou Island and Dirt: all very dark and very resonant of their setting (frontier ish, the first two anyway; the third is more like southern gothic though not set in the South!) and Suicide is very meta in a Paul Auster like way.

I desperately await a new Paul Auster (or Roth - Nemesis was a real return to form, I loved it).

I'm not a huge fan of Amis (his earlier stuff is very good though lighter - it's not, it's dark in content but frothier in style) but I love his non-fiction - The War Against Cliche (collected essays) is very good.

If you like a difficult non-fiction read, Candia McWilliam's memoir of losing her sight is difficult (intellectually not emotionally) but brilliant.

Oh and I love where you said you had unreasonably taken against Sarah Waters (or along those lines). I can't bring myself to try her either and I'm not sure why.

For those who like noir and metafiction and haven't heard of this, I'd recommend Tony and Susan by Austin Wright which was republished a couple of years ago after falling out of fashion. Really bizarre and quite compelling 'story within a story' thing.

hello books, am a big David Vann fan, have read all of em. Have you read his one with the boat? Will look at Wright

oh dear

tony and susan kindled

and yy to war against cliche

I second the recommendation for Candia McWilliam's memoir What to Look for in Winter. When I read it, I turned back to page one and read it again. It is complex, very honest, and so beautifully written.

BooksAndCuppa

I have read Caribou Island and staying on a Canadian theme- Canada by Richard Ford is great.

I was intrigued by The Astronauts Wives Club by Isobel Kobel, a non fiction account of the Space Programme Wives of the USA. It arrived yesterday and although it is written in a very 'populist' style, it is nonetheless very enjoyable and has loads of retro-cultural detail within.

this looks intriguing as does this. The latter has received a lot of press coverage, multiple good reviews and I'll probably order it.

I do not like my Kindle (am too much of an inveterate book collector) but I did order the Susan coolidge 'What Katy Did' collection as I adored these as a kid and have re read them many times. I also downloaded the Red/Yellow/Blue etc books of Fairy tales which contain stories from all over the World.

Claire Messud's last book - The Emperor's children is very good also. I've just started The woman upstairs.

They are the same book, mig...

I use my kindle for travelling, so much easier than the old days of cases of books!

I am trying to move away from amassing thousands of books, I want to shed the dragging weight of all the STUFF everywhere

I liked Canada, too, probably more than the Sportswriter trilogy.

I have a bit of a thing for Canadian fiction (I know Ford is American). Not come across many duds. Atwood, Munro, Laurence, Shields, Ondaatje, Richler, Davies, Mistry and new kid on the block Kaufman.

And also for frontier/settler and small town fiction generally.

I just nipped into town and bought The Dinner. Not sure whether I'll love or hate it.

Have only read Atomised by Houllebecq, Hully. Which of his is your favourite?

I don't know, I like all of them. Strange little man. Very interesting thoughts if you can tune out the really really dodgy woman stuff...

I'm about to abandon a crap-ish teen angst book for either The Dinner or that Bernadette one both of which I bought today

What Bernadette one?

Am still finishing Shriver's Perfect Family. Is ok

Books if you like small town fiction, have you read Richard Russo? Try Empire Falls. Very involving characters.

Another small town setting in Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson - really recommend this too.

Ah, great thread.

Nobody has mentioned Nicola Barker, though, her work is great, very ambitious, interesting writing style.

What about Self? Umbrella was really really good.

I am also loving Richard Ford.

What about David Foster Wallace? Infinite Jest is the best one.

Also: The Instructions by Adam Levin.

Oh, and for older stuff, Sherwood Anderson (particularly Winesburg, Ohio) and Thorton Wilder (Bridge of San Luis Rey) are relative unknowns who wrote some great books.

That's interesting, I don't like any of those, NotQuite. I tried Infinite Jest but couldn't get past page 2 and I find Nicola Barker irritating and Self so far up his own arse he's never coming back.