Best novels I have read in a long time...

[Goldie Munro]

I was chatting to some friends this evening about books we had read recently and these two authors seem to be really popular - they are with me anyway!

Michael Faber - Under The Skin and The Crimson Petal and The White

David Mitchell - Ghostwritten, No9Dream and Cloud Atlas

Anyone else read these? Thoughts?

 

[Goldie Munro]

and meant to add - what is your favourite most recent read!

 

[Goldie Munro]

you must have read something interesting recently!

 

[fogbank]

Haven't read any of the ones you mention, but Cloud Atlas is definitely on my list. The last really great novel I read was Stone Raft by Jose Saramago. As with most of his books that I've read, I had to put it down halfway through and take a couple months off before coming back to it. It's so dense and erudite, but all-the-more satisfying to finish.

 

[Goldie Munro]

I havent read any of his stuff but he is now on my list! You must read Cloud Altlas - and his others!! Happy reading!

 

[fogbank]

If you do read any Saramago, I highly recommend Blindness. It's a little easier to get into than some of his others, but still has his fantastic intellectual style.

I don't know anything about Michael Faber. I could do a search on him, or I could ask you to describe his writing. I think I'll do the latter: Goldie, please describe Michael Faber's writing!

 

[Goldie Munro]

Well - do you have a while? lol The two books I mentioned are so different from each other that if I described them you wouldnt think they were by the same author - actually when you have read them you still wouldnt think they are by the same author!!! No! They are bothe very differnt books in very differnt genres but he has a dark side that is very present in both books.

Under The Skin - is a fairly short ovel - modern and I suppose would be classed as...no im not gonna say the genre because that would totally spoil the book - all I can say about this one is READ IT!!

The Crimson Petal and The White - is like a 19th century blockbuster! Its like Dickens or Trollope with SEX - so compelling and alluring - he gets the atmosphere just right - a great author in my humble opinion!

So dont even get me started on David Michell - lol xx

 

[CrazyyAngel]

and meant to add - what is your favourite most recent read!

Bleachers by John Grisham and the Russian version of the Wizard of Oz.

CA

 

[Goldie Munro]

Bleachers by John Grisham and the Russian version of the Wizard of Oz.

CA

I bow down to you on supplicated knee - you read The Wizard of Oz in Russian? Ok you are a CrazyAngel indeed! lol

 

[CrazyyAngel]

I bow down to you on supplicated knee - you read The Wizard of Oz in Russian? Ok you are a CrazyAngel indeed! lol

No bowing needed . Its not a Russian translation of the Wizard of Oz, its a retelling of the same. In the early 70s Alexander Wolkow retold the story of Frank Baums "The Wizard of Oz" and added 5 more books. I've read them all more than once when I was a child, now I've read 'em again... oh, and I don't read them in Russian, I read them in German .

CA

 

[Goldie Munro]

mein gott!

I havent read any of the Oz strories - just seen the film - in English (or is that Hoolywood?) i might add!

(Adds more to list)

 

[Sabledrake]

Michael Faber - Under The Skin and The Crimson Petal and The White

The Crimson Petal and the White was one of the most amazing books I've read in years.

Sabledrake

 

[Sappholovers]

Sandra Cisneros, "Woman Hollering Creek" (It's a collection of stories, not a novel).

Philip Roth, American Pastoral

Upton Sinclair, "Oil" (it was written in 1927, but obviously still relevant given world situation)

 

[Sappholovers]

Let me add as a novel with some erotica in it, Lisa Zeidner's "Layover."

 

[yui]

"Cerulean Sins" Laurell K. Hamilton

"Ten Little Indians" Sherman Alexie

 

[cloudy]

"Ten Little Indians" Sherman Alexie

Excellent choice! I read his things as fast as they get published.

Look in my sigline....

 

[cantdog]

Jonathan Lethem
Gun, with Occasional Music

This is a Chandler-style near-future comedy, and I mean funny, and I mean Raymond Chandler, the filme-noir detective writer. The near future setting is like Philip K. Dick, a tech-induced nightmare. Sharp, funny, dark, twisted, and cool-ass.

And some historical novels by a man named Alan Furst:

The World at Night
Paris, WW II... upper-class Parisian film producer whose Paris is occupied by the Germans. He gets by, though, by compromises and because he has money and connections, and lives a sordid but not uncomfortable life at first, but his romanticism makes him accept an opportunity to aid the British secret service. The mission goes wrong and he suddenly has the role of hero thrust upon him in a harrowing and tightly written story, dense with authenticity. Good, complex writing, excellent research.

These qualities also make Kingdom of Shadows a super read. That one's about a noble who spies on behalf of the Austro-Hungarian empire during the Great War which, as we know, destroys that empire at the last.

He's a cool, enigmatic, very layered cat with fierce pride and a family history of service to empires, but with a clear eye which sees all too clearly the venality of his government, their weaknesses personal and political. His role is therefore undertaken not because those he is serving deserve his loyalty but because he does not deserve to be disloyal.

And the world through which he moves is just so wonderfully drawn in spare, telling detail, again with admirable and solid grounding in the history. In this book, you suddenly encounter a world in which the Dual Monarchy and the Ottoman Empire are still for real, globally important forces. He does other books, too.

And Neil Gaiman: American Gods. Brilliant.

 

[Sappholovers]

Fellow fans of Sherman Alexie: Did you like his movie, "Smoke Signals." I thought it was quite good.

 

[GingerV]

I didn't know Alexie had a new one out! Woohoo, book shopping for me. For those who love his stuff, can I offer "Green Grass, Running Water" by Thomas King? I loved the book, it could've been what Garcia-Marquez would've written if he'd been raised Canadian.

Cantdog, my brother handed me "American Gods" as I boarded an Airplane for a transatlantic flight. I can't thank him enough, it was a blessing to get to loose myself in that book for 9 hours without interuption. Made a Gaiman convert out of me in one blow, and almost made up for his pulling the same trick with "Alive" when we were teenagers.

I have to say I wasn't the biggest fan of "The Crimson Petal and the White." It started so wonderfully, I was enchanted from the first sentence. But then it seemed to lose that wonderfully omniscient voice until the very end...and the end itself was anticlimactic. Everthing between the first chapter and the last paragraph just seemed to get bogged down in the Dickensian Victoriana. It was a good summer read, and I've bought copies for my friends...but I guess it just so got my hopes up at the beginning that it was going to be one of a kind, I judged it more harshly for disappointing me. Liked it, just didn't love it the way I wanted to.

BUT the thread is recent reads...so I'm going to confess. I only just read "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver, and it's wonderful. I guess when it came out I was resistant to all the fuss, it seemed like everyone I knew was pushing it on me. But I'm glad I came back to it eventually. I loved the way the story almost got told in spite of itself.

G

 

[CrazyyAngel]

At the moment I am reading "Frisco Mambo Pigeons" by CD Payne. I am now about 50 pages into it and its awesome ...

Three Pigeons in Berkeley, Test Group C, gets unwillingly liberated by a animal rights group. They drink, they smoke and are now at Union square in San Francisco ... with no clue whatsoever what to do next.

Just freakin hilarious ... Anybody read it?

CA

 

[fogbank]

At the moment I am reading "Frisco Mambo Pigeons" by CD Payne. I am now about 50 pages into it and its awesome ...

Three Pigeons in Berkeley, Test Group C, gets unwillingly liberated by a animal rights group. They drink, they smoke and are now at Union square in San Francisco ... with no clue whatsoever what to do next.

Just freakin hilarious ... Anybody read it?

CA

That sounds freaking fantastic. I'm an obsessive anthropomorphist, so I'll definitely have to check that one out.

 

[Goldie Munro]

My to read list is so long now!!! Some really great recommendations - thanks guys!

 

[yui]

Excellent choice! I read his things as fast as they get published.

Look in my sigline....

Hi Cloudy!

Yes, another Alexie fan – woohoo! He is coming as close to me as the NC School of the Arts in February 2005, and I hope to get up there to hear him. I can't think of another writer in my experience that makes me want to gather his words near and re-read them, not just for the profundity of their beauty, but to decode them for his actual meaning.

I am lame, neh?

Yui ^_^

 

[yui]

Fellow fans of Sherman Alexie: Did you like his movie, "Smoke Signals." I thought it was quite good.

Hi Sappholovers,

Yes, I loved "Smoke Signals" and not only because Adam Beach made such a lovely Victor. Thomas, oh, Thomas has broken my heart over and over in short stories…and Evan Adams broke it again in the movie. Oy.

I am still waiting to see "The Business of Fancydancing" and "49?"; have you seen them?

Yui ^_^

 

[cantdog]

I only just read "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver, and it's wonderful. I guess when it came out I was resistant to all the fuss, it seemed like everyone I knew was pushing it on me. But I'm glad I came back to it eventually. I loved the way the story almost got told in spite of itself.

G

Poisonwood was like that for me, too. My wife loved it and wanted everyone to read it, right now, you know. But it was good anyway!!