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The Iain Banks stuff, is great
Mark Frost list of 7/ 6 messiahs
Dan Simmonds The Terror
The Expanse books
Tchaikovsky s Children of Time
Agree about Cormac McCarthy, great, great writer, but tend to need something a bit lightheaded after
James Elroy's LA books are good fun
I read Ben MacIntyre's Operation Mincemeat on a Greek beach and thought it was a perfectly acceptable place to read it 🙃 His books read like fiction, but aren't.
https://smile.amazon.co.uk/dp/1526653559/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_i_KETC6EZZXE3J9JQ35Z53
Any of the Rebus books by Ian Rankin.
David Peace - 1974/1977/1980/1983; all of them, in sequence; his Tokyo trilogy.
Anything by Stuart Maconie, Jo Nesbo, Henning Mankell.
Fatherland or Enigma by Robert Harris.
VS Naipaul - A house for Mr Biswas or A bend in the river.
Love Nina by Nina Stibbe.
Anything by Gervaise Phinn,Graham Greene or Paul Torday.
Amy Tan - the bonesetter's daughter.
Anything by F Scott Fitzgerald.
John Cooper Clarke's poems - ten years in an open necked shirt and the luckiest guy alive.
Gormenghast trilogy by Mervyn Peake.
Inspector Montalbano novels by Andrea Camilleri.
The north water by Ian McGuire.
The Man who broke Napoleon's codes by Mark Urban.
To finish - and these will take some finding - both by Leonard Barrass...up the tyne in a flummox and further up the tyne in a flummox; both referencing Seppie Elphinstook and Wallsend Amnesia FC. These should have particular appeal to the Geordie diaspora.
RM +1 for Operation Mincemeat.
Also SAS Rogue Heroes - fact which reads like boy's own fiction; utterly compelling.
If you like Steinbeck have you read his comic stuff?
Cannery Row and Tortilla Flat are excellent.
I think Steinbeck's serious stuff is overrated, but these two are decent. Also The Log from the Sea of Cortez, which is non-fiction, it's about the Doc from Cannery Row in real life.
Orwell also had a bunch of other novels and non-fiction besides his Big Two. Those are worth looking at, you can see the different themes of 1984 taking shape in the earlier works.
First novels are usually somewhat autobiographical. I hope like hell that Iain Banks' first novel is not. If I was in charge, it would be required reading.
Has Chuck Palahniuk been suggested yet? He's a frickin genius.
Bloody hell, some of the authors/books on this list, I though the OP wanted some light pool-side reading?
Also The Log from the Sea of Cortez, which is non-fiction, it’s about the Doc from Cannery Row in real life.
As a Steinbeck fan, that's genuinely one of the dullest books I've ever read. Well, attempted to read, twice, before giving up.
Orwell also had a bunch of other novels and non-fiction besides his Big Two. Those are worth looking at, you can see the different themes of 1984 taking shape in the earlier works.
Coming Up for Air is great.
Spares, Only Forward and One of Us by Michael Marshall Smith.
Vurt by Jeff Noon
Anything by Robert Rankin
Or buy a kindle and get unlimited and just go random
Never! My wife has a Paperwhite but I don't see the attraction (and I read for an hour on my commute every single day so I am sure a Kindle would be more convenient, but just prefer real books).
Another vote for Iain Banks both non-SF and SF. I took Stonemouth with me when I was away with work and inadvertently stayed up until 1.30am two nights running while reading it.
If you want proper brain out action/thriller/spy-esque rubbish take a few Clive Cussler books with you. Doesn't matter which ones as they all have the same basic plot but they are strangely enjoyable.
johnners
Free MemberIsn’t that more like one book for the price of 2?
If you buy World Without End then yep. But if you only buy Pillars of the Earth you've effectively read the sequel too, without having to buy it
Another vote for Iain Banks both non-SF and SF.
My first and only exposure so far to Iain Banks was the Wasp Factory. While I kind of enjoyed it (not sure that's the right word really) it just left me feeling a bit disturbed and sick. I didn't feel in any rush to read any more of his books.
I probably will give some of his other books a try, but there are quite a few books further up the list.
Mrs WF has been pestering me to read Lonesome Dove for a few years now, ever since she read it and was blown away. However, I have never felt the urge to read a western! May have to reconsider on the basis of this thread.
My first and only exposure so far to Iain Banks was the Wasp Factory. While I kind of enjoyed it (not sure that’s the right word really) it just left me feeling a bit disturbed and sick.
This rings a bell, I did try and re-read it recently some 30 years after I first read it. It was one of those books I used to go around recommending to all and sundry when I was in my 20s, along with ‘The Magus’ by John Fowles (thrilled at it in youth, yet now it creeped me out/brought a darkness) and ‘Dice Man’.
A second reading of ‘The Wasp Factory’ I didn’t get me very far/didn’t seem to hit the spot. To be honest it felt contrived - self-consciously trying to be dark and edgy.
I’d also spent a good portion of my life since teaching teenagers with special-needs/autism - so with acquired insight and experience the novel’s ritualistic (more psychopathic) protagonist no longer really convinced.
I’d recommend Haddon’s ‘ The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time’ any day.
OP reminded me that I also read ‘Weaveworld’ by Clive Barker as a 20yr old (remember it was sort of ‘meh’) but again tried Clive Barker in my 40s and I just couldn’t hack him.
Now advancing in years seems I want my fantasy to have more ‘humanity’, poetry, to be more imaginative yet less horrific, more thoughtful, maybe some parables/allegory, or just more variety in general. Any number of things.
OTOH I recently picked up a (fantasy) book that I hadn’t read since was 15 years old - ‘The October Country’ (collection of short stories by Ray Bradbury) and was (again) surprised and captivated. Bradbury really was a master of the short story IMO. Of his novels I’ve enjoyed ‘Fahrenheit 451’ but have yet to read ‘The Martian Chronicles’, could anyone recommend?
In summary following this ramble I think compatible books are a lot like relationships - it’s as much (if not more) about timing and where you are in life as it is about the content (but good writing is still good writing)
Which reminds me:
INTRODUCTION
There are good things which we want to share with the world and good things which we want to keep to ourselves. The secret of our favourite restaurant, to take a case, is guarded jealously from all but a few intimates; the secret, to take a contrary case, of our infallible remedy for seasickness is thrust upon every traveller we meet, even if he be no more than a casual acquaintance about to cross the Serpentine. So with our books. There are dearly loved books of which we babble to a neighbour at dinner, insisting that she shall share our delight in them; and there are books, equally dear to us, of which we say nothing, fearing lest the praise of others should cheapen the glory of our discovery. The books of "Saki" were, for me at least, in the second class.
Doesn’t fit the brief but based on your early reading you could try Nod by Julian Barnes.
I’ve just finished reading Don Wilnslow’s latest. Mainly crime stuff, Mexican cartels, Irish mafia etc. He has a style that makes him easy to read.
Of his novels I’ve enjoyed ‘Fahrenheit 451’ but have yet to read ‘The Martian Chronicles’, could anyone recommend
Have you read Something Wicked This Way Comes? It's probably in my top 5, an utterly remarkable novel.
Have you read Something Wicked This Way Comes?
I have! Not since a kid though, must revisit thnks.
The Book Thief
The Last Kingdom series
Little Green Man
.....to add a fairly random three
I need counselling when I’ve finished reading his stuff. I’ve had one on my ‘to read’ pile since last summer but I haven’t felt ready to read it since I bought it.
If it's Blood Meridian, your caution is wise......
I'd agree with the Wasp Factory points above, it's ok if for only to seee what the fuss is about. Crow road and Espedair street much better.
I also reread some Clive Barker last year and whilst I really enjoyed it at the time it never really worked for me this time round.
Welshfarmer, Lonesome Dove was a book I wa given by my English teacher wife's colleague and thought why would I ever read a cowboy book. I ended up reading loads and reread LD again last year and it's still fantastic.
+1 The Crow Road
Two trilogies came to mind since (holiday reading sort of stuff)
Stieg Larsson:
The Millennium Trilogy (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo; The Girl Who Played With Fire; The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest)
Bernard Cornwell:
Warlord Chronicles (Enemy of God, Excalibur, The Winter King)
Currently re reading For Whom the Bell Tolls and really enjoying it, but by a distance the two authors I would recommend are
Owen Shears - I Saw a Man
and whilst it is a long form poem, Pink Mist. Both made me think, and I flew through both.
Max Porter. Lanny and Grief is the Thing with Feathers. Quite unlike anything I’ve read before, and again, couldn’t put them down. Have bought copies of both for friends & family.