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Post by ellie on Aug 9, 2017 20:34:08 GMT
A discussion on another thread that veered off at a tangent about favourite authors made me realise we didn't have a Book category on this forum. So I thought it might be a good idea to have one so that those who are so inclined can recommend and discuss their favourite books. Enjoy!
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Post by coolclearwaters on Aug 9, 2017 23:16:22 GMT
I'll start.
Here is part of a post I made in the Travel thread about mysteries. Ellie asked if anyone had read Louise Penny. I had, so I also mentioned some other mystery writers that I like:
I usually read literary fiction and non-fiction - mainly history and some biographies (especially of musicians, artists, and writers. This is sometimes a mistake).
The only genre fiction I like is mysteries. I know many people here may like science fiction, fantasy, and dystopian fiction.
Besides the books and authors listed above, I have enjoyed mysteries by the following:
Donna Leon - written in English, but set in Venice, Italy. I love her books and read each new one as soon as it comes out. Walter Mosley - I've read all of his Easy Rawlins series. They are told from the perspective of an African American P.I. from the 1940s to the 1960s. Denzel Washington starred in a movie form the first novel, Devil In a Blue Dress. Sarah Caudwell - She was British and only wrote four novels before she died, but they are some of the funniest books I have ever read. ]Carl Hiaason - He writes hilarious satirical mysteries set in Florida. Andrea Camilleri - He is Italian and writes very entertaining mysteries set in Sicily James Crumely - I've only liked one of his books, but it is one of the best - The Last Good Kiss Ruth Rendell - of course! Laura Lippman - set in Baltimore Sara Paretsky - Chicago John Burdett - not for the faint of heart. Set in Bangkok
So what do you like to read, whether it's literary, genre, or non-fiction?
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Post by ellie on Aug 9, 2017 23:23:36 GMT
We have similar taste in Mysteries Coolclearwaters. I also love Donna Leon, Walter Mosley, Andrea Camilleri and Ruth Rendell. I also like PD James and, of course the "Golden Age" Detective fiction authors such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy L Sayers. I also love Wilke Collins, sometimes credited as the writer of the first ever detective story "The Moonstone."
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Post by coolclearwaters on Aug 9, 2017 23:38:11 GMT
PD James has come highly recommended. I'll have to try her.
I also like the classic PI novels by Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. I remember enjoying The Moonstone, but that was so long ago I can't remember it!
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Post by mllemass on Aug 10, 2017 1:20:21 GMT
I've probably read everything by Stephen King and Mary Higgins Clark - two very different writers! I discovered both of them the year I started high school, when I was 14. A friend of mine gave me SK's The Shining for my birthday that year, and I did a book report for my English class on Where are the Children?, MHC's first novel, which I had checked out of the library. (I got 20/20 on that book report. Miss Curtis, my English teacher, called me to the front and made me read it out loud to the class.)
Other than them, I don't usually read everything an author writes. I'll read a book and then move on to a different writer. I recently bought a complete anthology of the Sherlock Holmes stories, but I haven't read too much yet. I'll probably never be able to read them without picturing Benedict and Martin as Holmes and Watson!
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Post by sgev1977 on Aug 10, 2017 2:46:45 GMT
I am not sure I can't do favorites but the last 2 books I read were biographies of two very interesting women who actually not just met but apparently shared a lover! Although neither of the books are exactly about it!
First one is The Surreal Life of Leonora Carrington. It was written by her niece. The author heard stories about the painter by her family when she was a kid but they were all negative stories about how awful and rebellious she was and how she ended living in Mexico after fleeing with a second rated and old painter after she become his model and lover. Years later talking with a Mexican woman in a party she discovered her relative was actually a very respected and acclaimed painter in Mexico! The lover she fled with was just Max Ernst and she had a tragic but also wonderful bohemian life meanwhile trying to survive nazism, a psychiatric hospital, emigration and even the sexism of Surrealism circles. It's a nice book full of love about a woman who discovered this lost relative and now it's trying to popularize her work in her native country.
The second one is about Mexican writer Elena Garro. It's called Debo Olvidar que Existí. She was an excellent writer but also a very polemical figure in the country political life. After the Tlatelolco massacre in 68, one student accused her of inciting the students to protest against the government and with that causing their deaths. She wasn't involve in any left wing movement. Actually she was more right wing oriented and not exactly the most mentally sane person so she did a weird press conference and defended herself accusing other famou artists and writers of the time. All of them old friends. After that she and her daughter fled the country convinced that they were followed by Mexican government which, they believe, wanted to kill them. At the same time it seemed they cooperated with it. The daughter was sick and both weren't good with money and even when she never stopped writing she burned her bridges with her declarations, paranoias and random behavior. They ended in a poor asylum in Spain before being rediscovered in Mexico in the 80's. She is a perplexing and extremely fascinating woman but sadly the book is not very good. It's more gossip than good writing.
The lover they shared was Garro's husband, Nobel Prize Octavio Paz.
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Post by coolclearwaters on Aug 10, 2017 4:03:22 GMT
Sgev, those books sound interesting. I'll take your word for it that the second book is not well-written, but the stories are fascinating. I sometimes like to read biographies of artists and writers, although I often learn details about their lives that I regret knowing. Lol.
Speaking of the student protests in Mexico City in 1968, a few years ago, I read Amulet by Roberto Bolano, a short novel about a woman who survives the massacre by hiding out in a school bathroom for thirteen days. Hallucinatory musings. He included the same character in The Savage Detectives.
The last two books I read are the novel Signs Preceding the End of the World, by Yuri Herrera and At the Existentialist Cafe: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails. The latter is a history and examination of the existentialist movement, with biographical sketches of the major figures. I also recently read a biography of the artist Mark Rothko. I enjoyed the novel which is, on the surface, the story of a young Mexican woman who goes to the U.S. looking for her brother. The last two books related, in a way I hadn't read before, the effect of WWII and the Holocaust on artists and thinkers. Abstract Expressionism stemmed from an overpowering feeling that traditional forms of artistic expression had been rendered meaningless. Many artists were incapable of making art at all for several years.
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Post by sgev1977 on Aug 11, 2017 1:08:27 GMT
I try to see them like human beings with a lot of flaws like everyone else. For example, Garro was an incredible flawed woman who was clearly deluded and paranoid. Paz said he never forgave her for what she did to their daughter and probably he was right. She kind of destroyed her own daughter's life and mental stability with her obsessions. And well, politically, she was pretty questionable!
Still she was a great writer and even when she hated the title she probably was the real creator of the realism magical but she is not so well know as her ex husband in part because typical misogyny but also because her auto-destructive impulses.
The Existential Cafe is frequently recommended to me by Amazon. Is it good?
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Post by coolclearwaters on Aug 11, 2017 7:54:26 GMT
I try to see them like human beings with a lot of flaws like everyone else. For example, Garro was an incredible flawed woman who was clearly deluded and paranoid. Paz said he never forgave her for what she did to their daughter and probably he was right. She kind of destroyed her own daughter's life and mental stability with her obsessions. And well, politically, she was pretty questionable! Still she was a great writer and even when she hated the title she probably was the real creator of the realism magical but she is not so well know as her ex husband in part because typical misogyny but also because her auto-destructive impulses. The Existential Cafe is frequently recommended to me by Amazon. Is it good? Yes, I recommend The Existentialist Cafe conditionally - the main condition being how interested you are in philosophy. My eyes glazed over a bit at a few points because I found that some of the discussions about philosophical theory bored me (Oddly enough, my brother was a professor of philosophy for awhile). Some of the people she discusses are fascinating. But the book isn’t just about theory. The author places the various movements within historical and personal contexts. She does an excellent job of showing the interplay between personality, history, and ideas. The Existentialists were determined to live their beliefs - and thought ideas should be expressed through action. They were full of contradictions, of course, and fought with each other mercilessly. Their ideas, spirit, and way of living had a powerful impact on post-war youth, in particular - influencing art, music, movies, and political protest. As far as artists go, I think some of them do appalling things, but their lives can make fascinating reading. I try not to let it unduly influence my reaction to their work, but sometimes it's hard. I read a biography of Jean Rhys which portrayed her as, possibly, the single most self-centered person who has ever lived. I still enjoy her writing though. I'm grateful that we know so little about Shakespeare!
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Post by mllemass on Aug 28, 2017 21:31:41 GMT
I just finished reading Graham Norton's book Holding. I bought it months ago but I finally got around to reading it the past couple of days. It's a very easy read, with long sentences and a chatty tone - which I love.
It's a murder mystery set in a small village in Ireland. It could easily have been the plot of an episode of Midsomer Murders or Broadchurch or Miss Marple - lots of villagers with long-kept secrets. I kept forgetting that it was set in present-day because everything sounded so old-fashioned, but then there would be the startling mention of iPads, cell phones and the internet!
I really enjoyed it! It was a nice summer read. I hope he writes more!
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