In search of brilliant but easy reading

[Scampmum]

Hello. I'm a newbie to Book Club, so please be gentle.

I'm about two thirds of the way through Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian and I'm finding it really tough going. It's incredibly beautifully written, and I appreciate that, and will finish the book for the dazzling sentences that appear at least once every two pages... but it's just SO BLEAK. I only really get to read on my train (18 mins each way) and I have to confess I occasionally procrastinate about opening it, particularly in the morning, because (call me soft, but) 6.54am is just too early to think about people being scalped.

I have been reading it for about three (or four ) months for this reason, and whilst I'm back in a good pattern and determined to finish it, I think I need an extra incentive of a really fun book to follow it.

The only thing is, I read Infinite Jest immediately beforehand (which I LOVED so much I have bored everyone I know to tears about it, but again found hard going to begin with), and with the same 'break' concept in mind moved on to my first Terry Pratchett and it was like comparing Rudolph Nureyev and Matt Lucas doing plies. I'm not saying Pratchett wasn't fun or interesting, it's just that Foster Wallace is so impeccable at his art that Pratchett couldn't help but suffer (horribly) in comparison.

So, what I need is a brilliant book that's also totally compelling, fun and challenging at the same time as being easy (easier than McCarthy). Ideas? I have on my list to read (among thousands of others):

Middlesex
Foucault's Pendulum
Underworld
White Noise
Any John Updike
Any John Irving

Any of these fit the bill?

I find John Irving very easy to read - I loved 'A Prayer for Owen Meany' - but it did make me cry buckets, so perhaps it doesn't fit your criteria.

I would highly recommend 'The Conjuror's Bird' by Martin Davies. My book club read it and we all really enjoyed it. It isn't 'high' literature, but his writing style is great and the story is fascinating. Amazon readers like it too! Link here:

www.amazon.co.uk/Conjurors-Bird-Martin-Davies/dp/034092053X

Patsy

Foucault's Pendulum is NOT easy reading. It is a great book but is quite hard work.

I would suggest The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. A teenager with Asperger's Syndrome tells the story. He doesn't understand everything that is going on, but the reader does. Very easy. Very interesting.

Written as a child's book but was #1 at adult fiction bestsellers list for a very long time.

Read that, but thank you! I have secured a copy of APFOM and will read it just as soon as I get through Blood Meridian (still plodding). It's working up to some kind of climax of violence (ratio of plodding through desert on horseback to bashing infants' heads in/throwing mules over escarpments is ratcheting up) so I must be getting there!

Middlesex is brilliant! Read it next

I think Middlesex is quite hard going if you truly are a novice. IMO easy but pleasurable reads, either because of the language or the storyline, would be Anita Shreve, Isabel Allende, Carol Shields, Amy Tan also the Mark Haddon mentioned earlier is fun.
Try the Kichen God's wife by Amy Tan; The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields and the Pilot's Wife by Anita Shreve. Obviously someone far more highbrow will come along and give you better pointers and point out the lack of men on my list! Good luck.

Don't touch "Foucault's Pendulum" if you want easy! It's, um, challenging.

To pick a few names at random, try some Iain Banks, Penelope Lively, Julian Barnes, Douglas Coupland, Maggie O'Farrell or Jonathan Coe. They're all people whose books seem thoughtful and intelligent on some level, but are also very readable.

Barbara Pym!

I wouldn't describe them as 'brilliant' writing but Douglas Kennedy's The Pursuit of Happiness and A Special Relationship are compelling stories and easy to read.

I'd go for Middlesex

but only because that's the only one of your list that I have read

I read it with my book group and they loved it, and they are a miserable hard to please lot

John Updike is great - try Couples or one of the Rabbit books

Richard Ford, Donna Tartt (The Secret History), Alison Lurie also very readable compelling American authors. Mary McCarthy's novel The Group well worth seeking out. Also some Marge Piercy - her classic Woman on the Edge of Time is a brilliant book, so is Fly Away Home. Her later stuff is generally not so great though.

British writers who are absorbing and gripping IMO include Jonathan Coe, some Hilary Mantel (A Place of Greater Safety is the best novel ever about the French Revolution), but avoid Fludd and maybe also the excellent but heavy Beyond Black, Kate Atkinson and wonderful William Boyd.