So I’m going up north this weekend to hang out in a cottage with my oldest friends, who can border on really annoying. So I’d like to bring some reading material. And y’all are always full of good ideas !
What do I want: a contemporary novel, interesting characters. Prefer books not by American males because I have read so many (John Irving, Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Wolfe, William Styron) - I’m trying to read more by women, and authors from the Third World. I have read a number of past Booker Prize winners but was disappointed by the last one I read (The Bone People) so I thought I’d try another direction.
Peter Carey (Oscar and Lucinda was phenomenal)
Rohintin Mistry (A Fine Balance - very good)
Margaret Atwood (everything)
Vonnegut (likewise)
Arundhati Roy (The God Of Small Things)
Rohinton Mistry’s Family Matters was quite good. It was in the same vein as A Fine Balance, but still good.
House of Sand and Fog was also good. I’m drawing a blank on the author right now, but I see they’ve made it into a movie coming out very soon.
I just finished The DaVinci Code, by Dan Brown (current bestseller) and I loved it. I know you said no male authors, but it was a good story.
Girl With a Pearl Earring by Tracey Chevalier was good. I think that’s also being made into a movie. It’s not contemporary, but it was a great book. She also wrote Falling Angels, and I just picked up The Virgin Blue, but haven’t read it yet.
Have you ever read any Barbara Kingsolver? The Poisonwood Bible is probably her best-known book, but The Bean Trees and Pigs In Heaven are good, too.
The Crimson Petal and the White*, by Michael Faber. Long, but a page-turner. Whore makes good in Victorian England. Not contemporary, and not a female author – but really good.
Then come resurrect our thread on it. (I would’ve linked, but there are spoilers galore.)
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn. Very bizarre novel about a family of purposefully-bred sideshow freaks. A megalomatic boy with flippers for arms and legs who develops his own cult, Siamese twin girls looking for ways to top their older brother, the albino hunchback dwarf narrator, and the normal looking little brother with telekinesis.
If you liked Alias Grace, you’d probably like Madness of a Seduced Woman by Susan Fromberg Schaeffer. It’s about a woman who steps off the curb in turn of the century Vermont. And the good part is, besides the spiralling insanity, mayhem and murder, it’s gorgeously written.
Sorry I’ve been away … went up north before I could come back to the thread ! My friends made me read Metamorphosis, which happened to be lying around, so it was okay in the end.
Thanks for the sugestions ! I will add these to my list.