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What new(ish) fiction are you reading?

Started by holyzombiejesus, November 13, 2018, 11:51:51 AM

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Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on August 03, 2020, 04:42:07 PM
Guy at work lent me a couple of scifi books (the other's Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice), I lent him Neal Stevenson's Snow Crash and The Diamond Age in return.

I only started it today and am a couple of chapters in. Not really got going yet but it's easy to read and quite sardonic.

Just finished this, enjoyed it, although big space battles isn't the usual form of Scifi I really like, I'll seek out the rest of these. It says it owes a lot to Heinlein, I've only read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, which I enjoyed but I think a lot of his stuff might be a bit too right-wing for me.

Sebastian Cobb

On Ancillary Justice now. The prose is far less charming and as such harder to engage with. Story seems alright so far.

Finally got round to reading Normal People - the thing I really like about it , the thing that made it linger in my head for a while after I'd read it is... I really don't like Marianne. It's clever the way it sets up your expectations, that you're supposed to be rooting for her on some level, and it's only about a week after you've finished it that you thing, God, she really is a pain in the neck, isn't she?

Captain Crunch

I'm in four bookclubs now and I've had a little run of dross:

Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (2019)
Pretending by Holly Bourne (2020)
Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams (2019)

All rubbish.  Regardless of content they all have this really flimsy flat writing style, "and then what happened was.." no pretty turn of phrase, no attempt to craft the language, no vivid passages at all.  I'm hoping it's just a run of bad luck but considering the gushing reviews some of these books get you'd be forgiven for despairing at the state of modern popular fiction. 


Captain Crunch

Not sure if it's new enough but What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn (2008) has cheered me up enormously.  It's warm, well crafted, no fluff or padding, I'd recommend it.  It's so refreshing to read something modern that has proper humour (for example, a parent at an exclusive school loudly kicks up a fuss about his surname being spelt wrong "it's O'Nions not ONIONS!").  Best of all it features a really engaging and funny child character, I'm struggling to think of any writer who has portrayed a child even half as well. 

holyzombiejesus

I read a pretty trashy book over the holidays, The Devil and the Dark Water by Stuart Turton. Is was quite good fun but utterly ludicrous at the same time. A Sherlock Holmes type is bundled on to a merchant ship in the 1600s just as a leper bursts in to flames and a spooky insignia mysteriously appears on one of the ship's sails. Entertaining bilge.

Then I read Three Hours by Rosamund Lupton. This was pretty good - been a long time since I've read such an exciting book - although put me in mind of a 3 part ITV thriller a little too much. There's a fancy private but very liberal school in south England (Sussex?) and the book starts with the headmaster getting shot. Shortly after, a bomb goes off in the school grounds. There were some quite eggy bits but there were also parts where I thought the author was ace. It's hard to say which bits I mean without spoiling but if you dislike The Express and Katy Hopkins, you'll enjoy it.

BritishHobo

#66
Nearly finished with the audiobook of Liam Williams' Homes and Experiences. I've really enjoyed it. As with everything Williams does, it's chimed with me

It's about Mark, a London copywriter who is offered the opportunity to travel Europe for his AirBnB-esque employer, staying in various properties and engaging in various cultural activities so he can spin out a positive-but-bland travel blog for PR. He intends to take his cool, well-travelled cousin along, but an off-screen argument at the novel's beginning shatters their relationship, and he sets off alone. The novel takes the form of e-mails he sends to his cousin narrating the trip, in a guilty and desperate attempt to mend things.

I thought it was a lovely spin on something that's a worn genre, in fiction and non-fiction. Wandering through these cities, whose histories and cultures have been pretty definitively explored by artists and authors already, Mark finds himself having a shit and lonely time. The whole idea of feeling like an outsider twat in somewhere important and transcendental felt really relatable and fresh to me - seeing the teeming life of these cultural hotspots, standing right next to it, but having no idea how to bridge the gap and become part of it yourself. Feeling like everyone else in the world is able to have a smooth, polished experience, while you're the only one fucking up, clumsily stumbling around. Unable to have any significant social interaction, while assuming (I really loved this observation) that everybody else you can see knows each other and that they're all great friends.

As I said, it makes for a lovely perspective on a number of European cities, places whose great features have already been thoroughly explored elsewhere. He cuts through the shimmering, beauteous image of these places, the obsession with an idealised 'authenticity', where the residents are all otherworldly characters who represent their country's spirit, and impart cultural wisdom. They're all just people, who can be tired, or arsey, or awkward, or lovely.

Again, as with everything he does, it's put together with a brilliant and incisive eye for modern culture, and the horrible awkwardness of living inside your own head, being too self-conscious and self-aware for your own good. Wanting to travel but not wanting to be seen as a tourist - but also not like you think you're too good to be seen as a tourist. Every bloody thing Liam Williams writes, I go 'oh, that's me. You've written me down. I fucking hate me.' And every time, I love it.

samadriel


Retinend

Thanks for the recommendation! I really liked Pls Like and I related to Williams and his sense of humour - now even moreso since reading your review. The quote on the book says "voice of his generation" and that cliche might even be justified.

BritishHobo

No worries! I'd definitely recommend getting the audiobook- as always, there's so much in Liam's delivery.

buttgammon

Just read Transcendent Kingdom, the new Yaa Gyasi. It's not as good as Homegoing but nevertheless, still a good book that does a pretty good job of avoiding the problem of the disappointing second novel. She doesn't try to reproduce the breadth of her debut but instead, goes for something much smaller and more introspective here, which works. It's mainly about the effect of addiction and loss on the protagonist and her mother, but there's a real close focus on the inner world that's an interesting development from the sort of intricate social and historical narrative she wove before. It's worth a go, but I'd still sooner recommend Homegoing to people who haven't read it.

mothman

My wife decided I was a Christmas present short. So she bought me a book.

Richard Osman's debut novel.

Christ. I mean, where to even begin? I can't even fathom the thought process that went into that decision. I don't read celebrity books. I don't read BOOKS. I have a Kindle. So what made her think I'd like a hardcover first edition of a rather twee tale of murder in a retirement community? I read it, because I felt I had to. And I resent that.

The book itself? Oh, I don't know, I guess it's a clever little plot - probably TOO clever - and actually quite dark towards the end. Too many characters though, and all of them quite basic.

Worse, though, it's a really cheap printing, all the pages have fallen out. Which just makes me want to use the opportunity to burn the darn thing.

buttgammon

The bookshops recently reopened here, and I had to restrain myself from going mad. I did get a few new books though.

The first of the new ones I've started is The Employees by Olga Ravn, which is probably the first Danish book I've ever read. It is very short and subdivided into tiny sections, so it would be possible to get through it very quickly, but I'm liking it enough to deliberately slow down in an attempt to savour it. It's set in the 22nd century, with the premise that a mixture of humans and very realistic humanoids are sharing a working environment, in which the divides between the two become apparent. The whole book is framed by the idea that after coming into contact with 'objects' that provoke a strong emotional reaction from humans and humanoids alike, a report has been commissioned, interviewing all sorts of different people (and non-people) to see what impact this contact has had. The results are surprisingly moving.

buttgammon

The Olga Ravn book was great but be aware that if you read it, you might feel like you want to lie down in a dark room for a while afterwards.

Next up for me is Mariana Enríquez's short story collection The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, which I got on account of its very cool cover.


buttgammon

Just read The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen. I'd never read any of his novels before (I think I read a short story in Granta or something a few years ago) and wasn't 100% sure what to expect; I also knew it was a risk to read a book with a title like that because not many things make me angrier than the violence aimed towards the Palestinian people.

It turned out to be such a hilarious book. The idea is that in the winter of 1959, the only Jewish faculty member in the history department of some upstate New York college is put on the hiring committee of Benzion Netanyahu, Benjamin's father. As he's the only Jewish person around the place, he's asked to welcome Netanyahu and his awful family to this small university town, where they cause chaos. It's like Philip Roth as written by William Gaddis!

timebug

Having watched all three series of 'A Discovery of Witches' I was given the 'All Souls Trilogy' to read.These are the source books that the series was based on, by Deborah Harkness. I managed to get through the TV version, as there was just enough weirdness to keep my attention (just!). But I fear the book(s) may be going into the smallish collection of 'books I have started and will never finish'.
Dunno why, the first book is written (mainly) in the first person by the leading character; with odd inserted bits to show what others are up to.Overall it feels a bit Harry Potter-ish (and I really hate those!) so after fifty or so pages, I may be abandoning the series.

buttgammon

Just finished Notes on Jackson and his Dead by Hugh Fulham-McQuillan, a darkly funny short story collection that I really enjoyed. People like comparing it to Donald Barthelme because a lot of the stories feature the kind of recursive metafictional story-within-a-story stuff that he did and although that's a big element of this, above all else, so many of the stories hinge on obsession, forming these little studies of how people go off the deep end with a particular idea or thought.

Along with Dark Neighbourhood by Vanessa Onwuemezi, it's probably the best short story collection I've read in the last year or so, really good stuff!

Twonty Gostelow

Quote from: mothman on March 10, 2021, 11:34:49 PMMy wife decided I was a Christmas present short. So she bought me a book.

Richard Osman's debut novel.

Christ. I mean, where to even begin? I can't even fathom the thought process that went into that decision. I don't read celebrity books. I don't read BOOKS. I have a Kindle. So what made her think I'd like a hardcover first edition of a rather twee tale of murder in a retirement community? I read it, because I felt I had to.

If you liked that you might enjoy this



Apparently he's a full-time novelist now, having retired from telling non-believers they're going to burn in hell. Not sure why he gets to call himself The Reverend still.

'Blissfully wicked!' - The Vestry Mirror


dontpaintyourteeth

Liked Olga Ravn's The Employees a lot too. Currently reading Poguemahone by Patrick McCabe. A sort of stream of consciousness / inner monologue prose poem. That's 600 pages. With an unreliable narrator. I think I like it, but I'm not sure where it's going yet.

Magnum Valentino

After finishing The Next Time I Die by Jason Starr, published by Hard Case Crime, in a day. I also managed Stephen King's Later in a day (in a SITTING, actually!) and it was published by the same label.

Wonder are you only allowed to have them print your book if I can read it in a day.

Anyway, great craic, good silly fun but logically tight and with a touch of pathos near the end as well as a MURDER!

Wezzo

Quote from: Magnum Valentino on July 17, 2022, 11:39:01 PMAfter finishing The Next Time I Die by Jason Starr, published by Hard Case Crime, in a day. I also managed Stephen King's Later in a day (in a SITTING, actually!) and it was published by the same label.

Wonder are you only allowed to have them print your book if I can read it in a day.

Anyway, great craic, good silly fun but logically tight and with a touch of pathos near the end as well as a MURDER!

I adore Hard Case Crime. Discovered them in lockdown and have read about 50 of the things since then. The very first title they ever published, Grifter's Game, is one of the darkest novels I have ever read.

Magnum Valentino

Class, any you'd recommend? I've since learned that their output is half new stuff and half reprints of old OOP books.

Wezzo

Quote from: Magnum Valentino on July 21, 2022, 05:08:44 PMClass, any you'd recommend? I've since learned that their output is half new stuff and half reprints of old OOP books.

The one I mentioned, Grifter's Game, is an excellent example of the latter, and between that and The Girl With the Long Green Heart, led me to discovering Lawrence Block in general (they've published a dozen titles by him, but he is best known for the Bernie Rhodenbarr and Matthew Scudder series, which mostly exist outside of the Hard Case Crime imprint, except for a movie tie-in reprint version of A Walk Among the Tombstones from the latter series).

Stephen King's Joyland is also part of HCC and I liked it even more than Later. (The Colorado Kid, his other for HCC, gets more mixed reception, though I enjoyed it too.)

Five Decembers by James Kestrel is fantastic, an HCC original, a crime-come-war-come-romance epic published last year which won the Edgar award recently. (It's also a 500-pager, so might take a full two days!)

Little Girl Lost and Songs of Innocence, by Richard Aleas (actually an alias for Charles Ardai, who created the HCC brand) are excellent. Both originals written in the mid-2000s.

Lemons Never Lie by Richard Stark and Witness to Myself by Seymour Shubin are two excellent older titles republished by HCC.

The Corpse Wore Pasties by Jonny Porkpie, self-proclaimed "Burlesque Mayor of NYC", takes place in an inspired-by-reality take on New York's burlesque underworld.

The Secret Lives of Married Women by Elissa Ward and Money Shot by Christa Faust are rare entries by women and both very good stuff.

Sorry, that's a lot! But I really do have a lot of fun with so many of them.

atavist

Just finished 'The Voids' by Ryan O'Connor

A squalid peepshow starring a litany of Glaswegian grotesques as they take drugs, drink, go mad and sleepwalk into oblivion, while our semi-autobiographical protagonist weaves in and out of their lives; his own life falling apart as he inflicts wound after wound upon himself (physical and psychological).

If that sounds like a recommendation, then go for it.

Vodkafone

Yesterday I read Nothing on Earth by Conor O'Callaghan in one sitting, which I'd heard was recommended (it's less than 190 pages). It's a strange thing and I don't want to give much away - it's a mystery but not one that I felt any real need to try and solve, and I'm not sure it is solveable anyway. When I was reading it, I became fully absorbed and at one point almost jumped when I was reminded of the real world, but just a day later it's hard to pin down the details and I'm left with more of a sense of unease and being unsettled than a clear memory of the book.

It obviously sets out to unsettle in the way it describes things that happen in a family that are wrong, really quite wrong, but does so in a way that made me feel unanchored rather than shocked. A very interesting novella and a good use of an afternoon or evening, I think. It will be interesting to see how long the feel of the book lasts, as it has the potential to be one of those that's hard to forget.

dontpaintyourteeth


holyzombiejesus

Quote from: dontpaintyourteeth on April 22, 2023, 05:23:35 PMJust started Cuddy by Benjamin Myers.

BM is one of my pet hates! Up there with David Keenan. When he wrote his end of year review for Caught by the River, he included Rachel Reeves in his 'Impressed by' list. When CBTR tweeted it, I commented "Imagine being impressed by Rachel Reeves", and Myers not only blocked me but shut down his twitter account, the stupid Green Day liking arse. 

Hope you like the book though.

dontpaintyourteeth


buttgammon

Greek Lessons, the new Han Kong translation, is a fantastic little novel.