September 19th, 2007
Book recommendations and housekeeping
Partly inspired by a couple of people who have asked for book or album recommendations recently (that’s James and Susan respectively), I’ve reorganised the Book and Music sections of the blog, and created separate review sections for each as opposed to general ponderings and wafflings on each subject. I’ve also added a chunk of reviews to both going back over the last few years. Anything older than a couple of years is dated 01/01/04.
As mentioned here I’m a bit behind on my reading this year, but inspired by James’ question, here are 10 random books in no particular order that I repeatedly recommend/buy for people who like books.
1 The Visitor or any of Maeve Brennan’s short stories - one of best practitioners of the form.
2 English Passengers (2000) by Matthew Kneale - a multi-narrator high seas colonial masterpiece.
3 Coming Up For Air (1939) by George Orwell - People tend to have read Animal Farm, 1984 or Down in Out in Paris and London, but this is one of Orwell’s best works that people may have missed.
4 Katherine Mansfield’s short stories - I know I keep saying this, but anyone who Virginia Woolf claimed as the only writer she was jealous of, has got to be worth reading. ‘Bliss’ and ‘A Garden Party’ are two of my favourite short stories.
5 The Regeneration Trilogy by Pat Barker - That is Regeneration (1991), The Eye in the Door (1993), The Ghost Road (1995) respectively. This amazing trilogy combines fiction and fact spanning the First World War, its aftermath and the shattering neuroses suffered by men from all walks of life. Emotional, gripping works of fiction set in a powerful historical context.
6 The Sound and The Fury (1929) by William Faulkner - I don’t think anyone conjures up the thwarted heat of segregationist pre-WW2 America the way he does.
7 Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie (1981) - Not only a Booker winner, but a winner of the ‘Booker of Bookers’ (the best novel to win the prize in its first 25 years). An epic, magical story of life, death and fate, it blew me away when I first read it.
8 A Confederacy of Dunces (1980) by John Kennedy Toole - the story behind this book is as tragic as the book is funny. Kennedy Toole tried unsuccessfully to get it published and was so dismayed at its failure that he killed himself at 32. His mother’s persistence resulted in it not only getting published, but winning the Pulitzer Prize. Ignatius J. Reilly is one of the funniest anti-heroes ever written.
9 Who Will Run The Frog Hospital? (1994) - Although Moore is better for her short stories, this novel is a classic coming-of-age tale and charts the friendship of two young girls over the years. I’ve bought this for so many female friends and they’ve all loved it.
10 Most of John Steinbeck’s work - particularly Cannery Row (1945), East of Eden (1952) and one of my favourites The Red Pony (1933).
Anyone want to recommend some “must reads” for me?
September 19th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
The Chateau by William Maxwell (Maeve Brennan’s onetime editor at The New Yorker, as it happens!). I was introduced to him by a friend who worked at his literary agents in New York, and I was captivated straight away. His correspondence with Sylvia Townsend Warner, An Element of Lavishness, is probably my favourite book ever, but it’s hard to find now, unlike Maxwell’s fiction. Reading him is like drinking a glass of pure, cold water on a hot day.
And anything by Tove Jansson, from her Moomin books to her recently reissued adult novels. Strange and funny and beautiful.
Have you read Pat Barker’s latest? I liked it, but it’s not a patch on the Regeneration trilogy.
September 19th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
I second the recommendation for English Passengers. It’s a novel that I keep badgering people to read because its so good and I can’t believe it’s not better known. There’s many books that are described as being ‘laugh out loud’ types of novels, but that one truly is.
I;d also give a large shout from the rooftops for ‘What I Loved’ by Siri Hustvedt which is beautifully written. I’m about half way through it right now and am forcing myself to read it slowly because it’s so lush and I don’t want it to ever end…*sighs*
September 19th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
Good call.. thanks again Sinéad - there’s a wealth of info here so far.
September 19th, 2007 at 1:51 pm
J-Pod by Douglas Coupland - so random and funny, I can’t keep recommending it enough. Some people can’t stomach his hyper-modern phrases or all-over-the-shop plots, but I lapped it all up.
Also I recently read Chuck Klosterman’s Killing Yourself To Live - as a genre it would be in under that tedious music-journo-memoir malarkey, but it was actually quite engaging.
Thanks for the recommendations Sinead! Must look into them. Out Stealing Horses and On Chesil Beach are next in my reading queue…must get Who Will Run The Frog Hospital too…
September 19th, 2007 at 2:28 pm
Stellanova! One of my few recommendations/gifts for people is Time Will Darken It by Maxwell. Haven’t read the Chateau yet, but fondled it just the other day in Dubray’s in Rathmines. Must go buy it.
The other one I love is A Handful Of Dust by Evelyn Waugh. Both books deeply depressing but incredibly affecting and ones I read again and again.
September 19th, 2007 at 3:33 pm
Obvious choices but ANYTHING by Bret Easton Ellis & Will Self are total bankers in my opinion.
September 19th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
I do like Lorrie Moore’s short fiction so maybe I’ll give that one a shot - it might convince me that women *can* write after all :p
September 19th, 2007 at 7:24 pm
Just thought of another book that’s always worth a read and that’s Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels. It’s an excellent choice and shortly to be made a movie I believe.
September 20th, 2007 at 11:54 am
You’ve probably been there already but David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas and Auddrey Niffeneger’s The Time Traveller’s Wife are my favourite two from the last year or so. I read waaaaaay too much non-fiction although I am enjoying Austin Grossman’s Soon I Will Be Invincible at the moment, a sort of “Heroes” superhero from the ground level up thing.
September 20th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
Huxleys Island is always a beauty..
September 20th, 2007 at 12:23 pm
Stellanova, I haven’t read any Maxwell, so thanks for the tip off. Haven’t read the new Pat Barker, but picked up a cheapo copy of Union Street recently.
That book of correspondence with Sylvia Townsend Warner sounds interesting. I adored Lolly Willowes when I read it in college.
Charlie, I think English Passengers deserves to be more widely read than it is. Funnily enough I nearly picked What I Loved for the bookclub I’m in, but I was sure one of the gals was bound to have read it.
You’re right about Fugitive Pieces - http://imdb.com/title/tt0765451/
James, no worries.
Tanya, do you know I tried to read one of Coupland’s books years ago (can’t remember which one) and I just couldn’t get into it. It might have been Microserfs so maybe I should revisit him.
Pedro, interesting choices. I like both writers but there are only certain people I would recommend them to, particularly Will Self. But ‘How the Dead Live’ is fantastic and while I hated American Psycho, I really liked Lunar Park.
GWAOF, that Lorrie Moore novel is a great book, a real comfort read, I think you’d like it.
Rick, himself read Cloud Atlas and LOVED it, and one of the bookclub gals just finished it and said she really liked it.
I didn’t like Time Traveller’s Wife at all, there was something creepy (?) about it…
Edel, I’ve read very little Waugh (just Black Mischief) so I’ll at that to the very flabby list I have now.
Timmah, is Island fiction or non-fiction? Don’t ask me why I’m asking that…
September 20th, 2007 at 12:33 pm
Fiction Sinead, it’s his utopia to counter the Brave New World dystopia. Well worth a look I reckon.
September 20th, 2007 at 1:29 pm
Out Stealing Horses is the best book I’ve read this year… stunning.
My standard recommendations are Brazzaville Beach - William Boyd;The Hours - Michael Cunningham (love his writing, but I didn’t really like Specimen Days);and How Many Miles to Babylon - Jennifer Johnston. Plus whatever it is I am gushing about at the time….
Lorrie Moore’s short stories are high on the list too. Birds of America was fantastic and I worked from there and read everything by her.
September 20th, 2007 at 2:20 pm
Sinéad, I too hated The Time Traveller’s Wife, and found it rather creepy and unpleasant. I’m slightly mystified by its success. I second Edel’s Waugh recommendation (in fact, I’ve just written about him in the new issue of a certain publication!) - A Handful of Dust was the first properly grown-up novel I ever read, when I was 13, and it blew me away. It would be criminal to spoil the ending, but let’s just say that my 13-year-old self’s reaction was genuine shock that someone could end a novel like that.
And Edel, I can’t count how many people I’ve given The Chateau to! It’s a perfect literary present - I’ve never known anyone who didn’t love it. I love Time Will Darken It too, but The Chateau was my introduction to Maxwell, and once I read it I pretty much read everything by him I could get my hands on. It helped having a friend in his agents’ office who could get me the rarer stuff, like his letters with Frank O’Connor. It seems like Maxwell was a lovely person as well - The Element of Lavishness (as mentioned above) is a truly amazing book and made me totally fall in love with both him and Sylvia T-W.
September 20th, 2007 at 4:13 pm
Hated American Psycho?
That is by far, the funniest book I have ever read. So many laugh-out-loud moments from it.
September 20th, 2007 at 8:05 pm
Try any of ‘The Richards’ - Yates, Ford, Powers or Brautigan
September 21st, 2007 at 7:57 am
Sinéad, the PS I Love You trailer is here: http://www.canmag.com/nw/9016-ps-i-love-you-trailer
But honestly, you really don’t want to listen
September 21st, 2007 at 8:38 am
About ‘Who Will Run The Frog Hospital’, you say: I’ve bought this for so many female friends and they’ve all loved it.
I loved this book and Birds of America is one of my favourite works of fiction. Does that make me a girl?
September 21st, 2007 at 7:31 pm
Liz, I adored Out Stealing Horses, but it has a special place in my heart. I was talking about it on the radio the week of the IMPAC award and my son was (unexpectedly!) born on the day Peterson won the prize.
I’ve never read any Boyd, imagine? Is Restless any good?
Pedro, you’re going to call me a big ol’ feminist but I found it was misogynistic in a very OTT way and it took away from the humour for me.
TGWAOF, I’ve always wanted to read Revolutionary Road.
Fence, thanks for that. A bucket of nausea, that was.
Donagh, yes, yes you are.
I didn’t mean to be so exclusive, it’s just one of those great books about gal pal female friendship stuff.
September 24th, 2007 at 8:45 am
Sinead, Restless is very enjoyable.. Boyd is a great storyteller…though it doesn’t stand out for me in the way Brazzaville Beach does. Any Human Heart is also well worth a read. I’d go for either of those before Restless.
(Out Stealing Horses gets under your skin, so I can only imagine how nice it is to have that connection with it)
September 24th, 2007 at 10:17 am
Pedro,
I found American Psycho gripping but funniest book you’ve ever read? You clearly haven’t read many. Irvine Welsh’s Filth was more gripping and funnier. Catch-22 is the funniest I’ve ever read by miles, in a tragicomic kind of way.
September 24th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Hi Sinead- welcome back.
I’m sure I’m a bit behind the curve on this but anyone who’s not read Mother London should go track it down. Yes it’s by Michael Moorcock but it’s not that woolly Elric nonsense.
Funny the Cannery Row recommendation: third time it’s come up in as many days so it’s looking to me like one of those books that you sometimes seem set to collide with whether you want to or not.
September 27th, 2007 at 11:14 am
I’d like to recommend Brooke Stevens’, The Circus of the Earth and the Air. It will definitely leave you in a bewildered state. The feeling of uncertainty about what should be certain is humid and claustrophobic. It’s an incredibly sad love story centered around losing that which you never knew you had taken for granted.
October 3rd, 2007 at 5:21 pm
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen; unique vision, and a cut above most things.