Need some new recommendations (fiction or non-fiction)

[Sadik]

Inspired by the 50 books thread, I've been reading lots more this year. The flip side of this is I've started to run out of books I fancy - looking back at my list, most of the ones I've really liked were near the start of the year. So - some new recommendations needed :)

Fiction - I mostly read sci-fi / fantasy, often enjoy YA, don't really do 'literary' fiction. Some I've liked this year: SF - Ready Player One, The City and The City by China Mieville, Europe in Autumn. Non-SF - Grief is the Thing With Feathers, How to be Both by Ali Smith. Didn't like The Martian, The Invisible Library.

Non-fiction - read a lot of social sciences/politics, generally not so inspired by straight pop-science. Liked The Life Project / Social Class in the 21st Century / The New Spymasters / Nothing is True and Everything is Possible / Lean In. Didn't get on with Do No Harm or Names for the Sea.

Any suggestions welcome!

Try Claire North, her first two books are

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August - a new take on reincarnation/time travel

Touch - the protagonist can switch bodies by touch and is not the only one.

Have you read Wool?

It's by Hugh Howey.

Brian Harmon - the Rushed series. DH & I are really enjoying them.

Jim Butcher - The Dresden Files

Non-fiction: have you read The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson? I read very little non-fiction but found that one interesting. I also thought In Cold Blood by Truman Capote was fascinating and very well-written. I recommend Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer and Touching the Void by Jon Simpson, and a friend bought me Wild (Cheryl Strayed - film with Reese Witherspoon) for my birthday but I haven't started that yet.

Fiction - have just read The Revenant by Michael Punke and couldn't put it down!

The YA writer I always recommend is Patrick Ness - start with the Chaos Walking trilogy. Really well-written.

I've read Harry August - I did like it, but didn't find it enormously memorable - I should try some of her others though, it was definitely entertaining..

Jim Butcher - read the first Dresden Files novel, but it didn't really pull me in. Wool - gave up after the first couple of chapters. I do read quite a bit of YA (via dd as she has an endless supply), but not really grabbed by Patrick Ness, though I thought The Rest of Us Just Live Here was a great idea.

I'll check the others out - thanks, all :)

Fanny and Stella - fantastic non-fiction book! I absolutely loved it.

Operation Mincemeat v v good - British Secret Service stuff in WW2.

I have just finished Animal by Sara Pascoe. It is a semi auto biographical and anthropological history of women and sex. It is very funny and surprisingly informative.

Fanny and Stella is a good idea - I remember reading the reviews when it came out & meaning to read it - and even available from the library now :) I'm slightly averse to WW2 books (so very many of them) but I know everyone on the 50 books thread seems to like Op. Mincemeat, so I really should give it a go.

Just reading Beyond the Beautiful Forevers at the moment, but yet again I'm not that keen - I wonder if I'm just not in the reading zone atm.

HHhH by Laurent Binet best book I have read this year

Wrote a long post and lost it. Here it is in shorthand!

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

The Worst Journey in the World - Scott's doomed Antarctic expedition

Into the Silence - about Mallory and Everest

In the Heart of the Sea - about the sinking of the whaleship Essex, which inspired Moby Dick

And of course yes to HHhH - stunningly good.

HHhH is another WW2 one I ought to read, isn't it . . .

Sorry, peacemaking for some suggestions!

If you read one WWII book read HHhH. It is outstanding, and very different to, well, anything else. Psychology, history, philosophy, the problems of biography, all in the form of a gripping novel.

I started Operation Mincemeat, but wasn't feeling it so leaving it for a while.

HHhH added to the list - it's also in the library, so that's a bonus.

Can't wait to hear what you think of it!

I like a bit of sci-fi and used to read quite a bit of YA but not recently. Books I've particularly enjoyed this year include Life After Life by Kate Atkinson, the Girl with all gifts by m.r. Carey and time and time again by Ben Elton

You mention YA so I'll offer up Five Children on the Western Front by Kate Saunders.

That's a great list, amicissima - The Box sounds like exactly the sort of thing I'd enjoy (I really enjoyed Deep Sea and Foreign Going about the international shipping trade), as does Boomerang.

If you like YA I'd suggest Garth Nix's Sabriel books. I'm finding it hard to describe them at all. But I love them. I think maybe they are what Rosemary Sutcliffe would have written if she wrote fantasy.

On the nonfiction side, if you like social history have you read Bill Bryson's book 'At Home'. It looks at how people's home life has changed over the centuries by looking at how each room in a house has changed. Or if you are interested in linguistics and language I'd really recommend anything by David Crystal. I particularly like The Story of English in 100 words.

I have just finished Infidel, by Ayaan Mirsi Ali. It's an autobiography of a Somali woman's journey, and is both uplifting and horrific.

Also loved The Shepherd's Tale by James Rebanks.

Only Human series! amzn.to/21ikpxZ :) It's sci-fi, young adult fiction, but reads really quickly.