I am taking a trip to NEW YORK on Saturday and I need a decent sized (both long and not too big & heavy) novel to read; one that will perhaps last me there and back. Or, two books if they're not heavy and bulky.
I was going to buy Iain M Banks' The Algebraist (sp?) and/or China Mieville's Iron Council. Unhappily, both are in hardback still, and so cost £17 and will take up a lot of room and weight.
The best books I have read on aeroplanes are by Richard Price, but he doesn't have a new one out.
Based on these novels I was going to buy or have enjoyed on planes in the past, can you suggest a long, but light (both not too taxing, and not physically heavy) novel or two that I can buy easily by Friday?
Preferably late 20th century/early 21st, and by a white man living in America or England. Those are my favourite books.
posted
I don't actually think Bond novels are very "good", but I have enjoyed some Wm Boyd (if it is like Armadillo and not his foreign-set muck) and heard good things about Middlesex, though also weird things.
posted
I recently muchly enjoyed "The Cutting Room" by Louise Welsh. Don't be put off by the fact that the author is a woman... the hero is a man. Although he is a gayer. And old. And Scotch.
Posts: 1867
| IP: Logged
posted
Yep, The Cutting Room is great. But maybe too short for a transatlantic flight.
What's weird that you've heard about Middlesex Kovacs? The fact that its central character is intersex?
Do you only want characters and plot devices that samuel norton would happily invite around for dinner? I'm confused....
As page turners, with enough intelligence to feel satisfying but not too much intellectual challenge for a tiring journey go.... you could try Sarah Waters. Who fails your criteria on account of being female. Or indeed Wilkie Collins, who is about 100 years too old for you, but would probably suit.
Posts: 915
| IP: Logged
scrawny
One Mojito, two Gin and Tonics, Three Bacardi Lime Sodas, and a couple of pints of Stella please.
posted
Ii loved 'I'll Go To Bed at Noon', which is written by a man, is pretty hefty, and totally wins on the grounds that it could be classed as 'intelligent trash' - perfect for a long haul flight.
-------------------- ...because that's the kind of guy you are. Posts: 2730
| IP: Logged
What's weird that you've heard about Middlesex Kovacs? The fact that its central character is intersex?
Do you only want characters and plot devices that samuel norton would happily invite around for dinner? I'm confused....
I was exaggerating a bit in specifying my tastes, but it is nevertheless true that my favourite authors are Amis and Updike, and my favourite books seem to reflect the late 20th century experience of urban Anglo-American masculinity.
That doesn't mean I rule out anything else, but I do seem to have that special affinity (boringly really) with novels that connect quite closely to my own social identity.
I must confess that "intersex" is not a term I'm familiar with. Is it someone who's like transsexual but not crossing from one thing to the other, but deliberately staying between the two?
NB. I didn't say anything about this being the factor that other people had reported to me as weird, so you are jumping to conclusions a bit if you think I'm put off novels by any gender deviance.
posted
Kovacs, not jumping to conclusions, just joking. Though perhaps not very convincingly.
But anyway, intersex - a person of indeterminate gender at birth. Apparently it happens, though I'm by no means an expert on it. I insert this disclaimer incase anyone thinks I must have an opinion on any aspect of gender.
What was the other aspect of the novel that someone told you was weird, out of interest?
I don't think you'd be alone in wanting to read fiction that is either close to your experience, or is at least written from a viewpoint close to yours when looking for an unchallenging but enjoyable read. Which is what I presume you'd want for a long journey.
eta: The Booker nominated novel about a tattooist is The Electric Michelangelo by Sarah Hall (woman!). I started it a while back and it failed to grab me sufficiently to get past the first couple of chapters, in which boyhood memoirs of tubercular Northern seaside resorts feature highly. Morecambe to be precise.
quote:Originally posted by OJ: What was the other aspect of the novel that someone told you was weird, out of interest?
I think I heard it had an unreliable narrator and was about whole generations of people (?) Also, the person describing it confessed they had expected it to be about the county of Middlesex, so... what can you say.
Apologies for my brief and badly-crafted posts as I work... I am grateful for all these suggestions.
posted
I honestly can't remember whether there's an unreliable narrator. Though if it's narrated by the (sort of) eponymous character him/herself then it's not exactly going to be a realistic narrator - because it does cover several generations.
But I don't think that the very fact of it being a bit of a saga is a turn-off. A cheerful publisher might call that an 'epic sweep'. The opening section about the fall of Smyrna is pretty action packed.
Have to LOL at your acquaintance who might have been expecting cricketing memoirs...
posted
The Magus by John Fowles Ripped off by everything from Michael Douglas's The Game to the current crop of alternative reality games - but this is tha' sensual, swirling shiznit original. DO NOT read Fowles' foreword as it contains a semi-spoiler.
Ghost Story by Peter Straub Gorgeously crafted Main St, USA, horror - a shiversome snapshot of a lost dream of the US, post-Dubya.
Domain by James Herbert One of the best London novels and an indispensible vision of what post-nuclear war society will probably be like. CAUTION: contains gratuitous Damo-style meddling with God's Creation.
House of Bush, House of Saud - Craig Unger Meticulously researched and, in blurb-speak, 'reads better than any thriller'; an outrageous and depressing panorama of the twilight of Houston-Jeddah oligarchy that, little did we know, was the guiding hand behind world history for thirty years. NOT too heavy for reading on the plane, though I'm now tempted to trade my library copy in for a paperback as this will be an essential reference work for at least the next decade.
posted
I'm assuming that kovacs is familiar with the World's Greatest Living Writers: Messers Ellroy and Lodge.
-------------------- What I object to is the colour of some of these wheelie bins and where they are left, in some areas outside all week in the front garden. Posts: 4941
| IP: Logged
posted
Actually, Lodge might be a good one. I have read the two about the Anglo-American exchange, and the one about the businessman/female lecturer exchange. What else is there you can recommend, VP.
For the record the last books I read and rather enjoyed were by cloven WOMEN! the hi-class chicklitte SF Time Traveller's Wife and the picking-a-scab pleasures of Notes on a Scandal.
I also enjoyed, this year, two novels about the evil NAZIs ruling Amerikkka: by PK Dick and P Roth.
posted
I was going to say that the Anglo-US professor exchange trilogy would be good.
Therapy is excellent; I'm assuming you are referring to Thinks.
I can't believe I went into the huge flagship Waterstones on the Strand for the first time the other day. They've handily clumped books into little categories: "Tear Jerkers", "Jap Fiction" etc. The quantity of books waiting to be read induced mild panic.
-------------------- What I object to is the colour of some of these wheelie bins and where they are left, in some areas outside all week in the front garden. Posts: 4941
| IP: Logged
H1ppychick
We all prisoners, chickee-baby. We all locked in.
posted
I don't really get David Lodge. The only title I've read was Thinks... and I found it unresolved and therefore unsatisfying. I must be missing something
quote:Originally posted by H1ppychick: I don't really get David Lodge. The only title I've read was Thinks... and I found it unresolved and therefore unsatisfying. I must be missing something
I know that book! It actually resolves really tidily to the point of being old fashioned/ convenient. I think what you're missing is the ending of the book, because there's nothing in it left unresolved.
Posts: 91
| IP: Logged
quote:Originally posted by H1ppychick: I must be missing something
Yes. Yes you are.
I won't say how the novel is resolved, because it would SPOIL it for kovacs, but I can't imagine how you'd have ended it better than Lodge.
Luckily, such is my generous mood today due to the GLORIOUS RED VICTORY, I feel I could even deal with someone posting that they didn't really get James Ellroy.
I had to point out to someone at our party last Saturday that we were operating a No Homosexuals door policy when they disagreed about our Greatest Living Writers. When I challenged them to come up with someone more gooder than Ellroy or Lodge, they did a cartoon-style visibly painful demonstration of cerebral effort and eventually came up with Don De Lillo and JD Salinger. For fucks sake.
-------------------- What I object to is the colour of some of these wheelie bins and where they are left, in some areas outside all week in the front garden. Posts: 4941
| IP: Logged
H1ppychick
We all prisoners, chickee-baby. We all locked in.
posted
Put it this way, it's a long time since I read it and I can't remember all the fine detail. Suffice it to say that it didn't create any appetite whatsoever for other Lodge titles.
But then I like sci-fi, fantasy, historical novels (can I talk about Dorothy Dunnett again, please?) and chicklit. My tastes are obviously far too plebeian for this forum.
-------------------- i'm expressing my inner anguish through the majesty of song Posts: 4243
| IP: Logged
posted
Hello there. I have some suggestions, if you haven't long since gone to W'stones/Borders...
William Boyd-wise, Any Human Heart is v excellent, though it might make you cry unexpectedly and violently, which could be embarrassing on a plane.
In that vein, On Green Dolphin Street by Sebastian Faulks is gripping, in a romance kind of way, and will make you cry.
If you don't want to blub like a baby, The Corrections by jonathan Franzen I found most agreeable, though you've probably either read it already or been put off it by Ben.
As far as books by girls about the Far East go, Memoirs of a Geisha rules.
Posts: 4537
| IP: Logged
quote:Originally posted by herbs: As far as books by girls about the Far East go, Memoirs of a Geisha rules.
Isn't that by Arthur Golden? Or was it a clever pseudonym. Also, kovacs doesn't like Chilean belt-maker type novels.
I read a Johnathan Franzen and though it was ok. Is The Corrections proper good?
-------------------- What I object to is the colour of some of these wheelie bins and where they are left, in some areas outside all week in the front garden. Posts: 4941
| IP: Logged
H1ppychick
We all prisoners, chickee-baby. We all locked in.
posted
Yeah well what happened is, I was persuaded by Scrawny's repeated suggestion and had to ask specially for it, but it isn't out in pb until July 7th.
Having left my old-skool post-it pasted to my computer screen, not very useful because I was miles away, I found Chabon's Final Solution but it was a tenner for a small hardback. Picked up Stars and Bars and realised I may well have read it during a Boyd-from-the-library period.
What the fuck else did they recommend? I scoured my mighty brain. O yes, LODGE. VP is such a hard bitch, if she likes something it must be good? So I bought Thinks... and hope it will sustain me.
I then broke rebelliously from the ill-remembered list of recommendations and picked up a book whose blurb shouted at me with the words 1988... CHEERLEADER... SHRINE TO PRINCESS DIANA.
It is called something like Notebook of a Teen Bitch and looks "OK", I shall report back.
posted
Spares or One of Us or Only Forwards by Michael Marshall Smith. Dark and occasionally funny cyperpunk (Spares & One of Us), and Only Forwards is....umm...kind of cyber/sci fi...but not quite, very bizarre. All are absolutely superb and available in small paperback format.
Posts: 2793
| IP: Logged
posted
I am in easyeverything on 42nd St and TMO has entertained me for no more than two minutes. Try harder please.
Whoever recommended D Lodge Thinks, I am indebted to you! (was it VP...yes.) Not only did it entertain and mildly educate me for whole plane trip and hrs in hotel, it gave me an "in" to conversation with 2 middle-aged lesbian academics at a "barbeque" (chilli, "ale") in Queens.
Tip: make sure you have some cash on hand before taking the subway across, because if memory serves they don't take credit cards. It's the first stop on the Brooklyn side of the east river, located near the pier underneath the Brooklyn Bridge. Your mouth will thank you.
-------------------- Give 'em .0139 fathoms and they'll take 80 chains. Posts: 3201
| IP: Logged
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
Printer-friendly view of this topic