but the number of adults I see reading Twilight on the subway really gets me down
I'm reading The Girl Who Played With Fire (pretty overrated imo and I like crime fiction and thrillers, dunno if I'll bother to read the third one in the series) but anyway I ended up in the same subway car with two other people also reading and thought "omg I'm reading the new Da Vinci Code here"
― dmr, Friday, 25 June 2010 17:37 (fourteen years ago) link
Excellent book blog with A+ recommendations: The Elegant Variation http://marksarvas.blogs.com/
xpost
― franny glass, Friday, 25 June 2010 17:37 (fourteen years ago) link
I just finished Martin Amis' The Pregnant Widow, which, as I wrote on the latest reading thread, shows the peril of depending on pages and pages of dialogue to no end.
I don't know if there's any "crisis" in contemporary fiction -- some alarmist is always quick to point to one when technological innovations seem insuperable. For myself, I tend to avoid new fiction that calls attention to itself: a novelist pleased with his erudition (Chabon), or plays a lot of tired narrative and POV games (Foer). Two of the best novels I read last year were written by "traditionalists": William Trevor's Love and Summer and Colm Toibin's Brooklyn. The latter really scored a minor triumph: he took a worn story whose sentimental elements peeked around the edges and purged them.
― Filmmaker, Author, Radio Host Stephen Baldwin (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 25 June 2010 17:37 (fourteen years ago) link
I think Bolano's The Savage Detectives and 2666 fit the modern and ambitious requirements perfectly.
― Moreno, Friday, 25 June 2010 17:38 (fourteen years ago) link
DMR I know what you mean, but I have to disagree on the overrated bit, I couldn't put it down...
― franny glass, Friday, 25 June 2010 17:38 (fourteen years ago) link
Yes it's a Doctor Who book, but
lol love ya Dan
― insert your favorite discriminatory practice here (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 25 June 2010 17:39 (fourteen years ago) link
Coetzee and McEwan also write novels that are almost always worth reading.
― Filmmaker, Author, Radio Host Stephen Baldwin (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 25 June 2010 17:39 (fourteen years ago) link
liked the first one better, the second had some things that annoyed me but they're too spoilerish to talk abt (xposts)
― dmr, Friday, 25 June 2010 17:40 (fourteen years ago) link
a novelist pleased with his erudition (Chabon)
omg I hate this fucking guy. someone else who was recommended to me and then when I actually slogged through it made me want to kill myself
― insert your favorite discriminatory practice here (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 25 June 2010 17:40 (fourteen years ago) link
the elephant in the room here is named bill vollmann
― strongohulkingtonsghost, Friday, 25 June 2010 17:41 (fourteen years ago) link
bolano's wikipedia page is pretty weird
― plax (ico), Friday, 25 June 2010 17:41 (fourteen years ago) link
The old-fashioned ways of picking up interesting novels (and books generally) still works for me: reading the NY Review of Books, New Yorker, and Guaridan; recommendations from friends; footnotes in books I'm reading now.
― Filmmaker, Author, Radio Host Stephen Baldwin (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 25 June 2010 17:41 (fourteen years ago) link
i am under the impression that there are several websites out there that "book-themed" though
I was on this "Shelfari" site for awhile but got sick of people constantly e-mailing me about whether they should read "The Master and Margarita"
― insert your favorite discriminatory practice here (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 25 June 2010 17:41 (fourteen years ago) link
hmmm yeah that was an ommission from my list, altho I kinda soured on him. I liked his story collections stuff a lot (Atlas in particular, but also Rainbow Stories)... but his historical stuff made me less interested, and I tired of his odes to prostitutes too. Similar to McCarthy, there's a kind of built-in despair to his stuff that can be oppressive/hard to take
― insert your favorite discriminatory practice here (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 25 June 2010 17:43 (fourteen years ago) link
Also, you know, Toni Morrison is still writing great books although i know I'm in the minority for believing that they get better and better. Love and A Mercy are pretty far out imo, i think they are genuinely experimental.
― jed_, Friday, 25 June 2010 17:43 (fourteen years ago) link
Yep, Larsson can definitely be annoying stylistically.
I haven't read a ton of Vollman but Europe Central was a great slow burner. Loved it.
― franny glass, Friday, 25 June 2010 17:43 (fourteen years ago) link
The Mysteries of Pittsburgh is one of my favorite first novels (perhaps this topic is worth a thread?), but he's spending too much time in libraries learning about Allied expeditions in Alaska in 1943 or whatever. He integrates these historical interludes with a startling lack of finesse.
― Filmmaker, Author, Radio Host Stephen Baldwin (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 25 June 2010 17:44 (fourteen years ago) link
xxxxxposts jellinek sounds like exactly up my alley btw
― plax (ico), Friday, 25 June 2010 17:44 (fourteen years ago) link
Yup. The big problem is not having good new novels to read, it is finding them among the hundreds of new novels you do not want to read. It's easier to find and read decent not-new novels, because the winnowing process of a few decades has caused the great majority of mediocre, not-new novels to vanish.
― Aimless, Friday, 25 June 2010 17:46 (fourteen years ago) link
here's a great article on Bolano for anyone interested.
― Moreno, Friday, 25 June 2010 17:46 (fourteen years ago) link
xp she is one of my favorites
I wish they would hurry up and translate the one she got the nobel for
― get your bucket of free wings (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Friday, 25 June 2010 17:46 (fourteen years ago) link
joy williams's's quick and the dead is pretty good, kind of off the wheels shit. The tricks she has are good but she doesn't have tooooo many tho
― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Friday, 25 June 2010 17:47 (fourteen years ago) link
javier marias a heart so white was pretty great
― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Friday, 25 June 2010 17:48 (fourteen years ago) link
The big problem is not having good new novels to read, it is finding them among the hundreds of new novels you do not want to read
^^^this
― insert your favorite discriminatory practice here (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 25 June 2010 17:48 (fourteen years ago) link
i feel like this thread is delivering. I really wanna order a shitload of these and come back in a month or two and be like "thanks guys"
― plax (ico), Friday, 25 June 2010 17:49 (fourteen years ago) link
i haven't read quick and the dead yet. i read a story collection called "honored guest." it was an intensity.
― horseshoe, Friday, 25 June 2010 17:49 (fourteen years ago) link
I'm almost done with the 3rd vol. of YFT & think it's totally incredible btw
― get your bucket of free wings (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Friday, 25 June 2010 17:50 (fourteen years ago) link
yeah, compiling recommendations from this thread for my summer reading list.
― horseshoe, Friday, 25 June 2010 17:50 (fourteen years ago) link
but is there anything particularly important about new novels where you ought to read them now versus waiting for the winnowing?I mean is there some value attached to their currency where it won't be quite the same reading them some years later?
― Philip Nunez, Friday, 25 June 2010 17:50 (fourteen years ago) link
whenever I see any of the yft books I kind of shuffle away quickly
― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Friday, 25 June 2010 17:50 (fourteen years ago) link
ooh someone else fairly recent I forgot to mention who is obviously a heavy-hitter that I dug: Saramago (RIP)
― insert your favorite discriminatory practice here (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 25 June 2010 17:51 (fourteen years ago) link
Yeah, Saramago was good.
― Filmmaker, Author, Radio Host Stephen Baldwin (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 25 June 2010 17:52 (fourteen years ago) link
sometimes i like to feel like i have a sense for the current moment in literary culture. also, i do like to feel like "aw who the fuck cares if this novel doesn't reflect my superior literary taste" and it's exciting to feel like you're just reading a bunch of uncharted territory stuff. both those things are probably just related to my own reactionary moment against my attitudes toward literature my whole life, though.
xposts to Philip
― horseshoe, Friday, 25 June 2010 17:52 (fourteen years ago) link
― Philip Nunez, Friday, June 25, 2010 1:50 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
you wont get invited to any of the good parties
xp what horsehoe said
― max, Friday, 25 June 2010 17:52 (fourteen years ago) link
shakey i would join ur bookclub btw
― plax (ico), Friday, 25 June 2010 17:53 (fourteen years ago) link
barry hannah also p good and dead
― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Friday, 25 June 2010 17:53 (fourteen years ago) link
Another big problem is being broke and relying on an underfunded suburban library system for the majority of your book needs. That might be why I've read Dostoevskey and Proust and Wilde this year instead of the newer writers that the library will never get.
― franny glass, Friday, 25 June 2010 17:53 (fourteen years ago) link
eh you can never read too much Oscar Wilde imho
― insert your favorite discriminatory practice here (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 25 June 2010 17:55 (fourteen years ago) link
but yeah I echo plax that this thread has delivered on some interesting recs that I will check out. will be good to have a nice long list for my next trip to Powell's in Portland on July 4th
oh i have to buy everything, public libraries in ireland, i mean i don't know what they're like elsewhere but they always sound better than the decayed donated 70s paperbacks that bulk out the galway city library
― plax (ico), Friday, 25 June 2010 17:56 (fourteen years ago) link
okay i should stop being so chickenshit about recommendations. i have been listening to the lol new yorker fiction podcast lately. obvs this is more for people who aren't looking for experimental stuff, but i have recently enjoyed stories by Leonard Michaels and Andrea Lee and I plan to search out more by both of them.
― horseshoe, Friday, 25 June 2010 17:56 (fourteen years ago) link
is there anything particularly important about new novels where you ought to read them now versus waiting
Books mean different things at different times and at various ages when you read them. A perfect book for a younger person may not speak to you in middle age. Also, there's the exciting sense of discovery around newer work. No one bothers to write ponderous Introductions to recent novels; the appeal is straight from the author to you.
― Aimless, Friday, 25 June 2010 17:57 (fourteen years ago) link
Look, I started Bleak House yesterday, and it's such an unfamiliar world that it feels "new." Read what you want when you want at your own pace.
― Filmmaker, Author, Radio Host Stephen Baldwin (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 25 June 2010 17:58 (fourteen years ago) link
of course if it's a new novel about now or an historical novel that's sort-of about now then now can be the most interesting or, if it's less good, the only interesting time to read it.
― jed_, Friday, 25 June 2010 17:59 (fourteen years ago) link
how would you guys characterize the current moment BTW? I was flipping through the Raymond Pettibon reader which is compiled from excerpts from Plato to Charles Manson and pretty much could not tell what era any selection was from without looking at the author.
― Philip Nunez, Friday, 25 June 2010 18:00 (fourteen years ago) link
Alfred is right, of course. You should always read exactly what you feel like reading. There's no merit points for slogging through something you hate.
― Aimless, Friday, 25 June 2010 18:01 (fourteen years ago) link
in the thread on "The Tale of Genji" someone posts about the world of the novel (11th C Japan) being so alien it's really like reading some quasi-sci-fi novel. that kind of piqued my interest.
― jed_, Friday, 25 June 2010 18:02 (fourteen years ago) link
i mean it's impossible to characterize the current moment in a way that is accurate; these things are only possible in retrospect and then they're always kind of lies. also i am trying to come up with a useful lie about right now and i can't.
― horseshoe, Friday, 25 June 2010 18:03 (fourteen years ago) link
It does suck for me that a lot of friends who love Foer, Murakami, Palahniuk, etc won't touch anything written before, say, 1930; it's baffling!
― Filmmaker, Author, Radio Host Stephen Baldwin (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 25 June 2010 18:03 (fourteen years ago) link
There's no merit points for slogging through something you hate.
― Aimless, Friday, June 25, 2010 2:01 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
for sure. that's why i asked upthread how recently people who don't like modern fiction have read a lot of fiction. when i have felt that way it has usually been during periods where i wasn't reading much fiction at all. which fucked with my sense of identity, but i mean, whatever. sometimes you don't feel like reading fiction. it's okay.
― horseshoe, Friday, 25 June 2010 18:04 (fourteen years ago) link