Light summer reading needed

June 8, 2012 11:20 AM

Help me diversify my summer fiction reading list.

So far my list includes Vertigo (Sebald), The Trial (Kafka), Molloy (Beckett), Satantango (Krasznahorkai), and Extinction (Bernhard). I'd like to add some women and non-Western authors who would fit in with the general feel of these authors.

posted by perhapses to media & arts (12 answers total)

Russia: Omon Ra - Victor Pelevin
Japan: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World - Haruki Murakami
posted by griphus at 11:35 AM on June 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

Haruki Murakami is non-western and will fit right in with Kafka. I liked Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World and A Wild Sheep Chase. And for women, I'll go out on a limb and suggest Ursula K. Le Guin. My favorites are The Lathe of Heaven and The Left Hand of Darkness.
posted by ubiquity at 11:38 AM on June 8, 2012

How about Milan Kundera? The Joke is a good one. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov is my go-to book recommendation.
posted by anotheraccount at 12:08 PM on June 8, 2012

Thanks. These all sound great. I've also found Luisa Valenzuela in my continued search. Anyone read her work?
posted by perhapses at 12:26 PM on June 8, 2012

Jaimy Gordon is fabulous, and her novel from 2010, Lord of Misrule, which won the National Book Award, is one of the best books I've read this year. I would highly highly recommend it. Given your other books, I would also recommend her previous novel Bogeywoman, which is a bit less straighforward. Both are excellent.
posted by OmieWise at 12:28 PM on June 8, 2012

I can't recommend it enough: Metropole by Ferenc Karinthy. It's more Kafkaesque than Kafka.
posted by fso at 1:23 PM on June 8, 2012

The Abyss
Memoirs of Hadrian By Marguerite Yourcenar

Jakob von Gunten by Robert Walser
posted by Chrischris at 1:49 PM on June 8, 2012

Elfriede Jelinek.
posted by misteraitch at 2:42 PM on June 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

Kornel Esti by Deszo Kostolanyi is one of the best books I've read in years.

As for books written by women, the ones I'm about to recommend don't quite fit your criteria, but if you're in the mood for shorter, vaguely ominous books, these are great: The Driver's Seat and Memento Mori by Muriel Spark, and The Vet's Daughter by Barbara Comyns.
posted by peripathetic at 2:50 PM on June 8, 2012

Yikes. I'm going to be busy this summer. Have put several of this on hold at my library. Don't know which are best answers until I read the books!
posted by perhapses at 2:57 PM on June 8, 2012

Comyns is excellent. My favorite by her is Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead, about an ergot poisoning in a small English town. But everything I've read by her has been well worth it.
posted by OmieWise at 3:00 PM on June 8, 2012

Non-Western:
Silence by Shusaku Endo
The Blind Owl by Sadegh Hedayat
The Shipyard by Juan Carlos Onetti

Women:
Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante
Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively
A Fools Paradise by Anita Konkka
posted by hydatius at 3:21 PM on June 8, 2012