Polite Paradise
Off Topic => Books => Topic started by: MariaE on May 23, 2018, 04:20:57 pm
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I thought a thread where we could ask for specific book recommendations could be fun :D
E.g. I'm always on the lookout for a good travelogue - have read pretty much everything by Bill Bryson, and also really loved Sarah Outen and Kristine K. Stevens. However, as with all memoirs it's hard to sort the dry from the fascinating, so I'd love to hear some of your favourites!
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I loved Whatever You Do, Don't Run. I can't remember the author's name, but he was originally from Australia. When he was around college age, he went backpacking in Botswana, took a temp job at a safari camp, and ended up spending the next two decades as a safari guide. It's a really fun read, extremely funny at parts. Another really fun read (and this one includes recipes!) is The Sweet Life in Paris by David Lebovitz. He was an American chef who packed everything up and moved to Paris. Reading about him getting used to the city and making a life there is both interesting and hilarious.
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Those both definitely sound like something I’d want to read. Thanks! I’ll check them out :)
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I haven't read it, but a columnist/author I know published a memoir about hiking with his teenaged son. It's called Father, Son, and the Pennine Way by Mark Richards.
He's in the Bill Bryson sort of wheelhouse, from the snippets I've seen, and is just a super-nice guy.
I need recommendations for cozy-ish mysteries that aren't too twee or gimmicky. I really like classics, but I need to branch out. I love Nicola Upson and Alan Bradley.
I don't care for bumbling protagonists or sentient cats.
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I haven't read it, but a columnist/author I know published a memoir about hiking with his teenaged son. It's called Father, Son, and the Pennine Way by Mark Richards.
He's in the Bill Bryson sort of wheelhouse, from the snippets I've seen, and is just a super-nice guy.
I need recommendations for cozy-ish mysteries that aren't too twee or gimmicky. I really like classics, but I need to branch out. I love Nicola Upson and Alan Bradley.
I don't care for bumbling protagonists or sentient cats.
I just mentioned this in the "Don't Read That!" thread (as a recommendation, not a hate-read!), but have you read Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz? It's a kind of homage to/pastiche of the classic British mystery. A popular mystery author is murdered, and his editor starts to wonder if clues to his killing can be found in his most recent manuscript...except that manuscript is missing the last chapter, so now there's two murders- one real, one fictional- to solve. I had quite a bit of fun reading it!
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My dad just read that and liked it, too I'll put it on the list!
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I have put Magpie Murders on my list. Having enjoyed Agatha Christie, even a couple of her standalone books without the famous crime-solvers, I am cautiously dipping my toe into the world of mysteries. But, I need help. Looking on Amazon, I found the following categories:
1) Alcoholic cop whose child was kidnapped 20 years ago is taunted by a depraved serial killer who has some connection to the kidnapping
2) Psychic geranium helps a cupcake shop owner solve murders in a small seaside town
3) There is a murder to solve, but mostly the chief suspect and the chief authority are really hot and attracted to each other
4) Supernatural, like with vampires
I'm not really interested in any of those. I don't want anything super-dark, or racy, or twee. Also, it does NOT need to totally make sense (Agatha Christie often doesn't).
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I have put Magpie Murders on my list. Having enjoyed Agatha Christie, even a couple of her standalone books without the famous crime-solvers, I am cautiously dipping my toe into the world of mysteries. But, I need help. Looking on Amazon, I found the following categories:
1) Alcoholic cop whose child was kidnapped 20 years ago is taunted by a depraved serial killer who has some connection to the kidnapping
2) Psychic geranium helps a cupcake shop owner solve murders in a small seaside town
3) There is a murder to solve, but mostly the chief suspect and the chief authority are really hot and attracted to each other
4) Supernatural, like with vampires
I'm not really interested in any of those. I don't want anything super-dark, or racy, or twee. Also, it does NOT need to totally make sense (Agatha Christie often doesn't).
You might like the Peculiar Crimes Unit series by Christopher Fowler. There's 13 or 14 books now, all about a pair of eccentric British detectives who head up the titular investigative squad. I read one a couple years ago, The Memory of Blood, which I remember quite enjoying- it had a kind of quirky feel to it, without being twee, and the mystery was engrossing, but not super-dark or overly gory. I have a couple more from the series on my shelf that I've been meaning to get to, except they keep getting shuffled around in various moves.
Dorothy L. Sayers might be up your alley as well. I personally haven't read any of her stuff, but she was writing around the same time as Agatha Christie and from what I understand has a very similar style.
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I know what you mean! Genre mashups are *the* thing, it seems. Straight-up mystery, no chaser, is not always easy to find.
Sayers, much as I love her, can be a bit dense with literary allusions. Her plots are very much in the classic whodunnit style, but her voice strikes some people as affected.
I'd recommend Ngaio Marsh and Margery Allingham as well, if you want to dabble in Golden Age crime.
Robert Barnard came a bit later and is a bit darker without being too twisty/serial-killer-y. Dick Francis sets all his books in and around horse racing, and there's always some adventure and fisticuffs. Not one for deep thought, is our Mr Francis, but he tells a good, fast yarn.
I liked Martha Grimes' earlier stuff, but the later books got a bit too brooding for me.
Do you like historical fiction? There's a whole nother world of hist. mystery.
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On the topic of travelogues... have you read the Provence books by Peter Mayle? Really good. (I'm a foodie, so food travelogues are much more my speed, lol!)
On the mystery front... I love Sayers, also love Marsh, am working on Allingham, and eagerly seeking other Golden Age/Golden Age-style authors, so recommend away! :)
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On the topic of travelogues... have you read the Provence books by Peter Mayle? Really good. (I'm a foodie, so food travelogues are much more my speed, lol!)
On the mystery front... I love Sayers, also love Marsh, am working on Allingham, and eagerly seeking other Golden Age/Golden Age-style authors, so recommend away! :)
Edmund Crispin is one I like very much.
And Patricia Wentworth is fun, as long as you don't read them one right after the other. The "formula" shows a bit too much if you do that.
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Cozy mysteries - if you're a knitter I highly recommend "Knit One, Kill Two" by Maggie Sefton. The later books in the series get a bit silly, but the first few were fun!
Also "Murder on Birchardville Hill" by Ruth Buchanan.
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For someone wanting straight up mystery no chaser, I quite enjoyed the Women's Murder Club by James Patterson. It is a lot less violent than his Alex Cross series, which I couldn't get through Along Came a Spider, but I've devoured those. I'm on... 9, I think? I need to catch up. I think he's on 15 or 16 now.
Also, cozy mystery: League of Literary Ladies series by Kylie Logan. I found them highly entertaining.
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Cozy mysteries - if you're a knitter I highly recommend "Knit One, Kill Two" by Maggie Sefton. The later books in the series get a bit silly, but the first few were fun!
Also "Murder on Birchardville Hill" by Ruth Buchanan.
Oooo, yes! I bought the first one, read it, then ordered the next three from Powell's. SO good!
I love how she talks about the colors of the yarn in the shop as a metaphor for bringing joy into her navy-blue-suit life. :)
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Thanks so much for all the mystery recommendations! I have added them to my list. "Golden Age" I think is my keyword.
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Anybody got book recs for under 200 pages? I'm doing a readathon via one of my FB groups and one of the prompts is under 200 pages. All I've got is Mrs Dalloway and I'm not in a mood for Virginia Woolf.
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Anybody got book recs for under 200 pages? I'm doing a readathon via one of my FB groups and one of the prompts is under 200 pages. All I've got is Mrs Dalloway and I'm not in a mood for Virginia Woolf.
I went through my 5-star shelf on goodreads, sorted by number of pages.
- The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson
- Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
- Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis
- Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
- Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire
- Singularity by William Sleator
- The Giver by Lois Lowry
... hope any of those might catch your fancy. And yay for readathons! I do the dewey ones every year!
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Anybody got book recs for under 200 pages? I'm doing a readathon via one of my FB groups and one of the prompts is under 200 pages. All I've got is Mrs Dalloway and I'm not in a mood for Virginia Woolf.
I went through my 5-star shelf on goodreads, sorted by number of pages.
- The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson
- Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
- Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis
- Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
- Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire
- Singularity by William Sleator
- The Giver by Lois Lowry
... hope any of those might catch your fancy. And yay for readathons! I do the dewey ones every year!
Wait, Hitchhiker's Guide is less than 200 pages? O.O I always felt it was a quick read but I thought that was because I enjoyed it so much. /themoreyouknow
Thank you so much! Ex Libris and Singularity sound right up my alley. I might go with Hitchhiker's Guide as it's been ages and probably begging for a re-read.
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I guess it depends on which edition you have, but mine's 193 pages.
Ex Libris and Singularity are both great! Hmmm... they might all be due for a reread.
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If you're at all into romances, a lot of ebooks are under 200 pages. Evernight has a category called "Romance on the Go" which are around 10K words in length.
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Anybody got book recs for under 200 pages? I'm doing a readathon via one of my FB groups and one of the prompts is under 200 pages. All I've got is Mrs Dalloway and I'm not in a mood for Virginia Woolf.
Novellas and graphic novels would fit well in the under 200 pages.
The Sleeper & the Spindle by Neil Gaiman (it's only 64 pages)
Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote (page varies by addition but all the ones I saw on amazon were under 200)
The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald
I started the "Fables" graphic novel series by Bill Cunningham. The first volume "Legends in Exile" is well under 200 pages. It's a cool series that the video game "Wolf Among Us" is based on.
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I agree with someone up thread who wrote that for books under 200 pages, try novellas (this is supposed to be fiction, right?), such as The Old Man and the Sea and Breakfast at Tiffany's, both under 200 pages and both wonderful.
Paul Auster's New York Trilogy was originally published as three separate novels, although I believe they were always intended to be read as one work, which I definitely recommend. I think they are all about that length. But do read them all together. This is one of my all-time favorite books; absolutely blew my mind.
How strict is the limit? I recently read My Name is Lucy Barton, which was fantastic, but it is 240 pages.
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Turn Right at Machu Picchu by Mark Adams is fantastic. Very Bryson-like. My husband and I both adored it. Adams writes beautifully, really does his research, and is very humble. You wish you could travel with him. I can't imagine liking Bill Bryson and not loving Mark Adams. With both of them, I learn so much and laugh til I cry. Adams's references to "Mr. Super Deluxe Travel Guy" alone are worth the price of the book.
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Any recommendations along these lines: I read Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore and really liked it. I liked the mysterious secret society that wasn't all about creepy murder-y stuff.
So something like that. Secret societies, existing right under our noses, a bit of magic is OK... and if they are out to destroy the world, they're at least not doing it one gory murder at a time?
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Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time is one I love, along with her other books. DoT has the detective looking into The Princes in the Tower mystery while he's recuperating in the hospital. My other favorite of hers is The Franchise Affair, which was inspired by the Elizabeth Canning case in 1753.
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Any recommendations along these lines: I read Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore and really liked it. I liked the mysterious secret society that wasn't all about creepy murder-y stuff.
So something like that. Secret societies, existing right under our noses, a bit of magic is OK... and if they are out to destroy the world, they're at least not doing it one gory murder at a time?
I just read and enjoyed Matt Haig's "How To Stop Time," which might fit the bill. The main character is part of a group of people who age very slowly, so he is 500 years old but looks 40. Part of the book is telling previous parts of his life and part is set in the present day. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35411685-how-to-stop-time
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Any recommendations along these lines: I read Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore and really liked it. I liked the mysterious secret society that wasn't all about creepy murder-y stuff.
So something like that. Secret societies, existing right under our noses, a bit of magic is OK... and if they are out to destroy the world, they're at least not doing it one gory murder at a time?
How about Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman? It's about a secret underworld that exists alongside the real one - urban fantasy but not excessively sword and sorcery-y
Anybody got book recs for under 200 pages? I'm doing a readathon via one of my FB groups and one of the prompts is under 200 pages. All I've got is Mrs Dalloway and I'm not in a mood for Virginia Woolf.
Under 200 pages you could go for Animal Farm by George Orwell, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (I think it's under 200), We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson or Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. The Girl who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King is around that I think
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A Lesson Before Dying and Cry, the Beloved Country are both around 250 but are both so, so wonderful.