I have run out of books - suggest some?

[CherryChoc]

I always used to be reading, but I slowed down a lot since college and then I went off fiction about a year or 2 ago and have been reading nothing but parenting books since. However I recently read Two Caravans and enjoyed it, and have discovered I have a bit of time in the evenings to read while putting DS to bed, so I am looking for more books. Can anybody suggest anything?

It's probably easier to list what I don't like:
Depressing fashionable child abuse novels
Chick lit and/or anything utterly predictable
Fantasy
Horror/Thrillers etc
Crime
Romance (unless not utterly predictable and/or boring.)

I like things which are in the realms of believeable - ie set in the real world. Don't mind happy or sad, but I do like funny. Don't mind time period set, either.

Also - where do you start when choosing books to read, in a library or bookshop? Do you start with the bestsellers? Look for favourite authors? Pick a random shelf? I must have stopped reading when I had read all the books in the teenage section at the library and the adult section was full of boring books or trash.

If you liked Cloud Atlas, you may also like Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood. It covers similar themes and issues but is (in my view) more convincing and far better written.

I'd also recommend Dorothy Dunnett - the Lymond Chronicles (Game of Kings etc) are better than the House of Niccolo IMO.

The Dream of Scipio, Ian Pears. Came out a few years ago and is a brilliant book.

Anything by Anthony Trollope - start with Barchester stories.

Susan Hill - the various haunts of men
the Kite runner
Small Island - Andrea Levy
Good Women (short stories) - forgotten who by!
the memeory keeper's daughter - Kim Edwards
the lovely bones

ggirl that site is amazing. I love it. I think Amazon and the Book Depository are going to unexpectedly beat the downward economic trend. (I have a bit of a habit.)

I recommend Crow Lake

If you like funny books Sparkle Hayter's are very funny, and clever, and not at all chick-lit as the cover suggests.

Some really good suggestions here. I loved 'Oryx and Crake' (love most Margaret A actually) and thought 'Cloud Atlas' was interesting and clever.

I always recommend John Updike's Rabbit books; I think they're brilliant, but lots of people don't get on with them.

It's great isn't it,have just discovered Jane Gardam as an author similar to Mary Lawson (loved Crow Lake)
Why have I not heard of her..must check her out on amazon.I have bad habit aswell.

'Everyman' by Philip Roth - humane, gripping, infuriating slice of life stuff - but be warned, takes a very, very male view of the world. But is therefore intriguing.

'The Road' by Cormac McCarthy - makes you think. Bloody depressing, takes a while (?40 pages) to get into, but once in, you won't get out til the end (nb apocalypic sci-fi-ish stuff, which I usually hate, but lots of insight into Human Condition).

'Hangover Square' by Patrick Hamilton - infatuation and mental illness in 1930s London (but honestly, really good!!).

Anything by Barbara Trapido.

" " " " by Elizabeth Taylor (not the actress! - the other one).

Mr Phillips by John Lanchester (again, more life from the male point of view).

And, like Singersgirl, I LOVE the Rabbit books. I think they're a triumph of 20th-century-literature. JU's 'Couples' is also really good.

I've gone on too long....

I've just read American Wife, by Curtis Sittenfeld and couldn't put it down. It's a fictional account of the life of Laura Bush, but far better than that makes it sound.

Actually I like all Sittenfeld's books esp Prep. She has an light, natural style that makes her books very easy to read.

I've also recently enjoyed His Illegal Self by Peter Carey and The History of Love by Nicole Krauss.

Laugs, I've just finished American Wife too and thought it was fab. I had zero interest in Laura Bush but it is so well done and while it is fiction, I felt it gave me a terriffic insight into George W.

I just finished World Without End by Ken Follett
It is meant to be a sequel of sorts to Pillars of the Earth, but def could read it on its own.
I loved both of them.

A second (or third?) for Middlesex.
I quite like Sarah-kate Lynch...although they are not "grounded"...I loved Eating With The Angels".

I love love loved "The Girl in Times Square" by Paulina Simons

I mooch around 2nd hand stores, and go to the library to choose - I very rarely buy, as I read so much, i'd rather save the money and borrow them.

chocolatedot, apart from the amazing writing, I also liked how it named so many adults' and children's books. I'm going to have to go through and make a note of them. It's like a great big reading list!

I third the Rabbit books and for those people (and also OP) I would strongly recommend the novel Old School by Tobias Woolf - fabulous writing

I too really enjoyed "Pillars Of The Earth" and "World Without End" - they are huge mediaeval sagas, essentially: occasionally a bit cliched but still really gripping and with characters who get under your skin and force you to care about them.

I'm loving all these suggestions.

My 2 cents:

Barbara Kingsolver - anything, but definitely the Poisonwood Bible.

Anne Tyler - again enjoyed all her books - beautifully written.

The secret life of bees

Another vote for Jonathan Frantzen - Corrections & Middlesex & Small Island

Sebastian Faulks - Birdsong is just a beautiful/haunting book. Just finished Engleby as well which I enjoyed (although definitely a bit disturbing).

I'll stop now and start writing down everyone elses recommendations .

ggirl that literature map ting is amazing... but I am slightly worried- I typed in my favourite author (Haruki Murakami) and the 2 closest matches were authors I absolutely hate! (Martin Amis, and Paul Auster)
Lots of the other matches were very good for authors i like though!

I can second The Corrections and Middlesez - both absolutely fab.

I love William Boys. His "Any Human Heart" is wonderful - funny, sad, moving... Also "The New Confessions".

Try Jonathan Coe "The Rotters Club". Brilliant and hilarious.

How do I chose?

By going to the charity shop and buying whatever takes my fancy - I do tend to judge a book by the cover.

If nobody speaks of remarkable things - by Jon McGregor - an amazing book, set in present time, very 'real', about a street and its inhabitants. It seems v slow to begin but suddenly you will find yourself completely absorbed as it is just so evocative and beautifully written.

The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts by Louis de Bernieres is also a favourite - it is very funny (also a bit gory) and I think much better than Captain Correlli's Mandolin.

I have to say I am pretty random when it comes to choosing books and I am usually so tired since having DC's that unless a book is amazingly gripping I rarely manage to finish them as I get through them so slowly I lose interest!!

Rather than having a wedding list, DH and I asked our wedding guests to get us their favourite book ever and write a message in the flyleaf. We have a very eclectic "wedding library" as a result and one day I will get round to reading them all - I can send you some titles from there if you like...gives a great insight into some of our friends psyches!

Of course I meant William Boyd not William Boys.

Paul Auster is very variable. I struggled with the New York Trilogy, but adored Moon Palace and thought The Book of Ilusions was incredible.

Murakami is brilliant though. I don't know anyone who hasn't absolutely adored The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.

Other books I think are worth reading - Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible, anything by Rohinton Mistry but particulary Family Matters, Such a Long Journey and A Fine Balance. Jill Paton Walsh: Knowledge of Angels. Vanity Fair. North and South. Wodehouse (Jeeves and Wooster are inspired). Fingersmith or The Night Watch by Sarah Waters. another vote for Oryx and Crake (need a sub thread for brilliant dystopian fiction, I think).Trollope's The Way We Live Now could've been written last week, so perspicacious is its social and political commentary. Kyril Bonifiglioli's books are wickedly funny especially for Wodehouseians. Zoe Heller's The Believers and Notes on a Scandal. David Sedaris is surely America's best humourist - Me Talk Pretty One Day and The Santaland Diaries are genius. If anyone hasn't read Elizabeth Jane Howard's Cazalet books you're missing out on an absolute TREAT (the first one is called The Light Years). Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon Days. Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities and A Man in Full if you like machismo, Americana and pacy writing. E Annie Proulx's The Shipping News. Phillip Pullman's trilogy is just wonderful whether you like fantasy or not (I don't, and they still made me weep like a baby). Will Self - Great Apes and The Way We Live Now.

I think that's enough to be getting on with...

If nobody speaks of remarkable things - by Jon McGregor - absolutely seconded - brilliant.

I love that wedding present idea!

Sorry to contradict sleep and Rach but I absolutely hated "If Nobody Speaks Of Remarkable Things" - I really couldn't see the point of it and kept reading and reading until the end (must have been a sparse book week with nothing to replace it with) but didn't engage with it at all.

any of 'mitch albom' (think that is the spelling). he is fab

altho the books are readable in one day, so you will be back here quickly!

Is he the "Five People You Meet In Heaven" guy? "Tuesdays With Morrie" (I think that's what it's called) is an absolutely amazing, warming, shattering, tear-jerking, life-affirming read: really not my usual thing at all but I adored it.

Time Traveller's Wife; Poisonwood Bible; The Hungry Tide; the Glass Palace; Thousand Splendid Suns;