Help with my snobby bookclub

[HeartsTrumpDiamonds]

It is my turn to pick our next book for our book club and I am stumped. And a bit scared TBH.

It needs to be fairly highbrow and literary I'm afraid. I don't know the other women all that well (apart from the friend who introduced me to the group) and they have all been picking books that are either literary classics or modern winners of Nobel and Pulitzer prizes. So no chick lit - I think I would be kicked out of the group

I'd like to do something English or British because our current book is Runaway (Alice Munro) set in Canada.

I've already read lots of classics myself but don't really mind a repeat. I just want a book that won't make me look stupid.

So wise MNers - any recommendations?

H is for Hawk is amazing - totally different & will be a real classic.

And, Hearts when this thread has run for a while, could you ask MNHQ to move it to the adult fiction topic? It would be such a shame to lose all these recommendations after 90 days.

Fitzgerald? Hardy? Austen? Spenser's Faerie Queen is wonderful. Chaucer?

There's an incredibly boring book called Oscar and Lucinda that I didn't get to finish because it was so....boringly boreish...but it did win an award in the 90's.

I haven't read much except mn since having children. I really should pick it up over the summer when my exams are over.

I see someone has already suggested Terry Pratchett. I would go for his book Dodger, set in Victorian London, featuring many well known characters of the time Charles Dickens is the most obvious one.

You will come back and tell us what you've chosen, and then the snobby women's take on it, won't you? Tho I suspect they'll be more critical of your choice of wine and nibbles than the book, so....subsection...best snobby nibbles, anyone? What's on-trend amongst the book club literati? Anyone know?

All Quiet On The Western Front

The Labyrinth and Other Short Stories - Jorge Luis Borges (delicously sublime )

Ha Sunny! I haven't found anyone else ever who hates 'Rebecca' - dire, isn't it?

Is that us up to three 'Miniaturist' suggestions now? It's really not that good - inaccurate, derivative, plodding, bizarre characterisation, and needs a damn good edit.

Ha Sunny! I haven't found anyone else ever who hates 'Rebecca' - dire, isn't it?

Is that us up to three 'Miniaturist' suggestions now? It's really not that good - inaccurate, derivative, plodding, bizarre characterisation, and needs a damn good edit.

The Magus?

(How did I do that then ?)

The unbearable lightness of being by Milan Kundera
If on a Winters night a traveller By Calvino
Or a coming of age one - the greengage summer/I capture the castle/ we were liars

The Book of Dave by Will Self is fantastic. He's written it all in a language he created, reminiscent of Middle English!

I did not really MIND Rebecca per se, cheesy, but it has just been so overdone now hasn't it? and it is not really 'up there' with fine literature as people seem to think. My sister hates it btw!
~

Loved reading this thread- some great ideas for me!

I second 'Rebecca', I reread it recently and found so much in it I'd 'missed' the first time round.

How about 'The Summer Book' by Tove Jansson (wrote the moomin books)- it's absolutely charming, quirky, a short and simple masterpiece I think. All about a young girl and her grandmother staying on a tiny island in the gulf of Finland. It's so beautiful.

Hope it all goes well OP!

I've just had a bit of a lightbulb moment. What do people think of David Lodge? He's one of my favourite authors.

Terry Pratchett. I would go for his book Dodger, set in Victorian London,

This sounds quite interesting too.

oh oh hearts, do Lodge's 'the British Museum is falling down' as each chapter is a pastiche of another author's style! See if your book club types picks up on that!

I LOVE the sound of The Summer Book. Thank you Ilovemargaretatwood (I do too BTW). I'm going to get The Summer Boon as a present for my friend's birthday

given we have a poster with a good literary name how about some Baudelaire ? Or Maupassant ? I cried at Boule de Suif ....

Would you be drummed out of the group if you suggested a pair of books by sibling authors?

The Game by A.S Byatt and A Summer Bird Cage by Margaret Drabble are both about two sisters. There are autobiographical aspects in both books but from very different view points so lots to talk about.

Robertson Davies is one of my favourite writers - I don't think they would be able to find any fault with that choice.

It's so good Bell, I think you'll love it. Mags is super isn't she!

I love early Lodge, especially the academic novels, up to and including Nice Work. But I'm not entirely convinced non-academics would be particularly enthralled?

Not sure why Rebecca keeps coming up, but I have taught it on several university courses, focusing on adaptation (Rebecca and Wide Sargasso Sea in terms of what they do with Jane Eyre) or on feminist critical approaches courses. The question of whether it's in fact deeply conservative in its gender agenda (the rebellious, rule-breaking woman demonised and multiply killed off and the timid domestic mouse, without even a name, instituted as the ideal of femininity) or quite radical (Rebecca, despite being 'demonic' and dead, is still the most vital character, naming and dominating the book, and controlling the narrative) is always good for an argument.

Hey what about The Lonely Passion of Miss Judith Hearne

It's blood fantastic. Depressing but somehow uplifting too....well written.

As an alternative to Lodge, have a look at Alison Lurie "The War between the Tates" set in an American uni in the 1970s...although I prefer "The Truth and Lorin Jones".

Anyone mentioned James Joyce ? Ulysses ?

I see that The Magus has had a couple of mentions. These years later, I can't remember really what it was about, but it was remarkable for me because I was glued to it first reading, then immediately started re-reading when I'd finished, thinking wtf?