Recommend me a book (1 Viewer)

[jane]

I just read a book called The Brotherhood of the Grape by John Fante. Very, very funny American novel about an Italian-American family in California. Take the Sopranos, remove the mob factor and replace it with more crazy, then multiply that crazy by ten. I'd heartily recommend it.

I'm currently reading Nathanael West's Miss Lonelyhearts. I'm not sure I like it all that much. It's got some great stuff in it, but there are some major problems with it, including a lack of flow, and some lapses in explanation. It's about a guy who is hired by a newspaper to write an advice column that is supposed to increase the paper's circulation. He hangs around in speakeasies, fucks his boss's wife, and eventually decides to stop treating his job as a joke, but becomes obsessed with the suffering of the people who write in to him. It's quite funny in places, and quite disturbing in others, but I'm only halfway through. I'll let you know....

It's in a volume with another novella called A Cool Million, which I bought simply because it is dedicated to SJ Perelman.

Perelman, incidentally, was a very funny essayist who also wrote movies for the Marx Brothers as well as an introduction to the Sears and Roebuck catalogue (the last bit I only found out about two hours ago).

 

[Jimmy Magee]

I'm near the end of Nine Suitcases by Bela Zsolt...it's about a Hungarian writer's time in the ghettos and doin forced labour in the Ukraine...if anyone liked If This Is A Man I would heartily recommend it, it's every bit as good (although I didn't think it so good initially...it gets better as it goes on)...it's a bit different...a bit more caustic humour. V v good

 

[Deleted member 3435]

what Mike said, I can't believe you would say Confederacy isn't literature

I'm currently loving this

a little more Russian then American but still great

what a fucking brilliant book that is. i love the penguin so much.

 

[egg_]

Oh here I know I've said this before, but if you haven't read Treasure Island since childhood (or ever) you should - it's a cracker
Greate Expectations and Lorna Doone are two other action-packed books I highly recommend (though Lorna Doone is a little too long)

 

[Jim Daniels]

Anything by Douglas Coupland

Because hope is important....

Especially Eleanor Rigby, Girlfriend in a Coma and Generation X

 

[Lord Damian]

Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse 5"

Heller's "Catch 22"

Can't go wrong with Orwell (no, not American or 'modern', but if for some reason you haven't read anything of his, get it)

If in the mood for non-fiction, Neil Young's "Shakey" is a must read for the music lover/musician. Also, "Shake Hands With The Devil", by Romeo Dallaire, is good if you're looking for super-depressing non-fiction (it's an account of the Rwanda genocide 10+ years ago).

I finally picked up "Brave New World" and thought it was aces.

I've also heard good things about "Confederacy of Dunces", but I put it down after struggling through the first 40 pages or so.

 

[brianoak]

Stick with confederacy of dunces.It takes a while for Ignatius to grow on you

Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse 5"

Heller's "Catch 22"

Can't go wrong with Orwell (no, not American or 'modern', but if for some reason you haven't read anything of his, get it)

If in the mood for non-fiction, Neil Young's "Shakey" is a must read for the music lover/musician. Also, "Shake Hands With The Devil", by Romeo Dallaire, is good if you're looking for super-depressing non-fiction (it's an account of the Rwanda genocide 10+ years ago).

I finally picked up "Brave New World" and thought it was aces.

I've also heard good things about "Confederacy of Dunces", but I put it down after struggling through the first 40 pages or so.

 

[Lord Damian]

Stick with confederacy of dunces.It takes a while for Ignatius to grow on you

yeah, that's what i figured...i'l give it another go eventually, it's not like me to not finish a book...save for "Crime & Punishment"...christ a'mighty, the sheer boredom....

 

[La La]

ok my all time recommended reads are as follows:

The Life Of Pi, Yann Martel
A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
The Secret History, Donna Tartt
The Red Tent, Anita Diamant
and of course, Orwell's 1984


they're the type of books that you almost despair cos there are no more pages left to read.

.|..|

 

[eucrid eucrow]

I really can't recommend 'House of Leaves' by Mark Z. Danielewski and the 'His Dark Materials' by Phillip Pullman highly enough, definetly the two works that have stayed with me more than anything else. Anyone else read 'House of Leaves' - crazy, original and scary as hell!

 

[Lord Damian]

ok my all time recommended reads are as follows:

The Life Of Pi, Yann Martel
A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
The Secret History, Donna Tartt
The Red Tent, Anita Diamant
and of course, Orwell's 1984


they're the type of books that you almost despair cos there are no more pages left to read.

.|..|

i'll take the fact that i never made it all the way thru Life of Pi to my grave. you hear me?? the GrAvE. actually, it was quite nice...somebody yanked the book from my hands 20 pages from the end. i killed him.

 

[Jimmy Magee]

yeah, that's what i figured...i'l give it another go eventually, it's not like me to not finish a book...save for "Crime & Punishment"...christ a'mighty, the sheer boredom....

Jaysis, I thought this was unputdownable...to each their own, I guesses

 

[snakybus]

okay I've finished The Corrections (I'm a slow reader, plus it's quite a long book)

I can now say: Read it!

 

[Super Dexta]

okay I've finished The Corrections (I'm a slow reader, plus it's quite a long book)

I can now say: Read it!

that's been sitting on my shelf going 'read me.. please' for the last month or so. is good ja?

 

[snakybus]

yep

though I'm also really annoyed at it

I can't stop thinking about it, I want to ask the writer lots of questions that I know he couldn't answer

I get very involved in books, I really should get out more

 

[P. Littbarski]

i just finished Welcome to Hell: an Irishman's Fight for Life inside the Bangkok Hilton by colin martin.

it was a decent read...finished it in two days. The poor lad had a fairly bad time at the hands of the thai authorities after being accused of murder and spent 8 years in the bangkok hilton. the story of how he was set up is crazy... although this book won't win the pulitzer it makes it is an engaging story that served me well on my train journey to work.

 

[billygannon]

I'm almost finished Graham Swift's Ever After.

The subject of his material can be a bit oblique and fairly mundane, but he's possibly the most intelligent novelist I've come across.
He manages to capture all the levels that go with day-to-day life and ties them altogether. I think his characters are really well rounded - although in the novels I've read he focuses primarily on male characters.
However I don't think this is a bad thing. It strikes me he's consciously doing this and I think he reflects the workings of a man's brain in a very clear manner.

 

[Catwoman]

i just finished Welcome to Hell: an Irishman's Fight for Life inside the Bangkok Hilton by colin martin.

Is he that Irish/scouse fella? He was on Matt Cooper the other week, sounded like an interesting read. I love prison stories.

I read one recently about this English one in a Thai jail, she was transfered to Durham prison and said she prefered the Thai one. Scary.

 

[Audiodelic]

Much praise has been rightly heaped on Confederacy of Dunces here, one of my all time favourite books.
American writers: Try Rick Moody (he wrote the Ice Storm, interview with him over on Sigla) and was a flatmate of Jeffrey Eugenides - Middlesex is meant to be amazing.

Lorrie Moore - one of the best contemporary American short story writers. She has written one novel, which is superb, 'Who Will Run The Frog Hospital'.

Not so recent American writers - you have to pick William Faulkner. An absolute genius and don't be put off by the fact that Oprah has just picked him for her classics bookclub. The Sound and the Fury is suberb.

And if you want a total edgy pageturner, I'd highly recommend Truman Capote's 'In Cold Blood'

Apart from that and straying way away from your US criteria, two books I've continually bought as presents are
Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children and Matthew Kneale's 'English Passengers', fantastic sea-faring tale about colonialism, Australia and a mad reverend who thinks the Garden of Eden is located there.
Reviews of lots of them over on bibliofemme.com

 

[Donkey OJ]

Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow is fucking immense. its hardwork but it really rewards any work you put into it. theres loads of information about it and its subject matter on the web. and the breadth and scope of the subject matter is unbelievable and extremely interesting. my favourite opening line of a novel ever aswell.

And for the sheer joy of words everyone should read Ulysses even if 80% of the meaning goes over your head.

i sound like some kind of high brow literary elitist prick. i'm not really.