Book Recommendation Request

[mllelaurel]

I've been looking over my 'to read' list lately (it's obscenely huge!) and I've noticed it's almost entirely composed of fantasy and science fiction. Now, I love me some sf/f and there's certainly enough of it out there to keep me busy for years, but occasionally, something different is nice. So, here's a challenge to you all:

Please recommend some books you think I'd like that fall outside my usual genres.

Comments

[nevacaruso.livejournal.com]

A Field of Darkness and The Crazy School by Cornelia Read. Murder mysteries, of sorts, but they're also about family and class and belonging and dealing with/letting go of the past. Wonderful snarky heroine, too, with well-drawn supporting characters (including the villains), and a great sense of place, especially in the first one. I read them out of sequence, but they're definitely better enjoyed if you take them on in the order that I listed.

I'll let you know if I think of any others.

[mllelaurel.livejournal.com]

Yay snark and sense of place! Those are both things I try to look for in books I read.

[nevacaruso.livejournal.com]

I have a copy of A Field of Darkness ($1 at a library book sale, w00t!) and would be happy to lend.

[marmota.livejournal.com]

I can make a few suggestions from my own recent reading. On the serious side, both Middlemarch and Silas Marner by 'George Eliot', along with Thackeray's Vanity Fair. Very enjoyable for their own sake, but I had mainly picked them up so as to better appreciate the humor in Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men and a Boat and Stella Gibbon's Cold Comfort Farm.

For gothic horror, Maturin's faustian Melmoth the Wanderer written in 1820 has been inspiration to both HP Lovecraft and Anne Rice.

For recent shear* ridiculousness, Three Bags Full is Anthea Bell's translation of Leonie Swann's german novel about a flock of Irish sheep sleuthing out who killed their shepherd.
*couldn't resist.

Finally, for a travelogue of sorts, Jeremy Seal's "A Fez of the Heart: Travels around Turkey in Search of a Hat" is quite entertaining.

Random enough?

[mllelaurel.livejournal.com]

I've actually been meaning to read Vanity Fair for some time.

Dude, sheep! That sounds like wonderful, wonderful crack.

[rampala.livejournal.com]

I'm currently re-reading a book we had to read for our Space Time and Relativity class back in freshman year-- "Poetry of the Universe" by Robert Osserman. I'm loving it all over again. Other books I highly recommend are:

"A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson
"Jitterbug Perfume" by Tom Robbins
"Skinny Legs and All" by Tom Robbins
"A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith

And if you're looking for something queer (and, erm, I'm going to with "hawt"): "The Leather Daddy and the Femme" by Carol Queen

[mllelaurel.livejournal.com]

I remember that book! And I believe I still have it, too. Definitely time for a re-read.

Queer's always good. :)

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

Non-SF Joanna Russ? On Strike Against God

[mllelaurel.livejournal.com]

Oooh, what's that one about? Wikipedia wasn't very forthcoming.

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

It's subtitled "A Lesbian Love Story." It's a sorta-almost autobiographical depiction of the coming out of a young academic in the 70s. Has lots of fun feminist commentary on everything from psychotherapy to parties. Russ is devastatingly funny in a very dark-humor sort of way.

This was the very first book that Akycha loaned me after we fell in love. My Evil Ex, who I was with for all of a month after that, called it "lesbian propaganda." It so totally worked! ;)

[mllelaurel.livejournal.com]

Oh, cool! I especially like that it's funny. Cause that's necessary, I think.

[mirrored-echo.livejournal.com]

Fiction or non-fiction?

I'm reading a lot of old-school science writing these days. Am somewhat intimidated of recommending you stuff, since you're an ex-English major, with English major friends.

Just got through reading Fire in the Valley, which is well worth it for just about anyone nowadays.

Have you read Calvino yet? Or anything by Jeanette Winterson? Or, hell, Nabokov or Hemingway or Gertrude Stein?

And what in the classic Russian lit genre have you not read? (I still haven't managed to geek Anna Karenina with you. Which I mostly like because, dude, I'm so the little kid in that book. If he managed to become female and go to college in Massachusetts in the 21st century, and all. But still.)

[mllelaurel.livejournal.com]

I tend to prefer fiction, or non-fiction with a narrative.

Is Fire in the Valley the book Pirates of Silicon Valley (the movie) was based on? (Go go Lily's wiki search skillz.)

I'm actually more behind on Russian lit than most. I've read Anna Karenina, a whole lot of Chekhov, Fathers and Sons, plus a lot of stuff I'm pretty sure was never translated into English, particularly books dealing with WWII.

Awwwwwwww!

[oakenguy.livejournal.com]

Ooo, I love these questions.

Right now I'm reading Colin Bateman, who's pretty unknown over here but who's loved in the U.K. for Elmore Leonard/Carl Hiaasan-style crime writing of the snarky-journalist-who-can't-keep-his-mouth-shut-gets-in-over-his-head style.

I'd also recommend White Tiger, if Slumdog Millionare hasn't gotten you all Mumbai-d out.

And oh! There's a book called I Killed! Tales of Comedians on the Road that's AMAZING. Like, "I must buy twenty copies so I can give them as gifts" hilarious.

And oh oh also, do you do manga at all? Something tells me you'd like Yotsuba.

[mllelaurel.livejournal.com]

You just said the magic word. (The word being 'snarky.' Lily likes snarky.)

I'm actually a heathen who hasn't seen Slumdog yet. I almost never get my butt to the movies during the winter and wind up watching everything on DVD instead.

Dude, that's a high recommendation, indeed!

I most definitely do manga! What's Yotsuba about?

[oakenguy.livejournal.com]

Yotsuba...oh wow, how to describe it. Imagine Bjork as a 5-year-old Japanese girl. With green hair. Who moves to the city with her dad, meets the neighbors, and tries to figure out how the world around her works.

I mean, that's pretty much the entire plot of the series in a nutshell. And yet it's so adorable! Yotsuba's such a strong character, and the art's so good, that an entire chapter devoted to Yotsuba and her dad going shopping, to name one example, becomes totally gripping.

[mllelaurel.livejournal.com]

That sounds awesome! Note to self, see if library has it.