Author or Book Recommendations.

[Limth]

I'm in a lull with books and need to get out.

I like literary fiction - well-written but not pretentious.
I like quite 'dark' books, I loathe fuzzy-feels happy endings.

If I like these people and these books who/what else might I enjoy? Please help me. There are several books that I've enjoyed where the authors have other books for me to try so that's good. But who/what else could you put me on to....

Authors:
Esi Edugyan (Though hated "Half Blood Blues")
Isabelle Allende
Hanya Yanagihara
Siri Hustvedt
Bernadine Evaristo
Susanna Clarke
Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche
Donna Tartt
Joanne Harris (though she's league two, not top division)

I'm probably forgetting people!

Example Books:
The Luminaries
My Dark Vanessa
The Rabbit Hutch
The Remains of the Day
Panchinko
The Poisonwood Bible

THANK YOU!

piranesi by susannah Clark was an interesting and different kind of book. Are you keen on crime fiction at all?

Well I've just been on another thread recommending Out by Natsuo Kirino so I'm going to suggest that. It's quite dark and many would say an acquired taste but I love her work 😀

Babel - R. F. Kuang.

OP, I like similar writers.

Bel Canto and The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
Old Filth (first in trilogy) by Jane Gardam
Old Baggage (first in trilogy) by Lissa Evans
Arthur and George by Julian Barnes
The Observations and Gillespie and I by Jane Harris
Earth and Heaven by Sue Gee
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
Music and Silence by Rose Tremain
The Shipping News by E Annie Proulx
Still Life by Sarah Winman
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry

Some of my favourites.

Similar to my tastes, so I came in to recommend Ann Patchett and I see@highlandcoo beat me to it. I loved Bel Canto and have been reading some of her older books. All great.

I also loved Arthur and George and Sarah Waters
off high's list.

What about Hannah Kent Burial Rites? Dark, literary and fascinating.

The Signature of All Things fits your brief too. Don't be put off by the author!

Have you read any other Kingsolver? The latest one, Demon Copperhead is clever and very Kingsolver, but my favourite is Prodigal Summer

You've read Atwood? And a slightly different style, but Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel was good and I've just bought her new one for my holiday.

I'm sure there's more, but I'm fuzzy this morning after drinks in the garden last night!

If you like literary fiction, take a look at Harold Bloom's list. Bloom was the literary critic of the late 20th-century and once compiled a list of what he considered the greatest books. I have been following it for a while. He lists them in chronological order, beginning with Homer and the Bhagavad Gita and that sort of thing and ending with contemporary novelists.

For what it's worth, here's a few books I love – all literary/high-browish(ish) and no fuzzy endings:

Anthony Burgess: A Dead Man in Deptford
Anita Brookner: Hotel du Lac
Aldous Huxley: Eyeless in Gaza
George Orwell: Coming up for Air
Edward St Aubyn: the Melrose novels
E. M. Forster: Howards End
Virginia Woolf: Mrs Dalloway
Joseph Conrad: The Secret Agent
Thomas Hardy: Jude the Obscure
Cormac McCarthy: No Country for Old Men
Truman Capote: In Cold Blood

Thank you! There are some amazing suggestions here to get stuck into!

I should've added Sarah Waters to my list - I love her work 😊
I also love Daphne Du Maurier.
See, told you there were people I'd forgot!

@highlandcoo I actually read old Baggage and Old Filth and didn't really get on with either of them. Old Baggage was alright but felt it was written in readiness for a Sunday night TV drama. Old Filth I just couldn't really get into at all.

@AlwaysFreezing I love Handmaid's Tale. I've tried other Attwood work but haven't enjoyed it at all. I actually don't think she's a very good writer - I think HMT was a fluke 🤐

@Sw33tdreams I'm not too keen on crime fiction. I quite like historical crime or mystery fiction - CJ Sansom and Karen Maitland. But I find modern crime novels a bit cringe TBH. Having said that, I did enjoy "Interpretation of a Murder" a few years ago.

For dark I will always recommend ‘it happened in Boston?’ By Russell H Greenan. He’s well known in the US and France but not so much here

Jenn Ashworth for a contemporary author. Particularly her latest, "Ghosted".

I haven't read anything else by her, but I'm nearing the end of Fall On Your Knees by Anne-Marie Macdonald, and I'm really enjoying it. It's by no means an easy read, but it's very well written, with some beautifully poetic parts. Really absorbing.

The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy
Human Acts - Han Kang
Trespasses - Louise Kennedy
The Push - Ashley Audrain
Unsettled Ground - Claire Fuller

@kote I'm not sure I could bring myself to try another Han Kang after the absolute war crime of a novel that was "The Vegetarian" 😂

But I loved "Unsettled Ground" and then worked my way through all Clare Fuller's work. I can't remember its proper title but the one with "Orange" in the title ("Bitter Orange" maybe) was absolutely gripping in particular.

Many, many, many thanks for all these recommendations- lots to be getting on with

I am now hungry for a story, having finished Check Mate and Ink Black Heart, and I need recommendations. I am not drawn to Niccolo, having failed to get into it last time, and I'm not enthusiastic about Galbraith.
I've liked

Lindsey Davis
Peter Tremayne (there's a new one out)
Pat McIntosh
Donna Leon
Terry Pratchett
Diana Wynne Jones
Shirley McKay

and I've read up to date on them, and Ellis Peters (and Pargeter). Some I'm waiting for the next, but obviously some the source is lost. Crime, but not realistic.

I used to like Roger Zelazny, Paul Anderson, Andre Norton and Zenna Henderson, back in my youth.

So, I like somewhere or somewhen else, not literary, with likeable people. My niece gave me Donna Tartt's "The secret history" and I read it because it was a gift, but didn't like the people.

Something I can wallow in to cheer me up.

Obviously way different to all the serious recommendations above!

https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/441090/the-mad-womens-ball-by-mas-victoria/9781529176773

Cormac McCarthy.

This is an awesome thread. I feel like your collective knowledge is soooo much better than my own but wanted to say thank you to all, even if I don't have anything insightful to add!

Just wanted to say Thankyou and also mention Elizabeth Strout I can honestly say I think of something from Olive Kitteridge most days.
I also like some not all Lionel Shriver.

If you want dark, the Booker winner Prophet Song is probably the darkest book I've read this year. You may also like The Bee Sting for a long page-turner, with a bit of environmental bits.

Fire Rush by Jacqueline Crooks was great, short-listed for the Woman's Prize. I'd highly recommend the Audible if you ever listen rather than read.

And The Bandit Queens was another good read from the Women's Prize selection.

I loved Maps Of Our Spectacular Bodies - which is funny, sad and dark. It's reasonably experimental style wise which you may or may not like.