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6 feb 2008
I need suggestions for novels / novelists for the 100 novels project. Anything's fair game, but I don't want to re-read too much or read the kind of thing I normally do ("poet" novels). I want novel novels.
Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping Jim Harrison, Returning to Earth James Crumley, The Last Good Kiss Daniel Woodrell, Winter's Bone Barry Hannah, Ray Djuna Barnes, Nightwood Ben Marcus, Notable American Women
Oh, actually, the trio of novellas in Jim Harrison's Legends of the Fall are exactly my kinds of novel novels.
The Crumley and Woodrell are really good noir/detective novels in rural, working class settings. The Barry Hannah is a short, brilliant read. Both of Marilynne Robinson's novels are gorgeously written.
Good suggestions. The Unconsoled is one of my favorites already. I'm not going to read Nightwood or Herzog or Under the Volcano again or Jim Harrison. (He is a POET and I want novel novels, not poet novels.) Mordechai Richter: that's a good idea.
My idea is to read good "literary" fiction. I already read genre fiction enough, so I'm not going to read any of that for this particular project. No Elmore Leonard even though I like him better than Murdoch or almost anyone else.
Penelope Fitzgerald, The Bookshop Flora Nwapa, Idu Allegra Goodman, Intuition Lawrence Joseph, Lawyerland (not exactly a novel, and he's a poet... but all the same) Dashiell Hammett, Maltese Falcon Michael Chabon, Mysteries of Pittsburgh Halldor Laxness, Under the Glacier
I found those all pretty memorable. Would the travels of Marco Polo count?
I left off the Russians, but all of Turgenev, most of Tolstoy, some of Dostoevsky (Karamazov) are worth (re)visiting...
I had great fun working thru Sir Walter Scott some years back; the late ones are unfortunately pretty bad, but Old Mortality & Heart of Midlothian are violently good reading.
And Wilkie Collins -- Armandale, Woman in White, Moonstone –– pretty much any of his books are pretty compulsive reads.
David Treuer "Hiawatha" (I've read) and "The Translation of Dr. Appelles" (I'm about to start); Louise Erdrich "The Antelope Wife" (I've read) and "The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse" (I just started listening to this morning as a book on tape); Julio Cortazar "Hopscotch" (I haven't read, but hope to start after I finish reading "Autonauts of the Cosmoroute").
Some novels I dig:
ResponderEliminarMarilynne Robinson, Housekeeping
Jim Harrison, Returning to Earth
James Crumley, The Last Good Kiss
Daniel Woodrell, Winter's Bone
Barry Hannah, Ray
Djuna Barnes, Nightwood
Ben Marcus, Notable American Women
Oh, actually, the trio of novellas in Jim Harrison's Legends of the Fall are exactly my kinds of novel novels.
ResponderEliminarThe Crumley and Woodrell are really good noir/detective novels in rural, working class settings. The Barry Hannah is a short, brilliant read. Both of Marilynne Robinson's novels are gorgeously written.
"The Godfather" is beautifully written, masterful pulp.
ResponderEliminarKazuo Ishiguro: The Unconsoled and Never Let me Go
ResponderEliminarMordecai Richler: Joshua, Then and Now (very much a novel novel) and Solomon Gursky Was Here
I'm reading Lowrey's Under the Volcano right now.
I think an interesting comparative study of Bellow's Herzog, Mailer's An American Dream, and Cohen's Beautiful Losers is possible.
Good suggestions. The Unconsoled is one of my favorites already. I'm not going to read Nightwood or Herzog or Under the Volcano again or Jim Harrison. (He is a POET and I want novel novels, not poet novels.) Mordechai Richter: that's a good idea.
ResponderEliminarMy idea is to read good "literary" fiction. I already read genre fiction enough, so I'm not going to read any of that for this particular project. No Elmore Leonard even though I like him better than Murdoch or almost anyone else.
Belén Gopegui rules.
ResponderEliminarAnything by Georges Perec.
ResponderEliminar-Tom King
I recently read Jonathan Lethem's "The Fortress of Solitude," which is well worth reading.
ResponderEliminarAre you including novels in translation in your 100 books? If so, and if you have not read it yet, W. G. Sebald's "Austerlitz."
Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson
ResponderEliminarDiary of a Bad Year by J.M. Coetzee
A Man of No Moon by Jenny McPhee
Penelope Fitzgerald, The Bookshop
ResponderEliminarFlora Nwapa, Idu
Allegra Goodman, Intuition
Lawrence Joseph, Lawyerland (not exactly a novel, and he's a poet... but all the same)
Dashiell Hammett, Maltese Falcon
Michael Chabon, Mysteries of Pittsburgh
Halldor Laxness, Under the Glacier
I found those all pretty memorable. Would the travels of Marco Polo count?
I left off the Russians, but all of Turgenev, most of Tolstoy, some of Dostoevsky (Karamazov) are worth (re)visiting...
I had great fun working thru Sir Walter Scott some years back; the late ones are unfortunately pretty bad, but Old Mortality & Heart of Midlothian are violently good reading.
ResponderEliminarAnd Wilkie Collins -- Armandale, Woman in White, Moonstone –– pretty much any of his books are pretty compulsive reads.
Sunset song by lewis grassic gibbon
ResponderEliminarSomething Leather by Alasdair Gray
not that they're exactly novel novels but b.s.johnson is very good
a novel I often recommend and never see recommended: Christopher Isherwood's _A Single Man_...
ResponderEliminarnick l
The Glastonbury Romance by John Cowper Powys.
ResponderEliminarCall it Sleep by Henry Roth
Days Between Station or Rubicon Beach or Tales of the Black Clock by Steve Erickson
The World as I Found it
by Bruce Duffy
Temping, by Kirby Olson.
ResponderEliminarYou'd massacre me, but I wouldn't mind.
David Treuer "Hiawatha" (I've read) and "The Translation of Dr. Appelles" (I'm about to start);
ResponderEliminarLouise Erdrich "The Antelope Wife" (I've read) and "The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse" (I just started listening to this morning as a book on tape);
Julio Cortazar "Hopscotch" (I haven't read, but hope to start after I finish reading "Autonauts of the Cosmoroute").
pac, lov, and undrstanding (nvr giv up!)
Stv Ptrmir
no man's land
minnapolis, mn
usa
Thank You, Jeeves, by P.G. Wodehouse.
ResponderEliminar