A Fine Balance or A Suitable Boy?

[MiddleAgeMiddleEngland]

I have both sitting unread on my shelf. I've read other novels by both Mistry and Seth and enjoyed them all.

Which shall I read first? Any insights or suggestions welcome

Both! (Not helping)

I read A Suitable Boy on a long flight; I was rapt. 12 hours felt like 10 minutes.

The Mistry book, though, is a masterpiece.

I slightly prefer ASB but I am a historian and lived in 2 of the featured cities. I second the Ghosh suggestions. Lynn Fadiman mentioned above is fab. And early Rushdie so Midnight's Children and Haroun and the Sea of Stories. Naipaul's House for Mr Biswas is a classic too. His recent non fiction is bigoted crap.

If you havent read Ghosh start with Shadow Lines. Mesmerising.

Oh yes Laquila The Secret history is on my top ten.

My must-read most years is The Sheltering Sky. I never tire of it.

Am also going to dig out my battered copy of Midnight's Children after this thread.

YY for any that haven't read Midnight's Children I would definitely recommend it! I remember it being "harder" than A Suitable Boy but really gripping. I can't wait to get back to both of them

oldbrownboy I love Brother of the More Famous Jack; haven't read it for ages and you've reminded me I must reread soon.

It's hard to think of novels which are as memorable as ASB and AFB without turning to classics like Middlemarch, The Grapes of Wrath or The Old Wives' Tale, but you're asking for more recent recommendations OP...

I agree that English passengers by Matthew Kneale is excellent. I'd also recommend The Northern Clemency by Philip Hensher, The Observations and also Gillespie and I, both by Jane Harris, Fingersmith by Sarah Waters ... I'm on holiday at the moment and don't have my bookshelves in front of me to jog my memory.

Enjoying everyone else's recommendations, thank you

A Suitable Boy, if you can take the feeling of living a dual life over a period of three months or so. You're drawn into that family with all its quirks and struggles and you learn to love them all. So many "types" you're bound to find one that resonates and gives you an insight into the others.

You find out where the poetry style of The Golden Gate came from. For the writer it's obviously as easy as talking.
Anyone who enjoyed An Equal Music should read "Bel Canto" by Ann Patchett (no R in Patchett!). Hostages and their captors all find fulfillment through music and the joy of language, until the inevitable conclusion...

I haven't read A Fine Balance, but will put it on my wishlist. Thank you!

Ah Bel Canto is fantastic!! I think I read another of hers that I wasn't as keen on, can't rmemeber the name.

Beatrice, what are the trilogies you mentioned about? I'm after something very absorbing for my hols and love the sound of those - I love anything set in the Levant.

Oh yes, Bel Canto is one of my favourites, and Ann Patchett is a lovely woman. I was lucky to meet and have a chat with her at Hay on Wye. Extremely warm and engaging and intelligent. I agree that Bel Canto is her best, but Run and State of Wonder are also very good. The Magician's Assistant not so much.

Another really good writer who deserves to be more widely known is Sue Gee. Earth and Heaven is her best book IMO, The Mystery of Glass and The Hours of the Night are also good.

Help!!! I ask a simple question one evening, go to bed early, do a morning's work, then check back in here...

What do I find? A massive amount of fantastic-sounding books which I have been adding to my list. Hmm, will I ever get through them?

I'll answer a couple of posts a bit more fully later on, but thank you to everyone - it's turning out to be a really interesting discussion.

Sorry, should also have said that I read about 100 pages of AFB last night and was totally gripped. Hope to read another good chunk this evening.

Well, I will investigate Amitav Ghosh. I'll maybe order both The Glass Palace and Shadow Lines.

I don't think I've read any Mario Vargas Llosa so will have a look in the bookshop and see what they have.

oldbrownboot I agree about books which meant a lot at one time still having meaning much later. I love Brother of the More Famous Jack, and also Noah's Ark. When I was living in fairly grotty bedsits, The L-Shaped Room and its two sequels were among my favourite books, I read them so many times. Then I read them decades later as a proper grown-up with the mortgage all paid off and they just didn't seem the same.

kewrious A House for Mr Biswas is one of my favourite books. I also love Miguel Street and A Bend in the River.

highlandcoo Yes, it's hard to find modern fiction which is as great as some of the really good classics. You mentioned Middlemarch which I like but not as much as I enjoy Adam Bede and The Mill on the Floss. The Grapes of Wrath I read at least once a year, the same as Anna Karenin, probably.

Has anyone else read Growth of the Soil? It's firmly in my top ten but I don't know anyone else who has read it apart from me and DH. I could read the first page over and over again and not tire of it.

Thank you again everyone for adding to my list

I'd never heard of The Growth of the Soil OP - have just googled it and sounds excellent. Will definitely read. One gripe - I looked it up on Amazon.com just to get a general idea of the book and the first thing my eye landed on was a resume of the plot - I'm sure I now know events which I would much rather have uncovered while reading the novel. Why do they do this??

The description of the novel reminded me a little of Germinal by Zola - obviously the environment is completely opposite - rural v industrial - but the struggle to survive seems a major theme in both. Am planning to read more of Zola this year although I think The Ladies' Paradise will be extremely different!

Laquila The Balkan and Levant Trilogies are by Olivia Manning. Set during WW2. I think I prefer the Levant books but they are a series of six so better to start with the Balkan ones. There was a TV series with Emma Thompson in the eighties.

highlandcoo I agree! Why spoil it for readers? I hope you enjoy the book. Hamsun is now considered a national treasure in Norway and a museum was opened a while ago to commemorate him. He had links with the Nazis which has meant he has been considered as somewhat controversial but is now highly regarded. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1920 (I think that's the correct date)

Like many books written decades or more ago, some of the opinions are not what we would have now - hopefully - but for me seeing how attitudes have changed often makes a book more interesting.

I haven't read Germinal for years. I first read it as a teenager and was totally engrossed. Unfortunately I read it lying in the garden in a skimpy bikini (those were the days!!) and got badly sunburnt

Love AFB and ASB. I read ASB in the first few months of my PhD and it was awful when I finished it, those characters were as real to me as the people I was studying with.

Have you read any Margaret Attwood? Alias Grace is probably my favourite. and I have to recommend Sarah Waters to everyone at the moment because I love her books, just read The Night Watch which considering my grandmother was an ambulance driver during the war was a more emotional read than I was expecting.

I finished A Fine Balance today. I can't say I really enjoyed it as it was so sad in parts. But I can say that I think it is a fantastic work of literature and one that I will definately read again before too long.

Thank you for all the other suggestions everyone, I'll start working my way through at least some of them.

I just started AFB.

Loved ASB. Except all the politics.

U2 I hope you enjoy AFB. I read it in huge chunks as I wanted to walllow in it.

ASB is still sitting on my to-read shelf

Wish MN had a book exchange, I will never remember any of these titles.