Another Recommendations Thread

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Hello, everyone. I'm relatively new to most forms of fiction, and would like to get some advice on what is worth exploring. Poetry, too. The only thing I have any knowledge on is science fiction; that, and some basic knowledge on Romantic/Victorian England (had a class here, on the subject).

Right now, I'm reading Joyce's Dubliners and Kafka's The Trial. Both are pretty fascinating; except, I think the Kafka is causing some unwanted side-effects (i.e. excessive moodiness with a side of despair).

If it's any help, here's what I really like, of the little I've read:

Novels:

Camus's The Stranger
Burgess's A Clockwork Orange
Kesey's One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
The Marquis de Sade's Justine (I blame it on Weiss's play)
Tolkein's Lord of the Rings Trilogy
Dickens's Oliver Twist
Some Mark Twain
McCabe's The Butcher Boy
London's Call of the Wild

Science Fiction:

Asimov's Foundation trilogy
Herbert's "Dune" (first book only)
Some Orson Scott Card (the Earth series, Ender's Game)
Some Arthur Clarke

Poetry:

Keats's odes & "La Belle Dame Sans Merci"
Robert Browning
Byron
Some Eliot ("Prufrock" & "Waste Land")
Donne
Shakespeare's sonnets
Milton's "Paradise Lost"

And, on the offshoot that philosophy fits into all this, I like what I've read by Nietzsche and Kierkegaard -- seems I'm really diggin' existential literature lately.

What I don't like: Anything associated with the Victorian period, really (outside of Dickens), most Coleridge and Wordsworth (spotty), Yeats, damn Elizabeth Barrett Browning, most Blake, Dostoevsky

Anyway, I'll stop listing items and turn this over to the capricious fate that will determine the rest of this thread. I'm open to most anything -- any suggestions on future reading?

― mj (robert blake), Monday, 16 May 2005 03:39 (twenty years ago)

If you like existential literature, you should read Sartre, yes? You should also read Philip Roth, because everyone should read Philip Roth. Portnoy's Complaint is usually the best place to start.

― Ray (Ray), Monday, 16 May 2005 06:46 (twenty years ago)

Mmm, are you looking for recommendations in the "classic literature" arena (that is, "important" names such as Sartre, Camus, Joyce, Kafka, etc.) or are you willing to try out some books which are just good (even if they aren't awarded with monographic courses in college)?

There are plenty of people here who read all the must-have classics so I'm sure you'll get many suggestions in that field. I'll simply list several novels that I really enjoyed over the past years:

Tom Robbins - "Jitterbug Perfume"
John Fowles, "the magus"
Jeffrey Eugenides, "Middlesex"
Jonathan Lethem, "Gun, with occasional music"
Umberto Eco, "Baudolino"
Susanna Clarke, "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell"
Mordecai Richler, "Barney's version"
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, "one hundred...."
Cormac McCarthy, "Blood Meridian"
(...)

You can find informative notes on each of them at Amazon.com. Get back to me if such isn't the case. :-)

― Simone Oltolina (soltolina), Monday, 16 May 2005 13:54 (twenty years ago)

If you like Keats's poetry, check out his letters (there's a good edition edited by Robert Gittings), which are funny, humane, bawdy, obsessive, alive and filled with some of the most penetrating insights on poetry and life you'll ever find.

― Gail S, Monday, 16 May 2005 14:50 (twenty years ago)

Thanks everyone.

or are you willing to try out some books which are just good (even if they aren't awarded with monographic courses in college)

Anything. Actually, non-canon literature would be better, because I can easily find information about all of the "important" authors. I especially would like poetry suggestions. Don't let that stop you from tearing up the canon though, because I know not everything in it is worth reading.

I definitely want to check out Marquez and Eco, now. I will definitely hit up Sartre now, too.

If you've got more, keep them coming.

― mj (robert blake), Monday, 16 May 2005 17:27 (twenty years ago)

I'd agree with Eco and Eugenides, but not Baudolino and Middlesex. Nabobov is great, Pale Fire or Lolita

― Ray (Ray), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 07:28 (twenty years ago)

The USA Trilogy by John Dos Passos...IF you have any interest in the American scene first half of the 20th century division. It's a weird mix of realistic historical fiction and then-experimental structure.

In poetry I'm not so well versed heh heh heh. But I'll always return to Whitman's Leaves of Grass & Philip Larkin's Collected Poems.

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 09:13 (twenty years ago)

one month passes...

If you want interesting books to read and are a fan of poetry you should try 'Jazz' by Toni Morrison. It has the most poetic language of any fiction i have ever had the pleasure to read.

For ans entrancing read you could try 'Atonement' by Ian McEwan. It is a great novel about the consequences of our actions, the border between a fantasy and reality and the decline og the British 'Empire' in World War Two.

― Shutruk Nahunte, Tuesday, 21 June 2005 14:34 (twenty years ago)

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