Winter’s Tale, Mark Helprin
Going After Cacciato, Tim O’Brien
English Passengers, Matthew Kneale
Soldier of the Great War, Mark Helprin
Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
Persuasion, Jane Austin
Lonesome Dove, Karry McMurtry
QBVII, Leon Uris
Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
Regeneration Trilogy, Pat Barker
Losing Julia, Jonathan Hull
Madness of a Seduced Woman, Susan Fromberg Schaeffer
Bleak House, Charles Dickens
…and for the funniest book I’ve read in a long time, HELP! A Bear is Eating Me!, by by Mykle Hansen. Amazingly enough, the author has a downloadable audio podcast here.
Timberline - It is the best biography I have ever read, but it takes a while to realize it is a biography - if that’s what it is. It is a biography of the Denver Post, but it also has the only man ever convicted of cannibalism in the U.S., an explosive mule, a publisher who liked to buy circuses and a whole lot of other stuff. (I know there are other books titled “Timberline”. This is the one by Gene Fowler)
Rats, Lice and History - A delightful discussion of the Black Plague.
The Princess Bride - but only to people who have not seen the movie. It’s a truly wonderful, magical book if you haven’t seen the movie.
I’ve found myself recommending Daniel Mendelsohn’s The Lost: the Search for Six of Six Million innumerable times. I once loaned out my copy and never got it back, so had to replace it – no more loaning. It’s written by an American classics professor who decides to find out what happened to a branch of his family that remained in Poland and disappeared during the Holocaust. What fascinated me about it was that it’s written in three parallel parts: he chooses a biblical story (say, Cain and Abel) and explains it. He then describes an incident from his family life (like when his brother got so mad at him and broke his arm); and then follows with an incident from the war, or his research (like how one day the Polish neighbors were all friendly, and the next day they were turning the Jews in). It broke my heart to read.
I also seem to routinely recommend Nick Bantock’s Griffin and Sabine books. The story is interesting, but the illustrations are absolutely fascinating.
Ooh! I just remembered Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, which is an “autobiography” by Chuck Barris (of Gong Show fame) in which he claims to have been a hit man for the CIA while working in Hollywood.
Not any more, but I used to recommend “The Gentle Art of Verbal Self Defense”. That book might have saved a man’s career when I used the lessons taught in there. Well, maybe not saved his career but at least his job.
I just remembered the joy that is Ben Elton. When he is not busy writing and performing for TV, movies, stage and musicals (and I so want him to get together and do one with Elton John), he is writing books. Very Good Books. But mostly unknown this side of the pond.
Thank you for this. I just picked it up from the library on my lunch break and really really didn’t want to go back to work. Absolutely lovely stories.
I recommend a few books, but the ones that come up most often probably include:
**Disgrace by JM Coetzee **- Short, cleanly-written story about a douchebag of a privileged guy who has to come to terms with the changing times - morally, family-wise and socially. A master class of writing, the technical craft of the book is top-tier; the fact that it functions at multiple layers, as a story about a man learning new ways and a commentary on the situation in South Africa is even more compelling. Easy to see why JMC won the Nobel.
**Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of World by Haruki Murakami **- Take equal parts Raymond Chandler and Franz Kafka, toss into a Japanese setting with American pop-culture references and stir. Fun, ethereal, and getting at something bigger, but never letting that get in the way of a good read.
The First Man in Rome / Masters of Rome series by Colleen McCullough - historical fiction at its best and a great way to get the basics of the end of the Roman Republic, rise and killing of Caesar and rise of Augustus. I had a guy stop me on the street two years after I recommended the first book in passing; he wanted to thank me for keeping him occupied for the months it took him to plow through the series.
**The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara **- best fiction about a battle I have read. And a great way to get a solid grounding about the US Civil War and Gettysburg.
**One Train Later by Andy Summers and Chronicles Volume 1 by Bob Dylan and Life by Keith Richards **- 3 of the few rock bios that stand on their own as truly well-written works.
**How to Live: a Life of Montaigne by Sarah Bakewell **- I need to find the thread I started on this one…ETA: here it is…
I’ve been recommending **The Name of the Wind **by Patrick Rothfuss to any and all. Also, **The Thirteenth Tale **by Diane Setterfield. Both very, very good.
A Childhood: the Biography of a Place by Harry Crews. It’s an amazing, unflinching, moving account of Crews growing up in the rural south. I love most of what Crews has written, but this book is what made me love Crews himself.
The copy I have includes an essay he wrote called “Fathers, Sons and Blood,” a reflection on his relationships with his sons, one of who died as a child.
The Elm at the Edge of the Earth by Robert D. Hale is a novel that was written over 20 years ago, by an author that has only written 2 books. Hale is a storyteller author. Elm is a semi-autobiographical novel set in the rural midwest and it’s main character is a nine year old boy, David, whose mother is seriously ill and is sent to live with his Aunt who works and lives at the County poor house. David interacts and develops relationships with all of the residents at the County home. There’s no real big climax in the plot. But Hale uses humor and extemely interesting character development to tell his story. If you like good storytellers, then you will find this book a good read. It’s out of print, but you can find a few used copies here and there.
I’ve finished it (Andre Dubus’ Dancing After Hours), and I loved them all. But especially “Blessings,” “All the Time in the World,” “The Colonel’s Wife,” and “Out of the Snow.” I’m heading to the library on lunch to pick up more of his stuff.
Such perfect stories. I appreciate his ability to select worthy story material - truly enlightening, life-changing, little moments - and weave in just enough past to make the present moving. Thanks again for the recommendation, Skald. He’s up there with Marilynne Robinson and Wallace Stegner for author I’m most grateful to have been recommended.
The Adventures of the Good Soldier Švejk, by Jaroslav Hašek Catch-22 by Joseph Heller Collapse and Guns, Germs, and Steel, by Jared Diamond
The work of Gerard Reve, my favorite Dutch author, is sadly mostly* unavailable in any language other than Dutch. Even though his is the best fiction ever produced in the Dutch language, what keeps getting translated is the work by all sorts of mediocre authors that ought to be forgotten. I find myself recommending it to people who read Dutch, a lot, and I guess I would recommend that people learn Dutch to read Reve’s work, but that’s a bit much to ask I think.
*except for the stuff that Reve himself wrote in English, which is not his most impressive work IMHO
I cannot express how wonderful “Out of the Snow” is. Though I am an atheist, and that story is probably the most Christian work of fiction I’ve ever read that was not didactic or evangelical in intent, it’s profound beauty is just … hell, like I said, there are no words.
What did you think of the earlier Luanne stories – particularly “The Timing of Sin”?