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.

Ah well. The Instructions is quite a bit like DFW, so don't try that.

Sherwood Anderson and Thorton Wilder are more like Richard Ford.

Has anyone read anything by Elizabeth Strout? I haven't, but I recently bought The Burgess Boys based on reviews but have not read it yet.

The one I'm reading is called Where'd You Go, Bernadette? By somebody Semple. Had good reviews, cracking start. Reminds me a bit of Jennifer Egan's The goon Squad, if you liked that. Told through emails and letters and notes, the story of a mother's disappearance and the impact on her daughter, set in modern Seattle.

For 'small town' reads I love Sinclair Lewis - Main Street and Babbit. And the Australia Miles Franklin.

Hully, have you read Wally Lamb? Big stomping books which are good on contemporary America. Or Gerard Woodward (especially the family trilogy). Heartbreaking and beautifully written, I think.

For those who like big but literary historical reads a la Wolf Hall, has anyone tried Karen Maitland. Her first book, Company of Liars and its sequel, set during the Plague are well thought of by literary friends. I have them but have not read them yet.

Joyce Carol Oates can be hit and miss. I like her middle period stuff best such as Middle Age (:a Romance?) oh and Richard Powers is another solidly good sign of the times American writer.

Excuse millions of typos. On phone. Grr.

When did you last re-read Dickens? Are there any you've missed? I revisit them every ten years or so, as I always see more to them when older :)

I did a DH Lawrence reprise a few years back. It confirmed that he really gets up my nose, but his prose can be spectacular.

Am catching up on George Gissing, and loving it!

I love Canadian lit too, the Divinera by Margaret Laurence is one of my all time faves, along with Atwood, shields, Ondaatje, Munro, McLeod. There is a great Canadian novel by Jane Urqhart called Away.

Second Wally Lamb. The hour I first believed is incredible, inspired by Columbine shootings.

The Diviners I meant!

I love that whole Manawaka series. Not sure which is my favourite but I've probably read The Diviners and The Stone Angel the most.

I love earliest Atwood the most, too (with an exception for Alias Grace). Anyone else love Surfacing, The Edible Woman, Lady Oracle et al as much as me?

Have read all Wally Lambs books. Liked 'She's Come Undone' best.

Yes to David Guterson, Elizabeth Strout- both excellent. Elizabeth Hyde recommended too as is Tom Perotta and 'Empire Falls' is an old favourite of mine from Russo...

Hully I like books as objects- the jacket design, typesetting everything. I also lend a lot out as I have so many and I can't lend a Kindle.

Jane Urquhart is great. I made a special trip to see the Canadian memorial at Vimy after the Stone one. But Away is best, yes.

Can't bear Dickens, the nauseating sentimentality...Little Dorrit. Say no more.

Like Thornton Wilder, have read a Wally Lamb, but can't remember which. Love Gissing.

YY early Atwood great, don't like Alias Grace and most of the later ones.

John Irving? Cider House Rukes an all time fave. All the others up to but not including Owen Meany after which his editor should have had the balls to tell him to cut the 400 pages about his current obsessions, be it tattoo parlours, logs...

mig - I was ever so slightly obsessive about books for many years, had to have the complete set of any author I liked etc and would rebuy those that weren't returned after lending. In a few years when dd is off I plan a much lighter more peripatetic life so I need to shed. I am trying to adjust my mindset to a love of electronic storage that can travel with me...

I am thinking it will be interesting too, in a few years, to see what signifiers come into play when books/films/dvds etc are all invisible on their electronic storages. How will we judge each other? The horror.

I rate JCO's short stories much more than her novels.

Margaret Lawrence is ok. I don't like The Handmaid's Tale, but Atwood is ok.

If you like Wilder, you might well like Sherwood Anderson. He was a big influence on Hemmingway etc etc, and has a lovely sparse simple style. Oh, speaking of which, what about Steinbeck?

Can't bear Dickens, the nauseating sentimentality...Little Dorrit. Say no more

I'm with Oscar Wilde on Little Dorrit: 'It would take a heart of stone not to laugh'-or was that The Old Curiosity Shop? But Barnaby Rudge and A Tale of two Cities (i.e. When Dickens actually did adventure) are both very good, I think.

James Salter is good, and Mary McCarthy (The Group, A Charmed Life).

If you like the sound of historical fiction with a dash of magic realism, the Neal Stephenson's The Baroque Cycle is worth a look. Most absorbing thing I've read in a long time, even spread over 3 books the size of doorstops.

Just spotted your comment about Anita, OP yes, indeed it is very comforting.

What about Irish writers like Colm Toibin or John Banville? If you like William Boyd have you read Julian Barnes? How much foreign fiction do you read, have you tried Italo Calvino or Mario Vargas Llosa.

This is such a great thread, a good reminder of some more classic books I've been meaning to read and some others I don't know yet.

Hullygully - re judging people by their kindles, I was bored on a 7 hour flight last week and kept trying to sneak covert glances to work out what the guy next to me was reading on his. Font size too small.

Thinking about my earlier recommendation for rereading The Go Between, it would make a great pair with Alan Hollinghurst The Stranger's Child, which I also enjoyed this year.

Stranger's Child has its moments - and has resonated longer than I expected; but I feel he's another author whose editor daren't edit him!

I like Colm Toibin (apart from the Irish girl going to the States and getting preg one) and John Banville.

Julian Barnes, not so much.

Italo Calvino got on my nerves and so I developed yet another prejudice about Mario...Really really like Primo Levi and Marquez.

I read a lot (relatively) of furrin stuff. Lot of Indian and lately a lot of Nigerian for some reason. And I had a Balkan phase

Slavenka Drakulic is superb.

YY CT's Brooklyn was an annoying read as his heroine was so passive. And like so many male authors he believes that once a woman has slept with one man (her husband) she will sleep with any man that speaks to her, even if she dislikes him throughout the book. It was all about his desire and nothing to do with her.

I read a lot of Julian Barnes 15 or so years ago, now it gathers dust on a shelf.

I'm stalled in Italo Calvino's Folk Tales. I put it down ages ago and don't know why I don't want to continue with them. What gets on your nerves? Is it the sameyness of them?

I enjoyed reading The Stranger's Child, but felt it was better written than the plot deserved. The lack of resolution though right was disconcerting at the time.

How about Paula Fox? The Widow's Children?

And what about Edward St Aubyn?

Have you read American Pastoral by Philip Roth? It's a tour de force - once you get past the first 70 or so pages.

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Oh yes! Edward St Aubyn.

Magnificent.

I can't read Philip Roth. Or John Updike. Or any of the so-called great American men of letters. They are so ravingly and horribly male.

With Calvino it was If On a Winter's Night and just the first few pages got on my nerves. It's that Oo look at me I'm clever clever and different.