recommend me books

faster · Post by **faster** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 3:01 am

BIG thumbs up on Ferdeydurke

and I've always been disappointed by Delillo.

user_103 · Post by **user_103** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 3:25 am

i forgot about the erasers, that's a fucking fantastic book.

shawn's pretty much right on about wallace, borges and cortazar.

has anyone else read robert pinget's play About Morton? i

Post by **grisha** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 3:28 am

David b. wrote: Anything Bulgakov has written.

russian is my mother tongue. i only read Master & Margarita so far. i should check out more.

i have Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings by Borges. rather my sister has. she doesn't like him. i probably will check out at some point.

thanks for all the recs so far. now i need to filter it somehow to fit my economical status. maybe just by availability.

user_600 · Post by **user_600** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 4:28 am

i never buy books... i always go to library

but great names on this topic!

user_710 · Post by **user_710** » Sun Aug 21, 2005 3:48 pm

angrymice wrote:I really enjoyed Infinite Jest. A lot. It was probably the last book that I read recently that I enjoyed without much reservation.

Most of my other recommendations have already been given so I'll, pretty much, just second some.

Beckett's books are great especially the aforementioned Nohow On collection (it includes the novellas Company, Ill Seen Ill Said and Worstward Ho) but I would probably suggest getting his Three Novels first (Molly, Malone Dies, and The Unnamable). They are some of the most unconventional fiction I've ever come across but I still think his weirdest (though not neccesarily best) book was Watt.

I don't think Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveler has been mentioned yet but it should have been. Additionally the oft ignored Castle of Crossed Destinies is pretty wonderful.

I'm also going to recommend Flann O'Brien's At Swim-Two-Birds, perhaps one of the first post-modernist books to actually be in reaction to modernism (and very very funny and good as well), also The Third Policeman is wonderful. It's like Alice's Adventures in Hell.

Not natively in English (like Calvino), you should pick up Robbe-Grillet's The Erasers and the collection under the name Two Novels by Robbe-Grillet which includes Jealousy and In the Labyrinth. If you can find Project for a Revolution in New York for God's sake buy it. It's incredibly weird and twisted and a hell of a lot of fun (in my opinion).

And finally, I like Michael Palmer's Codes Appearing, a collection of several books of poetry.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I found DeLillo's White Noise really boring but loved Underworld. So sue me.

Great taste. I'll second basically all of these. I'd also recommend any and all Donald Barthelme and any and all David Foster Wallace (particularly his latest short collection Oblivion which really marks some major developments in his writing).

ryan · Post by **ryan** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 6:28 pm

I forgot Nightwood by Djuna Barnes, and also Anais Nin's Collages. Two beautiful short novels.

user_548 · Post by **user_548** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 6:39 pm

oryan wrote:I forgot Nightwood by Djuna Barnes.

I just read that. I thought it was incredibly dense. I followed it up with Tropisms by Sarraute.

_duif · Post by **_duif** » Wed Aug 24, 2005 3:32 am

kent wrote: Laszlo Krasznahorkai - The Melancholy of Resistance

I would love to read this but I can't find it here.

one recommendation: Jamie O'Neill - At swim, two boys
(and everything by Nabokov)

Post by **grisha** » Wed Aug 24, 2005 12:19 pm

any short stories books? i like short stories.

(please don't recommend chekhov)

_duif · Post by **_duif** » Wed Aug 24, 2005 12:38 pm

cunnilingus wrote:any short stories books? i like short stories.

(please don't recommend chekhov)

Vladimir Nabokov - Collected stories

Post by **grisha** » Wed Aug 24, 2005 12:40 pm

please don't recommend any russian writers

ryan · Post by **ryan** » Wed Aug 24, 2005 12:59 pm

Italo Calvino's Cosmicomics is a short story collection. "The Spiral" is one of my favorite short stories ever.

hatta · Post by **hatta** » Wed Aug 24, 2005 1:38 pm

I have to second the recommendation of Cosmicomics probably my favorite Calvino. Invisible Cities is a close second and the "sequel" to Cosmicomics, T-Zero is also a fun read.

Other short story collecitons that I have enjoyed:

David Foster Wallace Oblivion: Stories
Jorge Luis Borges Collected Fictions
Jonathan Lethem Men and Cartoons
John Barth Lost in the Funhouse

In a lighter vein (may be ideal for NYC vacation reading) I'd suggest the Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick which is in five volumes:

1: The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford
2. Collected Stories of Philip K Dick Volume 2
3. Second Variety
2. Collected Stories of Philip K Dick Volume 4
5. The Eye of the Sibyl

nirav · Post by **nirav** » Wed Aug 24, 2005 1:43 pm

duif wrote: one recommendation: Jamie O'Neill - At swim, two boys
(and everything by Nabokov)

_At Swim Two Birds_!!! And _The Third Policeman_

ryan · Post by **ryan** » Wed Aug 24, 2005 10:47 pm

It hadn't occurred to me, but for some reason it hasn't been mentioned yet. You should definitely read Tropic of Cancer if you haven't already.

Post by **grisha** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 12:24 am

i read "Quiet Days in Clichy". it's quite lovely. i tried to read something else, one of the "Tropic" books, and it was pretty much the same, only ruder and longer. my opinion, of course.

i will check out Calvini.

ryan · Post by **ryan** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 12:43 am

Quiet Days in Clichy is quite lovely, I might even favor it more now. I read the Tropics first and they seemed to affect the course of my life in a strange way, probably because I was so young when I read them, but you may as well find something new in the Calvino.
.

user_548 · Post by **user_548** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 1:42 am

icefactory wrote:
duif wrote: one recommendation: Jamie O'Neill - At swim, two boys
(and everything by Nabokov)
_At Swim Two Birds_!!! And _The Third Policeman_

This made my head explode.

'Wait! I just made those suggestions!'
'Wait! It's by Flann O'Brien not Jamie O'Neil!'
'Wait! It's At Swim Two Birds not At Swim, Two Boys!'

ARRRRGH *pop*

It's okay now though, I figured it out. Totally different novel. Nevermind.

user_98 · Post by **user_98** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 2:49 pm

cunnilingus wrote:
David b. wrote: Anything Bulgakov has written.
russian is my mother tongue. i only read Master & Margarita so far. i should check out more.
.

Have you read Isaac Babel's Red Calvary stories? There's a good collection of them in English, but I'd read the Russian if I could.

Post by **grisha** » Fri Aug 26, 2005 4:44 am

gershon yosef wrote:Have you read Isaac Babel's Red Calvary stories? There's a good collection of them in English, but I'd read the Russian if I could.

yes, i have those. i bought the book used some time ago. i started reading, but stopped for some reason. i should start again. thanks for reminder.