What should we read to be entertained and enlightened?

thoughtless — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 02:01:02 -0800

Please help this slacker choose a startlingly good book group book TODAY. So my task for the spare minutes of this week so far has been to choose a book for the next meeting of my book group, but I've been worked like a dog for the past couple of days and haven't had time to do the proper trawling of the old interweb to make a considered choice. And now one of the members is pestering me for the choice so she can buy it in time to take on holiday on friday. So would anyone care to make a recommendation? The choice needs to be made before the day is out!

We're a small group of interested and (I hope) intelligent readers, but we're not very academic about the whole thing, so basically like books which are stimulating reads without being dumb page turners in the da vinci code mould. Intriguing style and/or content is a must. And if it can prompt a wider discussion not limited to a purely literary context (as did a million little pieces, particularly after the whole (non-)fiction furore) then that's just perfick.

My last choice (Edward St Aubyn's Some Hope) was multilaterally despised, somewhat unfairly I thought, so I'm looking to impress this time with a stunning left field choice. What little-known gem should I plump for?

Post-World War II American Novels

OmieWise — Fri, 13 May 2005 08:33:33 -0800

Please help me arrange a list of Post-World War II American Novels for a bookgroup. I teach a long running book group/seminar for which I choose the texts every year. This year they are Tristram Shandy and Don Quixote, in past years we've read Faulkner, Proust, Joyce, Dostoevsky, etc. Quality authors all, and some were quite difficult. Next year I'd like to do post-war American fiction. I need eight or nine books, readable in a month (hence V instead of Gravity's Rainbow).

On my list so far: Catch 22, One Flew, Invisible Man, Wise Blood, All the Kings Men, V. I'd like maybe a Bellow book (which?), maybe a Philip Roth book (Plot...America?), a Vietnam novel (The Short-timers? I think it's OP). Lolita or Pale Fire? Is the Ginger Man worth the list? The Fixer? Go Tell It On the Mountain? What other great female novelists (I'm not convinced by Morrison)? Who should I be embarrassed to be missing?

Thanks.

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What should we read to be entertained and enlightened?

Post-World War II American Novels