Who's read any of these authors?

[Jux]

Rose Tremain
Marion Engel
Rohington Mistry
Anne Marie Macdonald
Francesca Lia Block
Margaret Laurence
Marya Hornbacher
Curtis Sittenfeld
Jeffery Eugenides
Miranda July
Mark Haddon
Paul Aster
T. Coraghessan Boyle

These are the authors who came up when I put Elliot Perlman in Literature Map. I haven't included authors I've read.

If you've read something by one of these people, what did you think of it? I'm searching for authors I'll enjoy as much as Robertson Davies. So far I've found Perlman, Timothy Findley, Marisha Pessl, all of whom I enjoy.

Included in that map, though, was Dean Koontz who I think is one of the worst writers I've ever had the misfortune to read!

I love Miranda July, though i'd imagine some people would be put off by her "quirky" quotient. her book of short stories "no one belongs here more than you" is very funny. she also made a great film called "me and you and everyone we know".

i like "the music of chance" by paul auster and "the virgin suicides" by jeffrey eugenides, but admittedly haven't read that for ages.

I'm a Robertson Davies fan, recent Elliot Perlman convert, and loved Special Topics in Calamity Physics, so may have similar tastes to you .

Have you tried Richard Powers (maybe starting with his most recent, The Echo Maker), or Barbara Kingsolver (my favourite of hers is Prodigal Summer, but many prefer the Poisonwood Bible). Also pretty much anything by William Boyd, Russell Hoban (The Bat Tattoo), John Lanchester (The Debt to Pleasure is brilliant), Helen DeWitt (The Last Samurai), and I've recently read a couple by James Wilson (The Woman in the Picture, The Dark Clue) which were good.

Hope you get plenty of book tokens...

Rose Tremain is careful and delightful
Rohinton Mistry is predictable but delightful
Jeffrey Eugenides is decidedly odd but unforgettable

Does any of that help?

I've read Jeffrey Euginides (Middlesex) and Mark Haddon (The Curious Incident of the Dog In The Night Time and A Spot of Bother) off your list. Enjoyed them all.

I second A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry - I recommend it remorselessly on here but it is SUCH an extraordinary and wonderful book.

Lots on there I haven't read. For some reason I just don't have a good thing going on with Rose Tremain. I ought to enjoy reading her, I'm sure, but I just don't.

What is Literature Map? Is it something where you put in your favourite authors and it recommends more? (anticipates hours and hours and hours of timewasting...)

I love Jeffrey Eugenides and Paul Auster-- more an American Kazuo Ishiguro than M. Amis, I would say (don't worry Eachpeach, I won't pick him for our next book swap!) T.C. Boyle is amazing for short stories and his novel Tortilla Curtain is an incisive snapshot of the west coast of the U.S. Also, men really love it. I'm not quite sure why. But I always wind up talking about books at parties and so on, and that was one that kept coming up when I was talking to guys. So I read it and I thought it was brilliant.

Have never read Miranda July but 'Me and you and everyone we know' is a clever and quirky film; I really want to read her now!

miranda july also has a good website and related non-fiction book learning to love you more in which people respond to tasks she sets in a creative way. some people will hate it, but i'm a big fan!

I also loved Fall on Your Knees by Anne Marie MacDonald, and would recommend the Canadian novelist Margaret Laurence (note spelling) (author of The Stone Angel) very highly.

There is an American writer of a historical crime series called Margaret Lawrence with a "w" whose work I like a lot - Hannah Trevor is a midwife who doesn't really fit in very well in 18th century New England. But I don't know if the books are in print at the moment. Hearts and Bones is the first.

As someone else has said, Tremain's books can be very different from each other. I read a couple I didn't much care for, but loved 'Music and Silence'.
Also loved T.C. Boyle's 'Water Music', but I believe it was his first novel and very different in style compared with his others.