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!

Elizabeth Taylor is wonderful.

missy, all I can say is that if you're unusually empathetic and taking on Jude's pain, and you're only halfway through A Little Life, then you should probably put it down and get someone to give you a plot summary of the rest. Shall we say that everything terrible that hasn't already happened to Jude, happens, gruesomely, plus multiple lengthy flashbacks to the details of his horrific childhood....?

OOH I have wondered about Elizabeth Taylor before but not taken the plunge. One for the Kindle (which of course isn't real spending ...).

And I second John Williams. Just started Stoner but Augustus was mind blowing. Funny how we are going a bit more classic ... Does that tell us anything? Can I push it to Dorothy Whipple and Molly Panter Downes (as I see the OP wasn't strictly 'modern')?

Chavelita That's that then, the book needs to move on. I really can't cope with any more. I can't even imagine there's anything else that can go wrong in Jude's life and I feel I know enough about his childhood to understand how it impacts him in adulthood. I did read a spoiler so I know one thing and I don't like the sound of it at all.

Missy

You'll thank me. Towards the end when we start spending a lot of time in Jude's childhood reading it was rather like repeatedly slamming your own head in a door.

Another recommendation for 'literary and clever, but with a very light touch' Jane Stevenson. She's not wildly well-known, I think, but she has two collections of novellas which I think are brilliantly clever, funny, absorbing, unshowy but good prose. Good Women (three novellas, one about a philandering Scottish architect who divorces his upper-class wife to marry a sexy nouveau-riche oil wife, one about an Irishwoman who becomes a Buddhist nun in a Tibetan community in 1960s India, one about a gardening-obsessed widow being edged out of her Kew house by her son and daughter-in-law). The other collection, Several Deceptions, is more varied a kind of version of The Secret History set in the law faculty at a Dutch university, a literary joke perpetrated by an Umberto-Eco-ish academic that goes out of control, the theft of a painting by an upper-class dinner party gathering.

She also has a trilogy of historical novels that I like less, but I'd really recommend the novellas.

Robertson Davies (Canadian) is also very funny and writes very well.

I love an american writer called Cheryl Mendelson - she has a trilogy starting with Morningside Heights that is delightful - well written, great plot, lovely characters and a different view of NYC. Not sure if you can get them in UK though.

I'm not a great Anne Enright fan but I thought The Green Road (?) was great.

For a thumping good read, you can't beat Trollope (see my user name!)

If you google Nancy Pearl (or NPR Librarian) you'll get this great woman who recommends under the radar books. She has 2 books too recommending great books that are not that well known. I read 2 of the funniest books from her recommendations The Bear Went Over The Mountain and Evolutionary Man (Or How I Ate My Father).

So, embarrassingly, for my birthday despite my pretensions and aspirations to proper books, the children guided by dh have bought me a copy of The Unmumsy Mum.🙄

I just finished Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor and it is beautifully written and very sad. It was from a set of Virago Modern Classics I bought a few years ago that also included very good books by Rebecca West, Rosamund Lehmann, Kate O'Brien and Pat Barker.

Other really memorable books that I'd recommend:
The Bone People by Keri Hulme
City of Bohane by Kevin Barry
The Spinning Heart by Donal Ryan
Brazzaville Beach by William Boyd
The Way the Crow Flies by Ann-Marie MacDonald

I just ordered Morningside Heights from the library, Pallisers. I'd never heard of her before but it looks excellent.

Oh so delighted mmack. I love her - and the 2 sequels are lovely too. I really loved the third one Love Work Children. It has that lovely thing - middle aged as well as young protaganists who deserve (and maybe get?) love.

When I have been stuck wondering what to read next, I have gone into lists of Virago books for inspiration. One of the funniest books I read from the 19th century was Miss Marjoribanks by Mrs Carlingford (a virago reprint. She was one of those indomitable 19th century women who kept her entire family afloat by churning out novels etc. It is truly very very funny and a great story.

Kate O Brien - every one of hers - fit the bill too for this thread.

The only Virago I read and didn't like was The Passion of New Eve by Angela Carter. My favourite funny one is Provincial Daughter by R.M. Dashwood and Union Street by Pat Barker made me sob for about an hour. They certainly have a book to suit every mood.

www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/User:Christiguc

This is a link to the list of Virago publications. Virago opened up so many new writers to me in my teens - reading these is like looking at old friend.

and it was Mrs Oliphant not Mrs Carlingford (think Carlingford might be where the novel is set!) who wrote Miss Marjoribanks.

From the blurb on the back, I did not expect to like Brazzaville Beach but I really enjoyed it. He writes female characters so well.

Signing in because his is such a great thread but also to recommend We are not ourselves - Matthew Thomas. I really didn't think it was my thing reading the reviews but it was wonderful and I cried my eyes out.

For the Elizabeth Strout fans, she has a new collection of short stories out, one of which features the character Lucy Barton.

And two more recommendations from the heart, and I utterly envy you if you haven't yet read these writers Alice Munro (Canadian, long short stories, but with the plot, characterisation and timescale of a novel compressed into each, unspeakably good and I don't normally find a collection of short stories as compelling as a novel) and Alice McDermott (Irish-American, has won large numbers of awards in the US, less-known here -- start with Charming Billy or Child of My Heart).

And while we're on Virago reprints, Rebecca West's semi-autobiographical trilogy: The Fountain Overflows, This Real Night and Cousin Rosamund. These are set in early 20th c England, about an eccentric family with a gambling journalist father, an ex-concert pianist mother, two brilliantly-gifted pianist daughters -- also a poltergeist, and a murder, and an art-collecting millionaire. These are so good that after I'd read the first few chapters of the first novel, I ordered the delivery of the two sequels by Amazon Prime to arrive the next day.

Ah this is like getting into a warm bath. Thank you all for the many and varied recommendations - I've not even heard of some of these writers and am much encouraged.

It's always difficult with writers to recommend their whole oeuvre - some are very patchy indeed and some change so they lose what's for you the thing that makes them great (not the writer's fault!). I truly loved the last two Kate Atkinsons but have found some of hers to be very churned-out (the latter Brodie ones in particular). Was a fan of Jonathan Coe but find him quite bland and cliched nowadays, which makes me sadder than I ought to be about it.

one of my favourite books is Vernon God Little. And Margaret Atwood is always good (although some better than others)

Oh and some of my absolute favourites - JG Farrell - Siege of krishnapur and Singapore Grip

I also would recommend gilead by Marilynne Robinson one of the best books i have ever read.

Lots of new books to try in this thread.

Love Half of a Yellow Sun and also The Corrections...

No one has mentioned David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest have they? If you're looking for something different. I thought it was a bloody difficult read but so worth it in the end. Very varied and inventive. Annoyingly inaccessible at times but did have a very interesting story, characters, premise.
Also he writes some great essays, try Consider the Lobster.

Anything by Michel Houellebecq - especially loved The Map and the Territory.

Recently released 'The Essex Serpent' which I am half-way through is fabulous.

Golden Hill, I thought was a great read. Also just read The Muse by Jessie Burton, her first novel The Miniaturist was also excellent.

I steer clear of 'trash' but do believe there is a lot of great 'literary' fiction being written today. However, what I consider literary might be someone else's trash and vice versa!

I'm reading Morningside Heights at the moment and enjoying it very much. Thanks for the recommendation.

Elena ferrante!

GuestWW I too am loving the Essex Serpent, I don't want it to end.

The Goldfinch
All the Light we Cannot See
The Rules of Civility
A Fraction of,the Whole

All bloody brilliant books (IMO)