October 14, 2004

• Jabberwock I love the question and I love the topic, but its a huge one!! I don't even know where to begin. what are your interests? what genres do you enjoy or have curiosity about? here are some of my fav authors off the top of my head (in no particular order): Tom Robbins Thomas Pynchon Elizabeth Hand Clive Barker Gregory McGuire Neal Stephenson William Gibson Sherri Tepper Dale Peck JK Rowling thats all fiction, of course but I also highly recommend a look through the biography section. many are written to be both factually accurate and entertaining, and they can also be very inspiring. have you read? 'Watership Down' 'Frankenstein' 'the Call of the Wild' check out some Buckminster Fuller in the non-fic department (Bucky!) ok, I will shut up now.
• These may be obvious, but any of: Orwell, Huxley, Kafka. Voltaire, too: I always recommend Candide, but you can't go wrong with any of his work. Milton's "Paradise Lost," if you haven't read it. Not-so-obviously: Janet Lewis' The Wife Of Martin Guerre. Walter Miller's A Canticle For Leibowitz. The NPR radio play for it is great, if you can get a hold of it.
• The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. Yes, it's about comic books and carnival freaks and escape artists, but it's really much more than that. Very entertaining, and above all extraordinarily well written. I can honestly say this is the _only_ contemporary novel I have read and loved to the same degree as Steinbeck and Tolkien, though it really bears little resemblance to either authors.
• Oh, and Craig Thompson's Blankets if you want to get into graphic novels.
• I was going to post a similar question, but asking for suggestions on recently published books. Thanks Jabberwock.
• My tuppence-worth: The Lord Peter Wimsey detective novels, by Dorothy L. Sayers (especially the ones which also feature Harriet Vane: Strong Poison, Have His Carcase, Gaudy Night, Busman's Honeymoon); Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco (the first 50-or-so pages are incredibly slow going, but it is sooo worth perservering with); If On A Winter's Night A Traveller by Italo Calvino; The His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman (mini-CuriousGeorge for any monkeys who have read it - what would your daemon be?); Scoop by Evelyn Waugh; Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons; Death in Venice by Thomas Mann; The Jeeves and Wooster books by P.G. Wodehouse; and pretty much anything by Douglas Adams - the five books in the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy trilogy, but also Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea-Time Of The Soul. And if we're talking graphic novels, Finder by Carla Speed McNeil, Transmetropolitan by Warren Ellis and Alan Moore's Promethea. Must now go and raid the bookshelves. Great post!
• when are the archives coming back? There have been a few excellent "what's on your bookshelf" threads. **bangs head on keyboard in despair**
• Good gooks you can take down in a day: Coma - Alex Garland The curious incident of the dog in the nighttime - ? I may have the name slightly wrong, but both books are recent, so bookstore worker or librarian would know what you are talking about. Books that will take a couple days: The God of Small Things Mara and Dann And my favorite long book: Angle of Repose - Wallace Stegner
• A Star Called Henry by Roddy Doyle - actually, anything by Roddy Doyle. Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh. In the Skin of a Lion by Michael Ondaatje. If you're willing to get into some of the very best recent fantasy, the Malazan series by Steven Erickson.
• Hmm. Reading: Karen Armstrong: Anything; but "Holy War", which I'm reading now, is quite... topical. Philip Pullman: He has books other than the fantastic Dark Materials trilogy. Some of them are good, too. Christopher Priest's The Seperation is very good, and inspired me to pick up Martin Allen's utterly compelling (and quite convincing) "Hitler/Hess Deception." John Cornwell set out to exonerate Pius XII of claims that he was an anti-Semite and Nazi collaorator, so the Vatican gave him privileged access to private documents. After reading them, he wrote "Hitler's Pope." Very, very hard reading, especially the record of the German General in charge of Rome (after the Nazis siezed control of Italy from anti-Mussolini forces) begged the Pope to help him circumvent orders to deport Rome's Jews to the camps. Worthwile, but not light. mothninja: Badger, of course. I'm quite grumpy enough 8).
• Oh, and "A Fish Out of Time", which is a superb book on the coelacanth.
• yentruoc, Curious Incident of the Dog in the etc is by Mark Haddon. I know this because it's lying on my bedside table and I'm just about to start it...
• Jonathan Lethem is my favorite author lately. Motherless Brooklyn is excellent.
• Oh, and anything by David Sedaris is teh funny.
• I would add anything by Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, or Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. Wil Wheaton's Just a Geek is good, any of the Feynman autobiographies, and, if you can get a hold of it, The Zork Chronicles by George Alec Effinger.
• House of Leaves That should occupy all your free time. Even more if you get on the internet to try and figure some of the stuff inside (like why is the word "house" printed in blue on every page it shows up?).
• Anything by Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, or Frank Miller.
• The 2 I've read by Isabel Allende - "House of the Spirits" and "The Girl with the Green Hair"- were marvelous. Robert Graves' "I, Claudius" and "Claudius the God" if you haven't met them yet. Peter Mayle's "A Year in Provence" and "Toujours Provence." Mysteries: I've been in love with Lord Peter Wimsey for 30 years. For me, best of the best. Other good ones are by Elmore Leonard, Walter Mosley and Dick Francis (though I don't suggest reading everything from the last - they get a bit repetitive.) Oh, and Ngaio Marsh wrote good Australian mysteries. I'm way behind on the science stuff, but "The Dancing Wu-Li Masters" by Gary Zukav, which came out in the 1970s, still gives me shivers.
• House of Leaves is great, fascinating and truly scary... if you want some nutritious "comfort food" reading I recommend The Chronicles of Narnia!!
• Beyond Fear: (nonfiction pick). How to think about security. What makes good security and what doesn't. Answers all kinds of cool questions like why in theatres, they have one person selling the tickets and another person who takes your ticket. Bruce Schneier. Cat's Eye: (fiction pick). It's about growing up, and lost memories. Gives you the wonderful feeling of going back to being a child. Wistful, scary, sad, touching. Margaret Atwood. The adventures of Augie march. Keen psychological insight, cool writing style makes this Saul Bellow's best novel. Snow Crash - Neal stephenson. High octane sci-fi cyberpunk. Enough raw voltage to sizzle a bison.
• Shantaram is an absolute rip snorter.
• If you like disutopic fiction, China Mieville is a great read, start with Perdido Street Station, and go from there. Because you mentioned Oe I'd like to recommend the other Japanese authors I've enjoyed. Kobe Abe has some amazing novels (The Woman in the Dunes I think is his best known). And if you haven't read Haruki Murakami you owe it to yourself to pick up some of his stuff. Norwegian Wood is probably my favorite with Hard Boiled Wonderland and the Edge of the World a close second. There is also Ryu Murakami who is also amazing, but his stuff is just a little more sexual. His book Almost Transparent Blue can be read in a few hours, so try to get it from a library. Other books: Denis Johnson, Already Dead Don Delillo: Underworld and White Noise (really all of his stuff) Peter Hoeg: Smilla's Sense of Snow. Will Self: Cock and Bull That should at least get you going.
• Don't know what happened there
• If we could only see the previous threads... but anyway-- Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco Altered Carbon - Richard Morgan The Wild Blue and the Gray - William Sanders The Years of Rice and Salt - Kim Stanley Robinson The Man in the High Castle - Phillip K. Dick The Amazing adventures of Kavalier & Clay -Michael Chabon I, Lucifer - Glenn Duncan The Windup Bird Chronicle - Haruki Murakami On the Road - Jack Kerouac Junky - William S. Burroughs Wyvern - A. A. Attanasio The Chronoliths - Robert Charles Wilson Haroun and the Sea of Stories - Salman Rushdie Louis De Bernieres William Gibson
• Since Card is on the list, you might also try: Iain M. Banks. Try The Player of Games or Against A Dark Background for SF starters. There's more moral weight to Use of Weapons, which features the good ship Xenophobe, but IMHO ya oughta start Culture books with TPoG (or Consider Phlebas). For straight fiction (as Iain Banks, no M), try The Crow Road. Ken MacLeod. Hard, shiny, smart stuff; very political. Start with The Star Fraction or The Stone Canal, or with Newton's Wake. Charlie Stross. More geek-chic than MacLeod. Start with Singularity Sky, which has surface similarities to Newton's Wake or The Atrocity Archives, which is a set of cold-war spy stories set in a more-or-less Cthulhu-mythos world.
• China Mieville's books Perdido Street Station and The Scar are ace. His Fifty Fantasy and Science Fiction books that Socialists should read is a great resource, even if your not a stinking, tree-hugging, baby-devouring lefty. Also, the various Years Best SF collections (Mammoth Book of, Best New, blabla) are always worth a shot.
• Snow Crash only if you take the last ~70 pages and shred them before you start the book. Trust me, you don't want to wade through them for the ending you know is coming, and you won't be able to help yourself if they are there - you'll be hoping for any glimpse of the wonderful writing at the beginning of the book, but there is none.
• Alfred Bester. Either The Stars My Destination (my favorite) or The Demolished Man. I absolutely cannot recommend Bester highly enough if you're into science fiction but unfamiliar with his work.
• Another vote for China Miéville from me.
• Lots of big names/big books, but what about gems in the rough, the raggedly paperbacks in the back racks? Eugene Izzi's The Criminalist and King of the Hustlers (flat-out badass crime novels, the best I've ever read) The Void Captain's Tale by Norman Spinrad (a tale of love, loss and sacrifice set amongst the baroque stars); Michael Moorcock's The War Hound and the World's Pain (a retelling of the Grail myth centering on a repentent Lucifer); Tim Powers' The Anubis Gates (Powers was one of the lights of Steampunk, a cyberpunk variant; this is a proto-steampunk take on time travel) Iain Pears' An Instance At The Fingerpost and (imo way better) The Dream Of Scipio (some of the finest historical fiction I have ever read) nonfiction: Tuchman's The March of Folly (history as gaffe); Greider's Secrets of the Temple (how modern American economic policy is made); Castiglione's Book of the Courtier (Renaissance rules for gentlemen); and Liebling's An Appetite For Paris (food writing by as master polymath/glutton) And a trio of old-school check-frontal lobe-at-door shoot-'em-ups: The Forever War by Joe Haldeman (space war + time dilation = trouble), The Devil's Day by James Blish (what would happen if a modern day sorceror unleashed the demons of hell onto earth for one night? Lots!) and Friday by Robert Heinlein (not one of his most popular works, but one of his best, imo).
• you may want to get in on the supposed fad hit book of the season, jonathan strange and mr. norrell. the economist likened it to a pseudo historical mystery with whimsy and mentioned harry potter and i think the da vinci code. neither of which i like much, but i am a little intrigued by this book. the economist also said in its review that the first half (um, 400 pages) is quite engaging but if you don't finish the second half it won't make much difference ("don't worry--most people won't finish it either"). donald barthelme's short stories are great, and remind me of richard brautigan. gina berriault's short story collection women in their beds is beautifully written and very wistful in tone. aimee bender's girl in the flammable skirt is good as is an invisible sign of my own. you think it's going to be light fare, but it's deceptively simple and easy to read. i second the recommendation for craig thompson. goodbye, chunky rice was great too. flight volume one, a compendium of younger comics artists' work, is also a great introduction to comics as meaningful narrative art. and of course there's scott mccloud's understanding comics if you just want a taste of where the culture's coming from in terms of approach and attitude...i know many who disagree with some of mccloud's statements but who also concede it's a well thought out defense and explanation of comics as literary and artistic form of expression. there's a fairly new translation of anna karenina. byatt's possession. julian barnes' flaubert's parrot or love, etc. the three martini playdate is a light, humorous read. and there's always flannery o'connor and carson mccullers, god bless 'em. life of pi. laura kipnis' against love: a polemic, for sheer provocation. oh, that reminds me, judith thurman's bio on colette was fun and there's also that memoirs of catherine m book that was supposed to make a splash a couple years back but sort of didn't. john berger, both fiction and nonfiction. the recent edna st. vincent millay biography... maybe robert lowell's letters. and anthony bourdain's kitchen confidential is great fun to read.
• and if you like oe you may like tanizaki, mishima, akutagawa, kawabata, and/or ishiguro. i realize i'm being simplistic with the categorization. :b
• I'm not sure about KAWABATA Yasunari. Some of his work is excellent (Senbazuru, Meijin), but I never saw what the big deal was with Yama no oto or Yukiguni. I am not a big fan of the "stupid story dressed in snow" style that Kawabata and Oe are so fond of. AKUTAGAWA Ryuunosuke (Rashoumon, Hana, Yabu no naka) is, of course, gold. In the same class is SOUSEKI Natsume (Wagahai wa neko de aru, Bocchan, Yume juuya, much much more). My personal favourite of "high-school J-lit" is DAZAI Osamu's Ningen shikkaku. Of more modern writers, I am cannot recommend MURAKAMI Haruki enough. His short stories are the best, IMO, but all of his novels are good. I recommend Nejimakitori kuronikkuru, Hitsuji wo meguru bouken, Sputnik no koibito, of course Sekai no owari to Hard-boiled Wonderland, and the quirky little collection Kami no kodomotachi wa minna odoru. (Sorry, I don't know the English titles of these books off-hand, but they should be Googlable.)
• Err, make that NATSUME Souseki.
• I'll amplify Fes' suggestion of Tuchman's The March of Folly by suggestion most anything by Tuchman as interesting; that particular volumn should be inserted into the members of the present US administration, sideways, until they understand it. Charles Freeman's "The Closing of the Western Mind" is an excellent read - it starts with an overview of the high points of ancient Western philosophy; the meat of it is the intellectual development of Christianity with its waxing power both in Rome and its own right.
• Older books which may be hard to find Steampunk Trilogy - Paul Di Filippo A Night in the Lonesome October - Roger Zelazny Any of the "Swords against..."/Fafrhd and the Grey Mouser/Lahnkmar books - Fritz Leiber. Really good stuff. They've been republished in several formats so they shouldn't be hard to pick up. Newer Stuff Thirding the reccomendation for China Mieville, adding the Iron Council his newest as a fun read. Most anything by Terry Pratchett, maybe Pyramids for a starter. Glen Cook's From the Files of Garrett P.I. series - Chandleresque detective with magic Simon R. Green's Nightside Series - General weirdness/magic in a modern setting. Also by Green, Hawk & Fisher Nonfiction you might try How to Think About Weird Things which is a critical thinking style of thing or America (The Book) which is funny.
• i would definitely recommend some Borges because his stuff is very short and very very sharp and we all occasionally need reminding that the world doesn't exist. also The Leopard by Guiseppe di Lampedusa is possibly the book of all i have read that contains the most of sheer life. it is very beautiful.
• I'm going to suggest three books, my friend. That's right, a mere three books. But these three books will keep you occupied for the rest of the year--they're just that long. Now how much would you pay? But wait--there's more. GIANT BOOK #1: The Tale Of Genji, by Lady Murisaki. Written 1000 years ago, this is the first novel ever, and it's 1110+ pages long. Which makes it sound like it should be a medicinal book--the kind of thing you don't enjoy reading but have to. In fact, it's a fascinating blend of eternal human emotions (the main character is a lady's man who can never quite settle on one lover) and an exotic and strange setting. It's very Japanese, in the sense that strong emotions will often be conveyed with a subtle, understated phrase, so I found I enjoyed it most when I was in a quiet, reflective state of mind. GIANT BOOK 2: A Suitable Boy, by Vikram Seth. A wonderful modern novel set in India. 1,488 pages, and not a boring one among them. (If this is too intimidating, you can always get hooked on Vikram Seth with his much shorter The Golden Gate, a very funny novel about nerds (and others) in San Francisco, told entirely in verse. GIANT BOOK #3: War And Peace, because if you're going to read a huge book, why not read a huge book that will impress people at dinner parties? I'm only about a third of the way through it at the moment, but so far, despite its reputation as A Really Important Novel, War & Peace is a highly readable tale full of men firing cannons and women wearing fancy dresses to elegant balls. (And, yes, there are also interesting and compelling philosophical undercurrents.) Plus, it's got a special guest appearance by Napolean. What more can you want? The edition I linked to is the one I'm reading which has lots of helpful footnotes to tell you who the various real-life figures Tolstoy mentions are. The only eccentricity is, it has changed all the Russian names to Western ones--"Andrei" becomes "Andrew", etc. This can be make for difficult conversation when you are discussing the book with somebody who read a different translation. ("Prince Andrew? There's no Prince Andrew in War And Peace!")
• Good books I've recently reread: The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements by Eric Hoffer A Walk Across America by Peter Jenkins The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood Life of Pi by Yann Martel Reading Lolita In Tehran by Azar Nafisi American Gods by Neil Gaiman
• I'll second His Dark Materials (and I've been trying for a year to figure out what my daemon would be -- neither I, my wife, nor any of my friends have been successful). I just started the series over two days ago. One I can't brag on enough is Brooks Hansen, particularly The Chess Garden, which I read at least once a year. It's got it all -- romance, war, whimsy, tragedy, birth, death, philosophy, science, magic, and (of course) chess and other games. I can't recommend it strongly enough. Second-best of his is Perlman's Ordeal, which whisked me right along. I'll also take the obvious road and say that if you haven't read The Life of Pi or Middlesex, then you should. TenaciousPettle recently turned me on to the plays of Christopher Marlowe, which I hadn't read before. Beautiful stuff. Oh, and Lemony Snicket. Tons of fun.
• To make up for how terribly male< my last recommendations were, I think you should read (or reread) Jane Austen again. Pride and Prejudice is a great book. As are Emma and Sense and Sensibility. Yeah, they are Victorian novels about women getting married, but they are good Victorian novels about women getting married.
• Lord. Too big a subject, so I'll list a few personal favourites and leave it at that. 1. The Magus, John Fowles. An absolute head trip, mind fuck, beautifully-written, page-turner of a novel that (if you're anything like me, God help you) will have you up until the wee hours, desperate to know what happens next. 2. Lanark, Alisdair Gray. Long, surreal, mundane, contrived, moving, fascinating, original and thoroughly odd. An engrossing blend of fantasy and reality. 3. 1982 Janine, Alisdair Gray. His other great book. Who'd have thought a journey into the sexual frustrations and emotional inadequacies of a sad, stunted middle-aged man could be so unbearably moving? 4. Several of Iain Banks' serious novels (as opposed to the SF ones - some of which are fun, but none of which are as good as these) - The Crow Road - Complicity - The Wasp Factory - The Bridge 5. Cat's Eye, Atwood. Somebody already mentioned this. I second it. 6. Crusoe's Daughter, Jane Gardam. A wonderful and affecting portrayal of a stunted life. 7. Catch-22, Joseph Heller. No, look, you HAVE to. Still the funniest book about serious things ever written. 8. Vonnegut essentials: Slaughterhouse 5, Mother Night. 9. The Gormenghast Trilogy, Mervyn Peake. Makes Tolkien look like an overrated, humourless, dessicated, dreary old twat. Then again, I think Tolkien makes Tolkien look like that. 10. The Regeneration Trilogy, Pat Barker. Three powerfully moving books about WWI, featuring real people (Sassoon, Owen, Graves etc.) and some real events. Great stuff. 11. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks. While on the subject of great WWI novels... 12. Iain McEwan collection: Enduring Love, Atonement, Amsterdam, The Child In Time. All great. 13. Fall On Your Knees, Anne Marie MacDonald. Showing us how superior literary soap opera should be done. Thoroughly engrossing. 14. Earthly Powers, Anthony Burgess. Sprawling. Erudite. Linguistically hyper. Surprising. Great. OK, I could go on all day. I'd better not, eh?
• Oh, I forgot I, Lucifer by Glen Duncan, a wonderful black comedy about Satan. And for a lighthearted comedy about the apocalypse, Good Omens by Pratchett and Gaiman. Soon (I hope) to be adapted into film by Terry Gilliam.
• hurray for Jabberwock! Midnight's Children, in my opinion it's Salman Rushdie's best book. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, because it is beautiful and odd and the first sentence may be the best first sentence of any book I've read. The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony by Roberto Calasso, if you like your Greek mythology on the crazy and narrative side. For a quick and thoughtful read, Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger. So much better than that other book he did that gets all the press. Martin Dressler by Steven Millhauser is fabulous... hell, anything by Millhauser is worth reading. He has an attention to descriptive detail that makes everything glow. You may also enjoy some Gogol. I like that you've already read heavy hitters in their genres, but wildly divergent genres. and anyone who reads Brodsky is deserving of praise (my fondest memory of him is him smoking furiously under the No Smoking sign in an auditorium).
• A dis-recommendation for Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. The first one (The Golden Compass) was OK, but the second (The Subtle Knife) and especially the third (The Amber Spyglass) were, in my opinion, garbage. (Incidentally, I read these books right around the time Ann Coulter was getting famous for her incendiary remarks—"Kill them all and convert them to Christianity"—which utterly ruined one of the characters in the books. No fault of Pullman, of course.)
• Haven't read it as yet, but I hear My Pet Goat is transfixing and possesses an epic, almost Proustian scale. Call it À la recherche des chévres chevres perdu, if you will. lots of recommendations, as i read lots of books, but i'd be largely duplicating suggestions above.
• After reading this thread I've learned a couple things: -I've read a lot more than I thought, and that makes me very happy. -All you Monkey types have good taste in lit. -I am going to read some Borges and somes Byatt.
• Ulysses Kiss Me Deadly The Long Goodbye The Sound and the Fury Excellent literary choices by other Monkeys! I think I'll hit the bookstore soon.
• I just finished The Floatplane Notebooks. Southern (American) writing at its finest. A quick read too.
• woo hoo! one of my recommendations won! this was a competition, right?