Properly literary fiction vs just fiction

[Myrobalanna]

I mean great writing AND great plotting AND great characters AND inspirational use of language AND a certain take on the world...does it still exist? I keep reading reviews, buying a book I think will be fantastic, and there's just nothing to it.

Would really love some recommendations for recent, 'proper books' - not that I don't enjoy the others but I want something amazing!

Well, that's good to know! Perhaps I shouldn't take any suggestions from you either. I quite liked Jonathan Strange etc but wouldn't put it isa favourite - too convoluted.

I quite like Sarah Waters, though, but think her later ones aren't as good as the earlier ones. I really didn't like the most recent one.

Great thread, thanks, OP. Most of my favourites have already been mentioned, such as Margaret Atwood, Sarah Waters, Kate Atkinson, Jonathan Coe & AS Byatt. I would also suggest:

• Penelope Lively's books. Lovely prose and always worth reading. Start with 'Moon Tiger' (won the Booker in 1987?) or 'The Photograph'.
• Patrick Gale. Again, lovely writing. My favourite is 'Notes on an Exhibition'
• 'Notes on a Scandal', by Zoe Heller, is a good read. Ditto 'Falling', by Elizabeth Jane Howard (about a conman who preys on women).

Couldn't bear 'Cloud Atlas'. A real Marmite of a book, I find. But 'Black Swan Green' by the same author, David Mitchell, is really good. And thanks to the PP who mentioned 'English Passengers' by Matthew Kneale. Absolutely hilarious.

A little life is harrowing but spectacular.
I loved The Luminaries but it was so long I nearly had to restart it once finished as there were so many intertwinings of characters.

I've made a list to start ordering.

I'd like to add
Commonwealth - Anne Pattchett
The bricks that built the houses - Kate Tempest
Anyting by Donal Ryan - The spinning heart, The thing about December, All we shall know.
Donna Tartt's The Little friend was much better then the Goldfinch.
While I know many didn't enjoy Ellena Ferrante series - Days of Abandonment - what a book!
I'd finally add any of Iain Banks fiction, science fiction is not my bag.

I agree with Elizabeth Strout, I loved Olive Kitteridge and Lucy Barton. I have also recently discovered Hannah Kent, Helen Dunmore and Sarah Moss and am very much enjoying their writing. The Power by Naomi Alderman is fantastic too, I've been recommending it to everyone!

It's a book of short stories but it's brilliant: Battle Born by Claire Vaye Watkins. She was brought up in Nevada and all the stories are set in that area. It has such a strong sense of place, unique characters and something a little unexpected.

Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson and Pigeon by Alys Conran. Just stunning on both counts.

Also...
The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
Station Eleven - Hilary St John Mandel
Freedom - Jonathan Franzen

Most definitely The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen. It is epic.
I read Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood many years ago and remember thinking "this is a proper book". Also love anything by Siri Hustvedt, Rachel Cusk and Carol Shields. Special mention goes to William Boyd who is AMAZING - Any Human Heart should be compulsory reading.

MissyMop123 Battleborn is my favourite book I've read this year. Can't believe I forgot that, I've been recommending it to everyone!

Also second Station Eleven. That was last year's favourite!

Margaret Atwood is a given. Also Donna Tartt.

Ontopofthesunset I completely agree that Sarah Waters' earlier books are the best. I've been slightly disappointed by the last couple.

Ontopofthesunset I hope you weren't offended when I said I wouldn't take recommendations from you. It was totally tongue in cheek. I just thought it was funny to find someone who's taste in books was the polar opposite to mine. One of my closest friends is a bit like that. We always disagree on book group choices.

No not at all! And I hope you realised I was joking when I said I shouldn't take recommendations from you. It is funny how certain books really polarise people.

I bet we can find some middle ground, like Sarah Waters.

KarenCBC Sounds like we have similar tastes in books so I'm going to recommend 'Problems' by Jade Sharma to you. It's quite gritty and edgy, about a functioning heroin addict in New York. It's funny in parts as well. Don't read it if you're easily offended though! I always think if someone likes 'Battle Born' then there's a chance they'll like 'Problems' but I'm not sure I'd recommend it to everyone.

Have you read 'Gold, Fame, Citrus' by Watkins? I didn't enjoy it as much as Battle Born but it's still a good read. But thinking about it, if you enjoyed Station Eleven, you make like it - it's a similar genre.

Another recommendation is 'Lightening Rods' by Helen De Witt. What a little gem of a book. It's so quirky and she is a brilliant writer.

I'm currently reading 'A Little Life' by Hanya Yanagihara and I love it and hate it in equal measure. If anyone's read this you'll understand why. A writer less skilled wouldn't have gotten away with it.

Whoever recommended Ian Banks I would agree totally, but think his earlier novels are better than the later ones. The Crow Road is one of my favourite books ever but not a typical Banks.

I read the Plainsong series by Kent Haruf last year - absolutely loved them, the writing is beautiful but the stories are slow. They're about people's lives in small town America (but also about what it is to be human). People who like Anne Tyler would probably enjoy.

And I also love Any Human Heart by William Boyd which is amazing. His other books are readable and entertaining but nowhere near as good imo.

I like

David Mitchell, particularly Black Swan Green and 'The 1000 Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
Margaret Atwood - particularly 'The Handmaid's Tale', 'The Penelopiad' and the Oryx and Crake books
Hiary Mantel - the Cromwell books
Maggie O'Farrell
AS Byatt - Possession
Donna Tartt
some Kazuo Ishiguro
Annie Proulx - especially 'The Shipping News'
Sarah Waters

I also enjoyed (although it's sad) 'Did you ever have a family' which is a debut by Bill Clegg

I like Margaret Atwood too.

I like Margaret Atwood's post-Oryx and Crake stuff much less than her earlier novels. The Robber Bride is my favourite of all of hers -- it does that very difficult thing where it has three different point of view characters, and the narrative switches between them, but in her hands, the three are all equally interesting and vivid.

Missy I don't think Yanagihara gets away with it at all in 'A Little Life'! I've sounded off about it before on here, but to me that was unpleasant, high-grade misery porn that seemed to take some perverse delight in seeing how much it could put its tormented main character through.

I agree with whoever said Sarah Waters' earlier books were better - I like her clever neo-Victorian ones with plot twists, but I've found the last few, particularly The Paying Guests, rather turgid.

Any Anne Enright fans here?

I have got The Goldfinch in hardback. I was given it years back as a present and never got round to it, may start it next. I loved The Secret History and liked The Little Friend. I read The Secret History when it first came out. I was around 18 and it affected me quite deeply and stayed with me. I was about to go off to Uni, which as anyone who has read the book knows is the setting of the novel. I also love a bit of gothic and this tapped into it in a modern way. Probably should read it again as it has been a long time and I may have misremembered it

I am also a big Daphne du Maurier fan and a few years ago read Justine Picardie's book Daphne which is a novel not a biography and I completely and unexpectedly loved it. A good one for du Maurier fans.

Chavelita All I'll say is that I'm overly empathetic and I feel like I'm taking on Jude's pain and anguish. I can only read it in small chunks. I'm half way through and I'm not sure how much more I can read without having a breakdown :-). The thing that I'm really missing from it a sense of time and place. I can only presume she did this deliberately. It feels like a very dark adult fairy tale. I love how she writes though.

Oooh and before I forget (I've got to get off this thread, I've got loads of work to do but I could talk about books all day) ... Stoner by John Williams. I've never read such a humble but absorbing book. It was written years ago but was rediscovered a few years back. A beautiful portrait of a quiet man living a quiet life.

I'm a great fan of Margaret Forster - I don't hear her mentioned much these days but have enjoyed her novels. They are all quite different from each other. My favourite was Lady's Maid, an account of the life of Elizabeth Barrett Browning written from the perspective of a fictional maid. She also wrote a terrific memoir about her grandmother, her mother and her own lives and how their opportunities were so different. Very thought provoking.

ChristopherWren Lady's Maid was so good! Must have read it twenty years ago. Never hear anyone talk about it!

Agree on Margaret Forster. 'The Battle for Christabel' is probably my favourite of hers; love the snobby narrator character.

Nina Bawden and Elizabeth Taylor (not the film star) are other writers whose books don't seem to be mentioned very often, but well worth a go IMO. Think Nina Bawden is better known nowadays for her children's books, but her adult books are just as good.

Yes I love Elizabeth Taylor and also Rosamund Lehman.