Two of my favorite books for summer are "Winter's Tale" by Mark Helprin and "Smilla's Sense of Snow" by Peter Hoeg; I'd like suggestions for other (preferably hefty) novels with complex/absorbing story lines and wintry settings or themes to help me stay sane 'til September. Got an ice book to recommend?
posted on Jun 10, 2008 - 46 answers
Did the Generic Food people put out Generic Books? [more inside]
posted on Jun 2, 2008 - 5 answers 
My mother likes Jodi Picoult novels. I don't know much about the author but I am looking for similar novels. What novels should I be looking for?
posted on May 9, 2008 - 9 answers
Help me remember title of really explicit and racy romance novel from the 70s or 80s please! The main character was a young orphaned woman who was in love with her rich caretaker who was a male family member who took her virginity so roughly that she required surgery and was left barren. [more inside]
posted on Feb 16, 2008 - 3 answers
Looking for the name of a sci-fi book. Man is injected with a serum that causes him to shrink forever, eventually discovering there are universes smaller than atoms. [more inside]
posted on Feb 7, 2008 - 9 answers
If you please—I urgently require a few good recommendations of novels that have India as a backdrop. [more inside]
posted on Jan 13, 2008 - 55 answers
Looking for good used bookstores in Denver.... [more inside]
posted on Dec 27, 2007 - 3 answers
I'm looking for popular books, novels, magazines, comic books...in European French (not Canadian French). I'd also like to be able to easily order/purchase them from home (preferably from places like Amazon.com). [more inside]
posted on Dec 4, 2007 - 8 answers
What are some intelligent, very clever (funny is OK, but not necessary) recent novels that are readable but not trashy? Think along the lines of Zadie Smith's White Teeth and Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Avoiding verbosity (Rushdie) and anachronism (The Great Gatsby, etc.), what's left? [more inside]
posted on Sep 16, 2007 - 52 answers
Classic Novel filter : What would be considered classics in 1980s, 1990s, 2000s? Must reads? [more inside]
posted on Sep 14, 2007 - 37 answers
Please recommend novels whose heroines are similar to the protagonist of Excellent Women, by Barbara Pym? [more inside]
posted on Aug 23, 2007 - 16 answers
What novels are on the middle school syllabus these days? or What novels should be on the middle school syllabus? [more inside]
posted on May 23, 2007 - 24 answers
BookFilter: I've recently gotten done with Last Days of Summer by Steve Kluger
(link here). I'm looking for more books like it. [more inside]
posted on Apr 23, 2007 - 19 answers
BookFilter: I’m pregnant and would love recommendations for fictional books including or centering on pregnant characters. [more inside]
posted on Apr 20, 2007 - 24 answers
I loved fairy tales as a child, and now that I am (nominally) a grownup, I love the "retellings" of fairytales — the fleshed-out versions which, for example, feature actual character development instead of lines like "she was as beautiful as she was good". I love Robin McKinley's retellings of "Donkeyskin", "Sleeping Beauty" and "Beauty and the Beast" (which she did twice for good measure), and Gregory Maguire's surprisingly political Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. What other good grown-up fairytales are out there?
posted on Apr 11, 2007 - 60 answers
I'm doing research (for a writing project) into Film Noirs and Mystery Pulps, and I'm looking for good selections of a certain plot type: the "missing person" scenario. [more inside]
posted on Mar 11, 2007 - 20 answers
How many type written pages make up a novel? [more inside]
posted on Feb 9, 2007 - 12 answers
Looking for inspiration in two kinds of books. Perhaps you've got some recommendations? 1) Novels with very short "chapters" or fragments or pieces, that combine to make a whole; 2) Books boldly written, whether that be a writer being bold with timelines, punctuation, language, etc. (examples of both types of books inside). [more inside]
posted on Dec 6, 2006 - 54 answers
Where can I find sales figures for novels (new and/or classic)? I am aware of Bookscan and Publisher's Lunch, but those are very expensive.
posted on Oct 26, 2006 - 9 answers
Please help me select a book as a present for my nephew. He's 19, and when I gave him a Chapters gift card for his high school graduation last spring, he used it to buy a complete set of Tom Clancy novels. Political espionage/intrigue/adventure has to be the genre I know the least about. If my nephew likes Tom Clancy's and Frederick Forsythe's works, what other books in the same genre would he enjoy?
posted on Sep 17, 2006 - 25 answers
Need suggestions for good reads to bring along on a two week vacation to (mostly) rural Germany for an American Lit and Creative Writing teacher. [more inside]
posted on Jul 10, 2006 - 12 answers
Has anyone done an epistolary comic book? It's not obvious to me how such a project could work and I'm interested in seeing what, if anything, artists have done with the form. I'm also interested in recommendations for good epistolary novels. I've already looked at the wikipedia page on epistolary novels and I plan to read some of the novels mentioned there.
posted on Jun 15, 2006 - 7 answers
What is the most profane novel ever written? I'm talking about the absolute dirtiest work of fiction. And by "dirty" I don't really mean sexual content, like a de Sade book. I'm more interested in sheer volume of swears. Thanks!
posted on May 9, 2006 - 36 answers
Later today I'm teaching a class on Ian McEwan's Atonement. I'd like to juxtapose the extremely complex kind of atonement depicted in this novel with other, structurally simpler stories of atonement. Any ideas? [more inside]
posted on Apr 6, 2006 - 7 answers
What are some good Swedish novels? [more inside]
posted on Mar 20, 2006 - 17 answers
How does one go about publishing a novel (specifically a first novel) in the literary market? [more inside]
posted on Mar 8, 2006 - 15 answers
What should my book club read next? [more inside]
posted on Feb 26, 2006 - 43 answers
There's a bit in, I'm sure, Foucault's Pendulum where one of the characters has attributed to her a heretical belief to the effect that one must experience all sins before being saved. It wasn't, I think, simply antinomianism. Is this an actual "respectable" heresy, and if so, what's it's name?
posted on Feb 7, 2006 - 8 answers
Fiction usually comes in two flavours: 1st person narrative or 3rd person description.
What short stories or novels have been written in 2nd person perspective (i.e. from the reader's viewpoint)? Also, are there any movies shot entirely from this angle?
posted on Jan 17, 2006 - 63 answers
LitFilter: Please help me find books, preferably novels, in which the narrator has some sort of mental disability. [more inside]
posted on Nov 20, 2005 - 47 answers
Please recommend some good novels about people between 25-35. [more inside]
posted on Aug 30, 2005 - 24 answers
What's your favourite work of trashy fiction? I'm looking for some good, fun, trashy yet smart reads in which I can unabashedly wallow. [more inside]
posted on Jul 19, 2005 - 47 answers
To all Philip K. Dick fans: Dick seems to have published a formidable amount of work, and rather than trying to read all of his novels/short stories, I'm wondering if any MeFites are familiar with his books and could recommend his best 5 or so. [more inside]
posted on Apr 28, 2005 - 38 answers
I'm a snob. What graphic novels should I read? [more inside]
posted on Apr 25, 2005 - 67 answers
A literary agent friend of mine says that publishers dislike publishing funny novels because "humor is subjective". Certainly I have stumped bookstore clerks by asking them to recommend a funny novel. Not "Humor", which includes Garfield the Cat, Dave Barry, and Jokes for the John, but honest to God novels, with characters and plots and such. I have a little list of authors and if anyone can add to it, I will be in her or his debt. [more inside]
posted on Apr 6, 2005 - 101 answers
Solve This! I love mystery novels and have a hard time finding some that I like. What do you recommend? [more inside]
posted on Mar 8, 2005 - 35 answers
Inspired by this question, I found myself wondering - is there any way to find out what a given author's next book will be? Sort of like those 'screenplay sales' pages where it lists what a given production company has purchased, I guess.
posted on Mar 1, 2005 - 5 answers
I'm trying to learn about the Edwardian era especially (but not exclusively) in England, Ireland, and Canada. What excellent materials (fiction and non-fiction books, movies, websites, etc.) have you read and seen about this period?
posted on Mar 1, 2005 - 17 answers
Does anyone have a link to a web site I vaguely remember seeing that summarizes classic novel plots in one or two sentences? For example, Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment could be "Special guy wonders if he’s entitled to commit murder. Turns out the answer is no." I stole that one from an article in the Scotsman that I did find, but I can't seem to find the site in question by googling.
posted on Feb 21, 2005 - 9 answers
What are your favourite historical fiction novels? [more inside]
posted on Dec 11, 2004 - 47 answers
The lights along the dim hallway flickered as she walked toward the door at the end. The floor of the old house creaked underneath her webbed feet, but otherwise all was still. Until she heard the sound of footsteps behind her, and she turned and saw.... I love ghost stories. Can any of you recommend some good ones? To give you some idea of what I would like, I loved Edith Wharton's creepy tales and Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, but I'll pass on any more Stephen King or Peter Straub. I want good writing, subtlety, suspense, and enough thrills and chills to scare the feathers right off me.
posted on Oct 30, 2004 - 16 answers
IMDB.com has a list of top-grossing movies of all time. Is there a similar list of best-selling novels anywhere? The DaVinci Code topped the lists for ages...but does it approach the record?
posted on Oct 23, 2004 - 6 answers
Two weeks and counting... Is anybody planning to participate in nanowrimo this year?
posted on Oct 18, 2004 - 34 answers
What store in the Bay Area has the best selection of graphic novels? I've done the Borders thing.
posted on Sep 13, 2004 - 2 answers
Having just finished The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, which has a fictional autistic narrator, I'm keen to know if anyone can recommend me some novels (not necessarily about autism) whose authors are autistic.
posted on May 7, 2004 - 8 answers
I've just finished both David Gilmour's Sparrow Nights and Scott Spencer's Endless Love, each for the second time. They're even better than I remember them. What's your favorite book about unrequited love? I'd like to keep up the streak.
posted on Apr 27, 2004 - 17 answers
What are some examples of Victorian novels with elaborate (and ridiculous) chapter titles? I know these ("In which our hero meets an extraordinary figure, who resolves some puzzles, and at last explains the purpose of his life, and the meaning of his many adventures") are satirical examples, but what about the genuine article? Are there particular authors (or genres) notorious for the practice?
posted on Mar 29, 2004 - 14 answers
Please recommend fantasy novels for someone who doesn't like fantasy novels (more inside).
posted on Mar 23, 2004 - 59 answers
This is yet another "help me identify a book I read in childhood" question [more inside].
posted on Dec 19, 2003 - 7 answers
