My taste in novels has generally tended towards the classics but lately I feel like reading some good contemporary fiction. Please recommend some recent-ish books that are well-written and well-crafted, have emotional depth and deal with human relationships in insightful and moving ways. Kazuo Ishiguro is an example of the kind of writer I'm looking for.
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posted by zeri
on Jan 4, 2013 -
24 answers
I've been tasked to find metasatirical horror novels: horror novels (or short stories, I suppose) that explore, criticize and parody their own genre tropes. What are the prose equivalents of
The Cabin in the Woods and
Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon?
posted by Faint of Butt
on Nov 30, 2012 -
15 answers
I am looking for examples of authors who have used unconventional graphical conventions in their work, published in traditional dead-tree form (books, magazines etc.). Excluding graphic novels, comics etc. Obvious example would be e.e. cummings using lower case; perhaps other poets who use text unconventionally. but novels? There's the big S at the start of Joyce's Ulysses. But what authors have exploited the graphical possibilities of the printed medium in an extensive way? thanks.
posted by cogneuro
on Nov 27, 2012 -
46 answers
What are some great (somewhat) recently released novels/books/memoirs with queer/LGBTQ themes or characters?
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posted by kylej
on May 23, 2012 -
31 answers
What are the great novels of Detroit? All genres welcome, but latter half of the 20th century preferred. Thanks!
posted by gerryblog
on May 9, 2012 -
11 answers
Are there any good novels that use Greek trade in or around the 6th c. BC as a way of exploring ancient cultures? Also, how far did Greeks travel during that time? Did they make into India? To the British Isles?
posted by jwhite1979
on Feb 20, 2012 -
17 answers
Looking for novels with first-person narrators, in the style of Conrad's
Heart of Darkness (specifically Marlow), E.L. Doctorow's
Homer & Langley, Sandor Marai's
Embers, etc.
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posted by scody
on Jan 27, 2012 -
37 answers
I entered graduate school in literature six years ago, and since then I feel like I've lost track what's happening in contemporary literature. Help me catch up: What are the essential works of the last six years?
posted by gerryblog
on Nov 15, 2011 -
17 answers
I'd like to broaden my reading in Spanish, and would like recommendations for books, originally written in Spanish, which are canonical enough to have been on Spanish or Latin American high school reading lists, or canonical enough that someone educated in Spain or Latin America might assume familiarity.
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posted by Fiasco da Gama
on Nov 13, 2011 -
2 answers
I'm up for tackling some big all-time classics, especially
Don Quixote and
War and Peace, and I'm wondering which translations to get.
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posted by Rinku
on Apr 29, 2011 -
19 answers
Help me prove my friend wrong. What are some works of fiction (novels, short stories, even poetry) written by women, but from the first-person point of view of a male character?
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posted by Nixy
on Apr 1, 2011 -
61 answers
What indie/experimental/small-press/"weird" novels set in Los Angeles would you recommend for an "Alternative L.A. Literature" list?
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posted by colinmarshall
on Mar 20, 2011 -
17 answers
What are some novels in which the plot primarily revolves around a marriage?
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posted by Nixy
on Feb 5, 2011 -
46 answers
All great libraries have books in them, but how many great books have libraries in them? I just finished reading "Big Machine" by Victor Lavalle, and am currently reading "Kafka on the Shore" by Haruki Murakami
(yes, finally!), and it's purely coincidental, but they both happen to feature libraries prominently. So now I'd like to know what other really good novels feature libraries in a significant way.
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posted by taz
on Dec 2, 2010 -
31 answers
Midwestern Urban Fiction: What are the great novels that exemplify or characterize (as opposed to "are set in") any of the industrialized cities of the U.S. Midwest (St. Louis, Chicago, Detroit, the Twin Cities, etc.)?
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posted by jjjjjjjijjjjjjj
on Nov 3, 2010 -
25 answers
I am looking for recommendations for a sequence of novels that might lead an adult fan of very trashy action to the real gold.
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posted by hifimofo
on Oct 29, 2009 -
11 answers
Can you recommend American female novelists who've had their debut novels published within the last 3 years or so?
posted by Kattullus
on Sep 26, 2009 -
30 answers
What are some or how can one best find science-fiction novels that are good by general literary standards?
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posted by colinmarshall
on Aug 18, 2009 -
75 answers
My uncle recently mentioned to me that he's never read any book written by a woman. Apparently this is because he doesn't think they'll be any good - he seems to think women can only write romance novels. I find this both horrific and hard to believe, but he seemed serious. So, Hive Mind, I need your help in drafting a list of the very best books written by female authors. Help me teach him the error of his ways!
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posted by badmoonrising
on Jul 29, 2009 -
92 answers
Apparently I'm a fan of graphic novels now, but I don't even know where to start. I love (LOVE!)
Preacher; I liked
Watchmen. What should I read next?
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posted by wonderyak
on Mar 12, 2009 -
52 answers
Seeking relatively well-known, canon-caliber fictional accounts of imaginary encounters between actual, historically significant figures -- especially encounters that could well have taken place, but which we know did not or remain undocumented. Philip Levine's poem "On the Meeting of Garcia Lorca and Hart Crane" typifies what I'm looking for. Mark Twain's _A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court_ does not (respectable evidence out there of a historical Arthur notwithstanding). The literary field is rife with examples, I know -- say, some novel casting Charles Lindbergh and Adolf Hitler into a tete-a-tete. But, ack, I'm drawing a blank.
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posted by taramosalata
on Feb 5, 2009 -
31 answers
Robinson Crusoe was originally published without reference to Defoe, seemingly pretending to be a genuine account (see
the original opening page). Would the readers of that first edition have genuinely thought the story was true? How many early novels relied on this kind of blurring between reality and fiction? Was this an important element accounting for the initial success of the novel form? As a side note, does anybody know of any good and accessible written histories of the novel format?
posted by deeper red
on Jan 6, 2009 -
6 answers
Why do publishers slap on "A Novel" to the titles and/or covers of, well, novels?
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posted by CKmtl
on Oct 16, 2008 -
22 answers
What are some reasonably well-known, preferably famous, examples of novels with evil first-person narrators? All that's coming to mind is Humbert Humbert, but he's too
aware of his own nastiness for my purposes. I need novels where the undiluted dastardliness of the first-person narrator affects the entire moral framework of the story, so that you might be forgiven for suspecting that the author actually sides with this monster. Cheers!
posted by Beardman
on Sep 13, 2008 -
61 answers
ProseFilter: Nabokov's
Lolita was once hailed as "a love letter to the English language." I'm looking for modern and contemporary authors with similar aspirations.
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posted by zoomorphic
on Sep 12, 2008 -
43 answers
Help balance my male dominated library. Looking for authors that happen to be female and great reads (either literature or very good genre). Specifics inside.
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posted by Gratishades
on Mar 10, 2008 -
60 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.
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posted by Gudlyf
on Feb 7, 2008 -
9 answers
What novels are on the middle school syllabus these days? or What novels should be on the middle school syllabus?
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posted by Wayman Tisdale
on May 23, 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 by orange swan
on Apr 11, 2007 -
60 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 by orange swan
on Sep 17, 2006 -
25 answers
Bookworm MeFites: I'm looking for novels, short stories, and plays by white authors where their non-white characters speak in a dialect. For instance, the slave Jim in Twain's
Huckleberry Finn.
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posted by rossination
on May 25, 2006 -
45 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 by 0bvious
on Jan 17, 2006 -
63 answers
LitFilter: Please help me find books, preferably novels, in which the narrator has some sort of mental disability.
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posted by nobody
on Nov 20, 2005 -
47 answers
I'm looking for high quality erotic fantasy/sci-fi novels. Any recommendations?
posted by alms
on Sep 14, 2005 -
22 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.
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posted by orange swan
on Jul 19, 2005 -
47 answers
Solve This! I love mystery novels and have a hard time finding some that I like. What do you recommend?
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posted by orange swan
on Mar 8, 2005 -
35 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 by orange swan
on Mar 1, 2005 -
17 answers
