What Books Are You Reading in 2020 Part 2

Link to Part 1

Haven't read a book since 12th grade, I might just pick up till the end of the year. I think Twilight breaking dawn is good start for a beginner like me. And please don't shade me! I'm only 23!

To repeat someone else's question from Part 1 of this thread: Has anyone read Margaret Atwood's latest book, The Testaments?

R3 There are division of oppinions about The testaments. Most people think it's a solid novel, but being the second part of a cult classic (well i suppose it was a cult classic now it's more a mainstream bestseller) it's not easy.

I have the novel but i didn't read it yet (i lent the book to a coworker and she liked it a lot).

It's curious that Atwood won the Booker with two of her most divisive novels. I loved The blind assassin but i totally get that it's not for everyone.

For me the weakest winner of the Booker is recent years is The sellout. Some parts are brilliant and hilarious but the whole novel is uneven and sometimes it feels like a very long joke (not that it's a bad novel anyway)

I'm ending Train dreams and i don't understand why it didn't won the Pulitzer, is better than some of the recent winners.

Now i'm going to read the third of the Elena Ferrante series. I read the first out of curiosity, and well, i find it ok but that cliffhanger made me read the second, and finally get into the lives of those two annoying women. And now i want more

R5, I felt the same way after reading the first two books. What a wonderful series, can't wait to start the 3rd. Halfway through the third I gave up. I couldn't stand the two frenemies any longer.

Just listing the one's I'd recommend:

In Hoffa's Shadow by Jack Goldsmith The Enlightenment and Why It Still Matters by Anthony Pagden The Longing for Myth in Germany by George S. Williamson American Heiress by Jeffrey Toobin Romantics, Rebels, and Reactionaries by Marilyn Butler Human Errors by Nathan Lents Bind Us Apart by Nicholas Guyatt

In Hoffa's Shadow by Jack Goldsmith

The Enlightenment and Why It Still Matters by Anthony Pagden

The Longing for Myth in Germany by George S. Williamson

American Heiress by Jeffrey Toobin

Romantics, Rebels, and Reactionaries by Marilyn Butler

Human Errors by Nathan Lents

Bind Us Apart by Nicholas Guyatt

Oops, forgot another good one:

Culture and Anarchy in Ireland, 1890-1939 by F. S. L. Lyons

Someone said that Margaret Atwood won a Booker for writing a sequel to a Hulu series. Made me laugh.

It was him.

This year he didn't post a video about the booker (he did for three years and they were very funny)

Tony Parsons's Max Wolfe series

Joseph Knox's Aidan Waits series

Natsu Miyashita, The Forest of Wool and Steel

Right now, I am reading “Little Men” (1871) by Louisa May Alcott. I read “Little Women” (1868-1869) a few months ago and have been intending to read the two sequels. I’m enjoying “Little Men” so far.

r11, yes! mementomori is his Booktube handle. Seems to be a genuine asshole, but he can be funny. His endless "live" postings are studies in narcissism, and he seems to have alienated a fair number of booktubers.

R14 Yes, he is mean to poor Karl Eric Anderson who is a lovely person, but the videos are funny.

I remember when he said Gays without end instead of days without end, the published was pissed for sure. Sebastian Barry gave them a lot of work trying to promote a gay love story without mention the two main characters were nothing more than brothers in arms.

I think there must be a good amount of envy between booktubers, some of them have some recognition (and are invited to awards or even cited in reviews).

Of course is very rare to find bad reviews because they receive the books for free and that comes to a cost

LA Despair

R13 - I thought the Louisa May Alcott sequel book to "Little Women" was titled "Jo's Boys".

Calling out the bastard who closed out Part 1 without providing a link to Part 2. What were you thinking?

R18 it was really ridiculous, there were more than 20 post to the 600 in a thread that it's not exactly a Chalamet or Richard Madden thread (there are a few post every day and that's on a good day) and he killed it the thread without providing a link for the part 2. It was absurd.

I'm thinking on reading Colin Barrett's Young skins next

Hi R17! After publishing “Little Women,” Louisa May Alcott went on to write two sequels, “Little Men” (1871) and “Jo’s Boys” (1886).

Strange English syntax in these book threads. Many books are purchased using Amazon.

Check your Amazon, et al. order histories for mysterious purchases and, as always, use caution when opening links. Follow the breadcrumbs to a logical presumption:

(Amazon, Whole Foods, Washington Post = Jeff Bezos. Jeff Bezos = Orange It's imaginary arch enemy)

Adam from mementomori seems to have pissed off Steve Donoghue for some reason. Rivalry between the gays? Or is every booktuber gay?

Whoever mentioned Barbara Pym in the last thread, I love her. *applause*

What's the deal on Sally Rooney? Worth reading? Someone splain pls.

I've read a few things this summer, more than usual.

I really loved The Daughters of Erietown by Connie Schultz. A bit of a potboiler, but instead of a Danielle Steel beach read, it's a story of a working class family. Can just see this one being made into a movie!

Reading Another Planet by Tracey Thorn (formerly of Everything But the Girl) - she and her husband and EBTG bandmate Ben Watt have written some very good memoirs/books.

Hmm, what else? Also read Becoming Duchess Goldblatt, which was sad and lovely. (The Duchess is a fun, wry, comic persona - a fictional one - on Twitter, mostly followed by writers, book nerds and artsy types.)

These are the next three on my nightstand:

The Gentlemen's Guide to Vice and Virtue- Mackenzi Lee

Where the Crawdad Sings- Delia Owens

Utopia Avenue-David Mitchell

R24 I LOVE Ben and Tracey! Both great writers, especially Tracey.

r18, the person who killed "What Books Are You Reading in 2020 Part 1" without providing a link is not the same person who started this thread. Just so you know.

The threadkiller started posting, yesterday or the day before, in an earlier 2020 Part Two thread someone started in March (why someone would have started it in March remains a mystery). Threadkiller claimed he killed the thread because he was sick of looking at the stupid gif (a sentiment with which I completely agree, but to which my solution is to keep link previews turned off).

R25 yes! I have always loved their music (together and solo) but I was surprised at what good writers they are - Tracey in particular.

I just took out The Deviant's War from the library. (Thank the baby jeebus for eBooks)

I didn't finish reading The Deviant's War. I got through the Kameny bio, but didn't want to stay for Sylmarstroika.

I looked briefly at some reviews and feedback for Deviant's War and some of the readers were not pleased, I guess, with the focus on Kameny.

*shrugs* Have no opinion yet but wanted to read at least the beginnings of it. I also want to find the book quoted at the beginning, the one where the sociologist studies cruising.

R22 I don't know if all, but a lot of booktubers are gay.

R26 I think the thread was started in March because we used the old one (the last of 2019) to post at the beginning of the year

I have a request that may be a bit odd and if so I can start a different thread for it.

But I am looking for recommendations of good biographies or good novels, esp. gay themed novels, that are a bit older than new - say 2016-2018 or 19.

I am borrowing things from the library and of course all the new stuff and perennially popular stuff (eg Little Fires Everywhere) are never available. Looking for something good that may be a bit more of a backtitle to borrow.

r32, I recommend the novels of Alan Hollinghurst, Edmund White, and Louis Bayard. Also love AT SWIM TWO BOYS by Jamie O'Neill. Try Peter Cameron, too, and Christopher Bram (GODS AND MONSTERS is great). And Andrew Holleran is superb. There are excellent bios of Harvey Milk, Oscar Wilde, and Tennessee Williams, memoirs by Mark Doty and J.R. Ackerly. So many to choose from! Happy hunting!

R33 I love your suggestions but I've read most of those fiction titles! I see a few unfamiliar names, though. And will definitely look at the bios.

When I first found good gay fiction in the 90s I went through all the Bram books; still have my copy of Hold Tight around. At Swim Two Boys was lovely, but sad (like The God In Flight).

I was thinking the same, Hollinghurst is probably the gay novelist that first comes to mind, maybe because that booker for The line of beauty was not only a recognition to himself but made gay themes mainstream and made perfectly ok for straights to read a novel with a gay theme (because it's literature).

And talking about the Booker this is probably the queerest year ever, i didn't read the resumes of all novels, but one has a lesbian couple as protagonist and two have main gay characters

At swim two boys is amazing

If you're looking for something light, funny and farcical, try Blue Heaven by Joe Keenan (who also wrote most of the best episodes of Frasier).

And now I want to read At Swim Two Boys again (again; it gets better each time).

R36 Read that too : ) His other Philip and Gilbert books are good too, though the last one is a bit dog eared. Keenan definitely does farce wonderfully.

I want to read that Briefly Gorgeous book but again, that will be one with a long waitlist at the library.

Have you read Bayard's COURTING MR. LINCOLN? Terrific.

R38 Thank you! I am adding that to my list.

Currently: "The Narrow Corridor" by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson (very insightful!) After this, I plan to get a hold of a copy of Anne Applebaum's "Twilight of Democracy." And then read the copy of "Confessions" by Leo Tolstoy that I borrowed and has been collecting dust on our livinf room table these past few months.

I would totally appreciate it if any politics junkie suggests a book or two.

Peter Cameron's new book, What Happens at Night, has great blurbs from Ed White ("a masterpiece)", Michael Cunningham, Garth Greenwell, and others and some excellent early reviews. Has anyone read it?

Currently a little over halfway through the novel "Lost Children Archive" by Valeria Luiselli which I really thought I'd like given all the good reviews it got (NYT Ten Best of the Year, etc). I am committed to finishing it but it's a total slog. The author is clearly very smart but it seems too wrapped up in its own cleverness and form at the expense of fleshed-out characters, any sort of plot, interesting set pieces ... I do not recommend.

Before that was "Skippy Dies" by Paul Murray which was great -- 600-page novel from 2010 about an all-boys prep school in Ireland. Energetic prose, lovable characters, eventful plot ... a good summer stem-winder.

R41 I loved Some day this pain will be useful to you but i totally hated Coral Glynn, so he is an author i don't know what to do with him.

I read some readers review of Find me, and i don't understand Aciman. Most people think the novel is ok, but did he really thought that Elio's father being the center of the novel was what his fans really wanted?

"Find Me" by André Aciman. Only the parts about Oliver and Elio. Brings a little closure.

The Prettiest Star by Carter Sickels. A wonderful story that captures perfectly the realities of going home to die from AIDS in small town America in the 1980s after living in NYC Seemed autobiographical - so real and true. I was shocked it was fiction written by a 30-something trans man. Testament to a great writeR.

At Swim, Two Boys - Jamie O’Neill was a piece of art. Think it was recommended in the other thread. Beautiful writing. Story of adolescent boys growing up, falling in love in Revolutionary Ireland early 20th century. Lots of Irish phrasing which requires some adjustment - but some beautiful poetic writing in a story about figuring out your gay, what sex is about - and what the world and life is about.

I just finished The Friend by Sigrid Nunez. It was absolutely wonderful and has made me want to read her other work.

R45 Sex scenes are usually pretty bad, and that includes some great writers, but the sex scene between the main characters when the swim to the shore is amazing.

R46 The friend is a great novel, but is worrying how she describes students who want to be writers as puritans ready to be offended

Currently reading "War and Peace"; it's tried my patience at times and sections focusing on the young Natasha kind of drag because she has very little inner life beyond what a pretty young thing she is, but Napoleon is standing outside Moscow & shit is starting to get good.

Did you guys like "Normal People"? It's been all the rage this summer, but I've heard the book is kind of overrated. I only get an audible credit every other month so I want to use it well.

I hate Normal people, there's nothing remarkable about that novel (not a surprise because Conversations with friends) Roony is probably the most overhyped young writer, and frankly there are dozens of better young writers.

Tolstoi is not for me, i read Anna Karenina, and even i appreciate that it's in fact a great novel, the truth is i didn't like it. And i didn't like some of his short stories either so probably i will never read War and peace

Anna Karenina to me is a far superior novel to War and Peace. It has a better plot and more passion. The first 200 pp of War and Peace a very tough slog, it took me 3 tries to get through them. AK engages from page 1.

Sally Rooney's novels would have been classified as "Young Adult" just 15 years ago. Quite astonishing that they're taken so seriously and praised so much by critics.

Here's some shade from fellow Irish novelist Sheila O'Flanagan ("I'm sure Sally Rooney will be a super writer when she's a bit older"):

I loved both Conversations with Friends and Normal People, and it’s not unexpected there would be jealousy of her success at a young age.

R52 Nobody denies her success (even if was overhyped months before Conversations with friends was released), it's her writing skills what some people don't like.

And i'm a little tired of the childish "if you don't like him/her it's because you are jelous" (try to say something that's not praise on a Timothee Chalamet thread). No dear, some people just don't understand why someone like Rooney gets nominations to prestigious book awards when his novels are totally average at best.

And i extremely dislike her cheating. You can explain the behaviour of her main characters saying they suffered trauma, but she never explains what kind of trauma becuase you know, if you go there maybe that doesn't explain the narrative. It's a cheap trick, and she did it twice.

There are a lot of way better young writers than her

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed War and Peace. It's largely a, for want of a better term, soap opera with social themes. There are maybe 20 major characters, and once you get them (and their myriad names and nicknames) sorted out it's not a difficult read. I found many of the battle scenes a slog, especially the earlier ones (battle maps would have helped; it's just hard, at least for me, to picture which army is where). But there are so many fantastic characters in the book. And one scene honestly made me laugh out loud (zealous young Nikolai "Nikolenka" Rostov, completely terrified by the death and bloodshed at his first battle, freaks out and hurls his gun at the advancing French and runs away).

But, agreed, Anna Karenina is the better novel.

That's a lovely post R54, and a vivid scene with Rostov. There's also the love story of Pierre and Natasha (was it? I can't remember) that is reminiscent of Lev and Kitty from AK. Anyway you make me want to re-read it.

Currently reading: Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

Enjoying it so far. It's not up to Wolf Hall quality of literary-fan-fiction-about-a-famous-historical-person, but it's quite good. Shakespeare's wife and children are the POV characters.

R56, that’s next on my list. Now I’m reading The Day of the Locust. It’s quite a ride.

People were dissapointed that Hammet didn't make the booker longlist. It seems it was the snub of this year's longlist

R3 yes, I've read it. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's not a classic like the The Handmaid's Tale is though. I did see all the characters in my head as the characters from the TV series. I got the feeling Margaret Atwood might have done so as well when writing it...

I ithink i'm going to try Enigma variations, it's been almost a decade since i read Call me by your name, and even i hated that novel, i really liked Aciman's writting, so maybe i should give him another try

I never got all the way through CMBYN. I got to where they were traveling and lost interest.

Reading the Edith Sitwell bio UNICORN AMONG LIONS. Superb.

Thank you, r41, for the Peter Cameron recommendation. I've enjoyed all of his books, most recently [italic]Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You[/italic] .

Peter Cameron HATES the fact that his most successful novel (Someday This Pain...) was published as YA.

I liked Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell a lot! Also highly recommended reads from this summer -

- Passage to India by EM Forster - Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo (Booker) - Exposure by Helen Dunsmore - Cannery Row John Steinbeck - True Grot by Charles Portis

I’m currently reading Iris Murdoch’s first novel, Under The Net.

R64 Well, at least that was not the case in Spain.

To be honest, for me it's the tone and the writing what makes the difference and not the theme of the novel, and Someday this pain will be useful to you is not YA with that criteria

Does anyone remember a novel, possibly gay, possibly by Holleran, in which the protagonist drives someone around DC who is staying at the Army-Navy Club?

Thomas Mallon writes about DC.

Hmmm...maybe it was Mallon. Thanks, r68.

Add me to those who love At Swim Two Boys

R65 Read Under The Net freshman year in college (1976) in a 20th century Brit lit class. I loved it and return to it every few years. Obviously, Murdoch went on to write more philosophically “deep” and dense novels, but UTN remains my favorite of hers.

Has anyone here read The Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann?

Andrew Holleran's GRIEF is set in DC. It's a great book.

Rereading Andrew Pyper's Lost Girls. Almost finished.

Grief is one of those unknown books that was eye opening. Brief but insightful view of elder gay life. Like Single Man when I read it first - showed a life that wasn’t described in most descriptions of gay life - like in Faggots, or Dancer to the Dance. Not stunning but worthwhile.

More suggestions of books about elder gay life would be appreciated. Quentin Crisps diaries were also insightful - how to be a poor old gay man but still have a sense of adventure and enjoyment despite the hardships of growing up in a virulently homophobic world.

If you like REALLY eldergay life, this is a book of diary entries from a gay man who lived in the Victorian era. I found it fascinating. He picked up soldiers who hustled for $$$

I am still on Moby Dick

I'm restarted The Mirror and The Light. I'm averaging about 10 pages before bed. At this pace, I should finish in the summer of 2021.

Need to get to be earlier so I can read more before I doze off.

R78 A couple of months ago i was thinking on reading Life and fate but the idea of getting stuck on a novel for a month was a little too much for me.

By the way, it's there a single great russian writer who didn't suffered censorship or worse during the XX century. All of them seem to en in exhile, jail, banned or killed. It curious than almost all the most popular novels by russian writers were banned there

I'm reading Zadie Smith's essay collection "Intimations."

I always knew of her and remember when she was huge when she published "White Teeth" but I've never read her before. One of those spur of the moment things - I heard her on NPR and ordered the book off Amazon that day. I figured why not.

r75, you might look to the novels of Mark Merlis, especially AMERICAN STUDIES. He writes of more middle-aged men rather than "elder gays," but his books are excellent.

Thanks R81

The Sparsholt Affair by Andrew Hollinghurst and The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne track their protagonists lives over many years. While not specifically focused on eldergays, they might be of appeal R75.

Boyne’s Ladder to the Sky is my favorite recent gay themed novel.

Loved hearts Invisible Furies and Ladder to the Sky. Anything by Boyce really. Sparsholt Affair was good - but a little too contrived.

Alan Hollinghurst, r83, and I agree. :) Boyne's A TRAVELER AT THE GATES OF WISDOM was just published.

fffff

just about to start the 19th John Connelly book in the Charlie Parker series. great reads. 2 main characters are gay -- one black and one latino -- and love to goad Charlie about what he's missing by being straight. the later books in the series slip into Stephen King world. but the author is irish and a great story teller.

I've started working on that series, R87. Well into book one, and loving it.

please read them in order. they build one on the other. r88

R89 Thanks for the info. That's what I figured, and that's what I'll do.

AN HONEST MAN by Ben Fergusson. Gay relationship in 1989 Berlin. Very entertaining and moving.

Percy Keese Fitzhugh wrote a series of Boy Scout books, mostly featuring a kid named Tom Slade.

R91 I wrote to one spanish publisher asking them to translate that novel. I'm waiting for that one and for Swimming in the dark (but it could be a long wait, Christodora it was not translated yet)

I'm reading Enigma variations and i think Aciman will do better if his novels were more plot driven than character driven.

Just put those love and sex stories in the middle of something else would help a lot

R65, R75: I enjoyed Bernadine Evaristo's poignant novel of an older, Caribbean immigrant couple in London, "Mr. Loverman."

Hope people haven't forgotten Peter Cameron, whose novels include The Weekend, Andorra, The City of Your Final Destination, etc. I'm reading his new novel What Happens at Night and it's terrific.

just finished At Swim, 2 Boys. great read. but books like this should come with a warning label on the cover "THIS BOOK WILL TEAR YOU HEART OUT AND STOMP IT INTO THE GROUND"

I just finished Mrs. Bridge by Evan Connell. It’s a novel that I think would be very appealing to many Dataloungers, about the wife of an attorney in Kansas City in the 1930s and early 1940s. She’s maddeningly conventional and obedient and she doesn’t see how several of the people around her pity her or just don’t understand her.

I’m planning to read Mr. Bridge as well, then watch the film with Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward.

I know, R97; I've read At Swim two, maybe three times, and it's just as powerful when you already know how it ends. I SO wish someone would spend a lot of money to make a faithful miniseries of it. Six or seven episodes ought to do it. Colin Farrell would have been perfect for Doyler waaaaay back in the day.

Speaking of re-reading, I just started Robert Hughes' The Fatal Shore, about the early convict history of Australia. I remember it being gripping, if gruesome at times.

Another vote for AT SWIM as a modern classic. Anyone read his other novels? Really wish he was more prolific; he's only 58.

I just finished What Happens at Night, R96. It took me a while to get past some of the book's more daunting plot elements, but soon enough I grew to love it.

I'm about halfway through it, r101, and have no idea where it's headed. Which is not a bad thing. And he writes wonderfully.

Just finished Lady Colin Campbell's delicious book on the Harkles. On to book 2 of John Connolly's Charlie Parker series. About one-third through the book already. I LOVE this series. Each one is a feast to enjoy.

I skimmed the first hundred or so pages of Annie Proulx's 'Barkskins' after watching the tv adaptation. Now I'm reading the first 'Expanse' novel after watching the first season on Amazon.

The Barkskins show was completely unlike the novel, but Expanse was so spot-on I'm thinking there's no real point to reading the book.

the Expanse books are amazing. loved all of them!

I’m trying the new Denise Mina mystery but it’s not good.

Just finished The Splendid and the Vile about Churchill during WW II. Not up to the level of Larsen's other books, especially The Devil in the White City and Isaac's Storm.

Just started Spying on the South by Tony Horwitz.

I started The city we became and i'm not liking it (which is suprising to me because i loved the fifth season).

But someone on my book forum loved the novel after not liking the start at all so i keep my hopes high

Reaganland - Rick Perlstein Hoax - Brian Stelter

THE PALACE—Troubled expat woman on the run in Bangkok. Very atmospheric.

THE GLASS KINGDOM, sorry.

[QUOTE] But I am looking for recommendations of good biographies or good novels, esp. gay themed novels, that are a bit older than new - say 2016-2018 or 19.

Have you read At Danceteria and Other Stories? It came out in 2016 and I believe a sequel comes out next year.

I read The Lost Language of Cranes recently and was deeply moved by it at times. The writing is gorgeous.

Whoever recommended Shuggie Bain thank you. I loved it

A Genteman in Moscow isn’t gay themed but it is excellent

R113 Suggie Bain is getting a lot of attention on award season, it was nominated to the booker, the center for fiction and the kirkus

I didn't think At Danceteria was all that good. It was decent but kind of silly. And, the author lives in my building.

In “The Feral Detective,” Jonathan Lethem Returns to Detective Noir for the Trump Era.

have yet to be disappointed by a Lethem novel.

I loved the Gustav Sonata by Rose Tremaine..Patrick Gale is also a good gay writer

R99, I really liked The Fatal Shore

Has anyone read The Five by Hallie Rubenhold? I just started it

Re-reading volume 1 of "The Liveship Traders," called "Ship of Magic" The author is Robin Hobb, and the series, needless to say, is in the fantasy genre. I first read the trilogy 20 years ago, when a friend of mine arrived at my house, handed me the first book in the series, and said, "I think you're going to like this." She was right.

I was one of those r113, and glad you enjoyed it. Stuart has a story in The New Yorker this week and it's also great.

Last night I finished Mr. Bridge by Evan Connell, and I had read Mrs. Bridge two weeks ago. These novels are told in short vignettes about life in an upper middle class family in Kansas City in the 1930s and 40s. I found them absolutely brilliant, perhaps the best fiction I’ve read to show what life was like for this demographic at this time. It doesn’t shy away from revealing the prejudices and foibles of the characters.

R120 I read the first book of the first trilogy during quarantine

WOKE and MY FIRST LITTLE BOOK OF INTERSECTIONAL ACTIVISM by Titania McGrath (really gay cutie Andrew Doyle). Both are hilarious satirical take downs of the whole woke movement. Laugh out loud funny.

r124 is probably a conservative who thought gay marriage would cause society to collapse

The two gay/queer nominees made the shortlist of the booker.

Shuggie Bain was a sure shot, i'm more surprised by Real life nomination.

Of course three of the favourites (The mirror and the light, How much of this hills is gold and Apeirogon didn't made the cut)

I just finished A Star Is Bored by Byron Lane, a coming of age story based on his years as Carrie Fisher’s personal assistant. It’s charming and very entertaining.

[quote]I loved the Gustav Sonata by Rose Tremaine.

I remember being disappointed by it. I read it through, and now think it was the denouement that failed to please. But it's been several years. I gave it only one star on Good Reads.

[quote]I didn't think At Danceteria was all that good. It was decent but kind of silly.

I liked it more than you did, probably. "Decent," but "silly" is a good description, though. For me, it was a look into clubkid-ism, something I was just too old to be a part of. I'd partied so hard, in fact, I'd joined AA early in the time frame of the book, and had left New York the year before in any case.

[quote]Shuggie Bain was a sure shot

The opening chapters, which had more to do with Shuggie's parents, made me sad. I put the book down weeks ago. Maybe I'll come back to it. After the pandemic, perhaps, whenever that may turn out to be.

[quote]I read The Lost Language of Cranes recently and was deeply moved by it at times. The writing is gorgeous.

I've always liked this book. I think I've read it three or four times. It and the book of stories that preceded it have always been my favorite works of David Leavitt.

SHUGGIE is a bit overlong, but well worth the read. I'd love it if he won. More deserving than REAL LIFE (which was fine, but certainly not better than the new Mantel.

Reading "1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare" after the endnotes in "Hamnet" tipped me off to it.

This is my morning to bitch:

I tried some books from The New Yorker's featured list and am convinced they are just promoting each other's work and family and friends and loathsome contacts. No integrity. Up until the sixties the editors were turning down stuff from Salinger, et al.

Now any slag is acceptable. I think after this year's subscription runs out, no more.

[quote]I tried some books from The New Yorker's featured list and am convinced they are just promoting each other's work and family and friends and loathsome contacts

Aw, shit. What selections were particularly nepotistic?

I guessed the worst when the editor became the patron of Lena Dunham.

I'll have to check, R132, I have the fortunate ability to forget unpleasant stuff.

Speaking of The NY and Douglas Stuart, I enjoyed his recent story in the magazine. It still made my skin crawl a little, just not as much as his previous story there (which I believe was an excerpt from "Shuggie Bain.") I hope "Older Men Preying on Semi-Willing Younger Ones" isn't always going to be Stuart's theme, no matter how well he writes it.

I'm reading "At Swim, Two Boys" again (third time? fourth?), and it never ceases to please (despite the ending). O'Neill does such lovely things with the Irish vernacular, and the novel is so beautifully crafted.

Any fans of Margot Livesey? I’m reading her latest novel The Boy in the Field.

Shuggie Bain is very well written but far too depressing for anyone who comes from a long line of self-sabotaging alcoholics.

Adam Mars-Jones's "Box Hill." Short, sexy, and fabulously written.

(New Directions).

I a lot of Erle Stanley Gardner. Esp. the ones written in the 30s. (The HBO series is a travesty, imo.)

r137 (or anyone) What is Adam Mars-Jones best known for writing? The name sounds so familiar, yet I don't remember anything mentioned on his Wikipedia page.

Just finished A.N. Wilson’s biography of Queen Victoria. Dense but luminous.

"Warhol" by Blake Gopnik. Nine hundred seventy-something pages, but engrossing.

Bernhard Aichner, Woman of the Dead (Totenfrau). About a woman whose policeman husband is killed in a car accident and due to discoveries she makes right after his death, she sets out to find out why. I'm reading the German original in translation, and I don't know if the compelling read and attractive writing style are due to the author or the translator. All in all, a recommended read.

Enjoying Susanna Clarke's PIRANESI. And greartly admired THE QUEEN OF TUESDAY.

Stuart's first story in the New Yorker wasn't a SHUGGIE excerpt, but was drawn from the same well.

R143 how is PIRANESI? Would you recommend it?

I just finished "Trust Exercise" by Susan Choi. It's a very interesting novel, written from the viewpoints of multiple unreliable narrators.

Yes, r144, I would, although this is based on only the first third. Don't know if you know her JONATHAN STRANGE book; this is very different, but comes from the same fountain of creativity. This is more of a dystopian fable/mystery—not something I'd normally rush to, but its early reviews were excellent. And unlike JS, it's short and a breezy read.

R145 That book will be my next one to read

R143 I didn't knew Clarke released another novel, it's been ages since Jonathan Strange

R137. He and Edmund White wrote a volume called The Darker Proof, a collection of stories about AIDS, in the 1980s (they each contributed several stories).

Clarke writes slowly. Recent articles have chronicled her ongoing battle with a debilitating disease that saps her of her energy in alarming ways.

And Shuggie Bain is nominated to the National Book Award too.

Maybe i didn't followed the books that much this year (i follow a page that makes predictions to the pulitzer because most of the novels are not translated in my country) but the truth is only A Burning, Suggie Bain and The vanishing half were in my radar

R150, you seem to have a superb grasp of English. Do you only read novels in your own language?

I read the Glass Hotel and can't really remember it. I'm reading Peter Cameron's latest and I'm liking it. Thanks for the recommendation.

Wow, what a scare, Stephen King was trending in Spain and i though something bad happened to him, but he was trending because today it's his birthday

Re: R137, Adam Mars-Jones's eclectic career also includes two huge novels which are apparently part of a sequence; a family memoir 'Kid Gloves' (coming out to his High Court judge father); and recently some selected film reviews, 'Second Sight.'

A M-J's film reviews are as sharp and forensic as his literary essays in the LRB. Recommended.

To answer OP, I recently found second-hand a batch of James-Lees Milne's diaries in hardback. A treasure trove of upper-class upper Bohemia gossip and sharp sophisticated observation. J L-M can be as harsh and funny about himself as he is about others. Once you get used to the snobbery, it's all about The Human Condition. It doesn't hurt that he's at least half-gay, and alludes to plenty of former fun. Excellent diversion from Covid.

I wanted to read Trust Exercise. Maybe I should give it another go.

I've just started Trust Exercise. I don't like it. I'm going to read Great Expectations instead.

I'm reading M, the son of the century by Antonio Scuratti about the rise of Mussolini in Italy.

It's a curious novel because it's not fiction, everything that appears it's documented. It's interesting but exhausting (every italian novel i read, specially the ones set in the XX century is plagued with violence)

Killer, Come Back To Me: The Crime Stories of Ray Bradbury

Has anyone read A Beautiful Crime?

Starting a jumbo biog of John Gielgud. He was quite a character.

R159: Bollen's latest novel is hard to put down, and will make a great movie. It's what Patricia Highsmith would have written if she'd been a gay man in 2019.

R157 Not a novel, but I loved the film Vincere (2009) by Marco Bellocchio. It's close to a horror gothic. The actor playing Mussolini is fantastic.

Anyone read Swimming In The Dark by Tomasz Jedrowski?

I want to read it but it was not published here yet

Tasteful literate individuals of DL, recommend me fiction? Novellas, plays, and short stories welcome as well as longer reads. Anything to stop me re-reading the same books over and over as I have been for months, stuck in a strange self-comforting rut.

Of particular interest: slow-moving rural/backwoods gothic (doesn’t have to be horror, preferably won’t be) and hillbilly lore; otherworldly romance; alternate-timeline fuckery; lawlessness and feud tales; beast tales; absurdist erotic (Genet style); fantasy of manners; magical realism (within reason, nothing Booker-prize related, please); mind-expanding fare a la Huxley. POV and height of concept not an issue. Right now I’m also enjoying anything on the Dustbowl, probably in response to the times.

R165: James Purdy's NARROW ROOMS will check off a lot of boxes.

Has anyone read the children’s novel TOM’S MIDNIGHT GARDEN? Gorgeous writing and the best time-shifting novel I’ve read.

I decided that I needed to finally tackle Pynchon so I've been reading his first, V. It's taken me about a month to get through 400 pages, with about 100 left. That's slower than my usual reading pace but he demands concentration. It's a fun but difficult read, if that makes sense. Dozens of characters; set in the US, Europe and Africa; jumps all over in time between the late 1890s and the mid 1950s. It can be confusing/disorienting (and occasionally annoying) but his prose is so gorgeous, his insights so penetrating, the questions he asks are so high-stakes. I'd recommend to anyone who enjoys challenging fiction.

I did, r163. It's sweet and touching, but a bit lightweight for my tastes. Not bad for a first novel, but wish it had made more of an impact on me. You may think differently, so I'd give it a try. You can read it in a day if you're so inclined.

R165 Read Guyotat.

R166/R168/R170 that’s fantastic, thanks. Added those to my next order list, and eagerly awaiting their arrival. I have actually read and loved Pynchon’s MASON & DIXON, with effort and bemusement, so I’ll recommend that to anyone who wants an immersive alternative-historical palimpsestic reading experience.

While I’m about it, I’ll ask for any fiction recs based around quantum immortality, and/or avataric lore? (not like the James Cameron film, but the whole Gods-vessels concept) Sounds weirdly specific and arcane, I know, but it’s research-related.

Getting into Bataille, with which book is it best to begin?

Eyeing. BLUE OF MOON, VISIONS OF EXCESS, and ACÉPHALE.

In my backpack I keep John Sandford's [italic]Holy Ghost[/italic], a Virgil Flowers book about a phony Marian apparition in Minnesota. When I'm stuck at the doctor's office, I read a few more chapters. For more serious reading, I just received Peter Strzok's [italic]Compၱomised[/italic].

In reading “Joseph and his Brethren” by Thomas Mann. It’s the Everyman Library edition with a new translation published in 2003. The edition includes the novels “The Stories of Jacob”, “Young Joseph”, Joseph in Egypt”, and “Joseph the Provider.” I took in reading this as a challenge. I couldn’t start Mann’s “The Magic Mountain” and saw that as a failing of mine. I’ve been told that Mann is a master and thought I should make the effort to read him. I can say that these novels are pure pleasure showing a psychological insight in keeping with the Biblical story and very diverting. The edition is over 1,000 pages and I am halfway through,

Introduction to Anal

I’m trying A BEAUTIFUL CRIME from recommendations here but I’m periodically cringing. It’s as if the author thinks Donna Tartt is deep and he wants to be like her. But he’s not as original or talented as she and comes off as climbing.

I've heard that Buddenbrooks is the easiest gateway to Mann.

I'm embarrassed to say I wasted nearly 12 hours of my life listening to the audiobook version of the gay romance novel Red, White, & Royal Blue ... wow, it was bad and way too long.

R177 I think the novellas are—Death in Venice, Tonio Kroger, Mario and the Magicians, The Blood of the Volsungs.

R2, Sad. Pick up a book and start reading.

R176 I've come to realise that Donna Tartt, talented prose notwithstanding, is the kind of author that's travelled a lot... in their bedroom. There's nothing "real" about what she writes. It's all derived from great thinkers, great authors, but second-hand nonetheless. And there's a touch of the racist/classist that I simply cannot abide.

Speaking of audiobooks, I was surprised to find myself enjoying the Dutch something (maybe the Dutch House?) read by Tom Hanks. Then I probably went to pee or something.

Dutch House by Ann Patchett?

R183 I liked it, but i like it Commonwealth even more

That's the one. I only heard a few minutes, but he did a very good job. I was impressed.

I’ve returned to favorite authors of my youth. Now reading “The Nine Unknown,” by Talbot Mundy. High adventure in mystical India! Written almost a hundred years ago, in 1923.

Got through about half of the book, “Babylon Berlin,” which I didn’t think was nearly as good as the German TV series first season.

I'm reading Rosy and John by Pierre Lemaitre and Susan Choi's Trust exercise

I finished "Swimming in the Dark" recently, R163; the audiobook is especially well done. Painful at times, a pain that ONLY a gay guy could "get" for sure, but not exactly a tragedy. Regular use of second-person a bit disconcerting, but it was effective. The style reminded me a bit of Marilynne Robinson.

R140 - - I'm listening to A. N. Wilson's bio of Dickens these days.

R110 - - I have that one on my TBR as I'm a fan of the author.

R23 - - I'm reading Pym's "Some Tame Gazelle" these days. "A Glass of Blessings" was amazingly pro-gay for 50s Britain.

Slightly OT, but I have some books to sell - poetry, novels a few old comic books - and I don’t know which alternative online marketplace to use. Any recs?

Given their status as the polestar of human evil I refuse to use Amazon, and I have soured on AbeBooks since I encountered the robdogs in their customer service dept (your bank account details are not safe with those people). Are there any reliable, above-board trading posts for secondhand book left online? I’m in the U.K. if that helps.

ABE Books has been owned by Amazon since 2008, in any case, r189.

Introduction to Fisting

R72, I like Buddenbrooks when I was young. Also Tonio Kruger. But The Magic Mountain is Mann's masterpiece. Loved it.

This year seems to be the diverse year in literary awards.

The center for fiction shortlist repeats the pattern of the Booker prize, most of the finalists are women, most of them are not white and the main character of the two men's novels are gay.

By the way i find The redshirt plot seems interesting, like a cross between The art of fielding and A natural

R189, you can sell books on ebay

R194 this is the future, Mr. Jetson. Surely there’s an app for that.

I finished reading Sigrid Nunez’s new novel and I really liked it. She’s becoming a favorite of mine. Nobody writes better about death and friendship.

R178 I was given an ARC of that. Whilst I don’t mind a little YA/candy I didn’t make it past the 2nd chapter.

The End of October, while a bit of a potboiler, grows increasingly prescient. Without giving away any details, I'm hoping to see a similarly presidential conclusive speech eventually from 45.

R196 The friend is really good

I read Red White and Royal, etc. after hearing it praised to the skies. It was fine for a YA, and surprised me at how explicit books for teens can be these days. Not sorry I read it, and kept thinking how much my life would be different if I had ANY books like this in my youth.

R200 Well i remember an instagramer and model who published a YA (with a lot of success) that it was like 50 shades but a YA gay version (the characters were over 18).

YA right now touch a lot of themes that were untouchable in the past.

I think there will be a tv version for Red, white and royal blue

Read Marilynne Robinson's "Gilead" over the last couple days. I adored "Housekeeping" but found this one a bit dry/boring although she is a lovely writer. But my mind really wandered in the many sections where the Reverend Ames is grappling with abstract theological concerns.

Still, it was a fast read, and I am interested enough in the larger story and framing to read her other three Gilead books.

R202, Gilead is one of my favorite books, and I also love the others in the series. I’ll start reading Jack, the fourth book, later today.

[QUOTE] I didn't think At Danceteria was all that good. It was decent but kind of silly.

You might want to check out Walker’s second book, Read by Strangers. It’s completely different and quite dark at times. The Wally Lamb blurb on the cover piqued my interest.

Some consider Robinson the best. American writer. Jury's still out for me.

In no universe is Marilynne Robinson the best American writer today.

My vote is for Jonathan Franzen but I can think of 15 I’d put ahead of her.

R205 I think Robinson is a hit or miss.

Everytime i go to a american book forum people love love love her, but when you ask europeans, well the number of people who find her boring is pretty high.

I have to read one of her novels to made my mind

R207, you don’t have the right to judge if someone is a hit or miss if you haven’t read her.

The writing in "Housekeeping" was exquisite; the story itself bored me to tears.

R208 You don't have to read someone to say that she is a hit or mix, if i read her she won't be a hit or miss for me, i would like her or not (unless i like some of her books and dislike others).

What i said is based on the oppinions of people who read her

R210 and her “oppinions.”

R211 English is not my first language and i know my level is not good (people repeat it to me constatly on this site)

R212, then I apologize for making fan of your spelling. I can only read and write one language myself, so you are definitely ahead of me on that front!

I’m reading Passions of a Papillon. So many twist and turns, I can’t put it down.

I just finished The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit by Sloan Wilson. I liked it a lot. Highly recommended for anyone who is a fan of 1950s-1960’s America circa Richard Yates, Madmen, or John Cheever.

I'm reading Dune, and really enjoying it so far. This isn't usually my genre

I just finished reading "Killer's of the Flower Moon" about the Osage Indian tribe's mass murders of the 1920s. It is a part of our modern history I knew nothing about. It was a fascinating, yet very sad read.

Killers, no apostrophe.

R217 That was a great book. I picked it up on a whim and ended up recommending it to several people.

My Pet Goat

No one else has read "Swimming in the Dark" yet?

R202. I found Giles’s, but lived Home. Haven’t read Lila or Jack yet. Liked Housekeeping, findvher essays rather sloppily argued.

Sorry, Gilead not Gile’s

I have r221, and pretty sure I posted earlier. It's sweet and compelling. and worth reading. It's an easy read (this is a bit of damning it with faint praise), and could use some grit and depth. But for a first novel, it's impressive. (But not nearly as impressive as Shuggie Bain.

Just finished Killing for Company by Brian Masters about the mass-murderer and necrophiliac Dennis Nilsen, on which the ITV mini-series Des was based. Masters wrote a well-researched, highly intelligent and fascinating dissection of the life, mind and crimes of Nilsen, which won him a CWA Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction. I saw the mini-series - David Tennant was BAFTA-award superb as Nilsen - which compelled me to seek out the book. The book is available on Internet Archives for a free read.

Masters wrote another high entertaining/interesting, well-researched book about the history of the 26 existing UK dukedoms, The Dukes. Also available on Internet Archives.

R213 Don't worry, since i'm on DL my english level is trashed on daily basis so i'm getting used to it.

I know it's not everybody's cup of tea but i'm loving Trust exercise. Maybe it's because i like metaliterary novels with unreliable narrators (l loved Eleanor Catton's The rehearsal)

Thanks R 221

I listened to the audiobook. The second person took some getting used to. I was very impressed, but don't read that many novels, more a nonfiction guy.

For those interested in reading about Marilynne Robinson herself there's a longish profile of her in the most recent New Yorker (Oct. 5; black RBG tribute cover). Sounds like she does not suffer fools gladly.

In other words, no sense of humor. She's also too. churchy for me.

Just read Normal People (late to the party I know). Enjoyable read. Better than most pop fiction. So few good books lately.

I've been reading A LOT since lockdown. Nothing very recent, though.

R229 Maybe i'm wrong but i always thought she was very religious and one of the few really good conservative writers, but maybe it's just a wrong perception of her

She’s religious but not conservative.

Yeah Obama is a big Marilynne Robinson fan.

I’m reading Murder Of Innocence about that nut Laurie Dann. Valerie Bertinelli was in the TV movie so I googled her and looked at a lot of cute pictures of her and Eddie, and now I hear he died!!

And Shuggie Bain made the National Book award shortlist

American poet Louise Gluck wins this year's Nobel Prize for Literature. Nice to see an American get it though I was rooting for DeLillo.

Oops sorry here's that article linked properly.

Hot Pussy: Adult Erotic Novel

Congratulations on your Noble!

The Gift by Edith Eger

Started a biography of Elaine Stritch: Still Here.

R204 thanks I will check it out!

just finished the new Louise Penny novel. i am so in love with Jean-Guy!

Started Morrison's "Beloved" last night. Last read it in the fall of 1991, when it was assigned for my college freshman English class. Lord, this woman can write.

R245, I still remember the first line of that novel. It’s simply brilliant.

Frau book

No, it’s not, you philistine/idiot/R247.

I'm reading The house of Ulloa by Emilia Pardo Bazán

HERE FOR IT, a book of essays by R. Eric Thomas. Loving it so far. It’s very funny.

"Los Alamos" by Joseph Kanon, a historical fiction/espionage mystery set during the Manhattan Project.

R251

1. Silas House - SOUTHERNMOST for my congregation's LGBQ book club

2. Stephen King - THE OUTSIDER

3. Caroline Hulse - THE ADULTS

4. Kristin Hannah - THE NIGHTINGALE

R245 I remember loving JAZZ so much in high school that I wrote a prize-winning essay about it. I went back to flick through it recently (about ten years on from my first brush) and found the writing style overwrought, if still very evocative and lush.

Morrison certainly can write, but I wonder whether she is too aware of the fact.

R254, she is no longer aware of anything. She died.

[Quote] Yes, I searched--didn't find Part 2. If there is already an active Part 2, happy to ignore this one.

Why so defensive? Post the fuck all you want OP. Don't let the hall monItors bully you.

"Shuggie Bain" author Douglas Stuart on his favorite Scottish books:

Shuggie Bain sounds wrist-slittingly depressing.

It seemed as if it would be, r258, and I gave it up between 50-100 pages. I could not go on.

I just started Edith Wharton’s “Bunner Sisters” last night, a lesser-known novella of hers that was rejected several times before finally being published in 1916. Enjoying it so far. It’s interesting to see her writing about a lower class of people than you usually find in her major works. And the opening is so evocative of the time period that I was immediately drawn in. I love her writing.

I listened to the audio of Bunner Sisters - excellent! Don't want to do a spoiler, but it was a double-tragedy at the time, though these days folks wouldn't likely see it that way.

R258 I read a comment that said it was depressing and uplifting at the same time

I am currently rereading " Gerta" by Kateřina Tučková. Briliant young writer and the plot takes place in my birth city. I believe it is her first novel theat has been translated into english language. (The book cover for english speaking market is not very good, it makes the book look like a romance novel and it really is not!)

Give it a try and enjoy.

R263

At least in the States, the English edition isn't available until January, but I'd be interested in trying it.

bookmarking this thread

Man, Douglas Stuart's favorite Scottish books all (largely) sound so GRIM. His list of favorite LGBTQI+ novels sounds slightly less dreary. (And, nothing at all wrong with grim and dreary if the novels are well-written and captivating, but in These Times...) I was hoping At Swim, Two Boys was on his list, but, alas.

Easily my favorite thread on the site, R265!

R266 Yes, that's surprising, specially because the end of At swim two boys is devastating

"Swimming in the Dark" is sad, but not grim.

R187 I read Trust Exercise because it was part of the PBS Newshour’s book club and thought it was very good. I wasn’t sure if the premise, a high school drama club, would be interesting but I was really engaged and thought Choi did a wonderful job expanding on all of the characters.

I read The Testaments by atwood. It's good. The two books are written differently. The Handmaid's Tale is a fictional diary. The Testaments (the sequel) is a thriller. Both set in gilead. Our future if trump/pence gets another 4 years. Please Vote them OUT.

Read The Handmaid's Tale First. The first season of the Hulu show may also help you.

The Handmaid's Tale is a must read.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy is a must read.

I read The Testaments by atwood. It's good. The two books are written differently. The Handmaid's Tale is a fictional diary. The Testaments (the sequel) is a thriller. Both set in gilead. Our future if trump/pence gets another 4 years. Please Vote them OUT.

Read The Handmaid's Tale First. The first season of the Hulu show may also help you.

The Handmaid's Tale is a must read.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy is a must read.

I just finished Brandon Taylor’s Real Life and thought it was terrific. I loved how he writes about the nature and the senses and the human body moving through the world. The sex scenes were some of the best I’ve ever read. The racial aggressions the lead character experiences and reflects on were heartbreaking,

SHUGGIE BAIN is grim and relentless but by the end redemptive and hopeful. So glad it's been recognized with so many book award finalist spots. And his videos make him seem like a really amiable chap. I was surprised to see that I had read all of them on his Gay List, except the Chee. Agree that I would add AT SWIM, but Stuart is young; maybe he hasn't read it yet.

Stuart isn't really young, R274; he's 44 (born in 1976). That said, plenty of time left to read "At Swim..."

R274, what is on the “Gay List”?

r275, when you're my age, 44 is young! It's also possible that he doesn't like AT SWIM as much as some of us do.

And here's the list, r276.

Oi, Londoners!

'Inside Story', by Martin Amis. It's like engaging in a long conversation about life, literature and politics with a wry, funny high intelligence. Not to everyone's taste - the book has taken quite a kicking in reviews - but I've been reading him all my life, so am used to the voice. Very heterosexual (with intriguing variations), but otherwise so stimulating that it doesn't matter. One of those books I can't wait to get back to.

After years of watching Skippy dies on best of ... list it's published in my country (and only a decade late).

Did someone read it? it's worthy of the time (i see it's quite long)

I thought Skippy Dies was a great book.

I'm reading A Beautiful Crime and so far liking it.

I just finished Marilynne Robinson’s newest novel, Jack. It’s terrific, a very worthy addition to the Gilead books.

I just ended Young skins and frankly i expected more. And i can say the say about The nickel boys, i loved the underground railroad and i'm liking this new one, but a second Pulitzer just three years later it seems a little too much

Still on the Stritch biography STILL HERE. Though it's a decent book, I can only take her in small doses! Mention had been made of her transition to butch attire, but if there were a reason given I missed it. Now that we've been told her husband had homo rumors, it's like she was bi (gay?) in denial.

There have long been rumors about Stritch's sexuality, but nothing concrete that I know of. She and Liz Smith were fast friends, if that means anything.

[italic]Leave it to Psmith[/italic] PG Wodehouse's birthday was Thursday, so I began reading this then;

and

[italic]One Good Turn[/italic] the sequel to Kate Atkinson's [italic]Case Histories[/italic]

"a second Pulitzer just three years later it seems a little too much"

This. I haven't read "The Nickel Boys," but I thought "Underground Railroad" was way overrated. I've read multiple novels about slavery I thought were better (Beloved, The Known World and Washington Black, just to name a afew). I thought the whole conceit -- It's an actual underground railroad! -- was both unnecessary and underdeveloped. And its characters don't stick in my head like in those other books I mentioned. I also read Whitehead's zombie novel "Zone One" and found it dull and unmemorable.

So few good or interesting books lately. Wish Franzen would publish something.

I’m up and down on Whitehead, but I thought “The Nickel Boys” was superb—dare in language, Stark in effect.

'A Murder of Quality' by John LeCarré. It's his second novel, and also the second with George Smiley, but unique for a Smiley novel there's no espionage--it's a murder mystery set at a public school like Eton or Harrow that Smiley comes to solve.

The people are typical LeCarré people from the first half of his career--dull, utterly burned-out since the War, respectable, shabby, and most of them viciously snobbish.

R288 People have very divisive reaction to The underground railroad.

Back in the day i was more than ready to declare it overrated. I thought the attention had a lot to do with the political momentum and the fact that it was a big theme novel (and i had several bad experiences with that), but the truth is i loved it. I have no problems with all the changes Whitehead did because it's not an historical novel and before i expected i was inmersed in the story.

It's not that i'm liking it The nickel boys. I think it's a good novel, and i'm pretty sure that i will like it better than other winners, so in my oppinion the problem is not the quality of the novel, but i think to win a second Pulitzer so soon after the first you needs something groundbreaking, or that it seems destined to be a classic, and i don't think that's the case (maybe if this was his second Pulitzer after 15 or 20 year i wouldn't have any complain).

I remember reading someone saying that he was suprissed with the win, The dutch house seemed the obvious choice, she was a woman (after several male winners), with a very solid career and it's a very good novel. I'm not even a big fan of The dutch house (i liked it but i liked Commonwealth better) and i think those kind of things shouldn't be a factor (i remember someone saying Shuggie Bain doesn't have a chance at the Pulitzer because a white gay writer won only a couple of weeks ago, when the truth is the chances of Shuggie Bain are little because it's a very scottish novel on an award that tends to reward novels about the american life).

For me the good thing about the second Pulitzer is that his previous novels probably will end published in my country (and i really want to read Sag Harbour). Previous to The underground railroad only The intuitionist was published (and it was out of print for more than a decade)

I recently read and enjoyed Penny’s first Gamache novel but the second one is working my nerves with its tweeness. But maybe that was in the first book as well and I had just had enough. I need a palate cleanser!

I have to say i liked The Nickel boys ending, but i still thing a second Pulitzer after just three years was a bit too much. My feelings about the book are pretty similar to The dutch house (i prefer the previous novels of both authors), but in a tie i would give the award to Patchett. A woman doesn't win since 2014.

I didn't read The topecka school yet, so maybe i'll change my oppinion after reading the other finalist.

The Nickel Boys seemed like Whitehead just filled out missing details from that huge series of articles they did about the real school a couple of years ago. It was well-written, but I also think a Pulitzer was a bit much.

I was enthralled by much of The Dutch House and just thought it was a more ambitious work of fiction.

And right now i'm reading Todos estábamos vivos (We were all alive) by spanish writer Enrique Llamas.

Llamas is a new writer, his first novel was published a couple of years about and it was a rural noir on the last days of Franco's dictatorship.

In this new one he advances some years (from 1973 of the first one to 1980, he seems interested in the past which is not usual for a writer born in 1989) and the scenary is totally different.

It's the beginning of 1980 and the characters live in Madrid. The novel starts with a car accident that ends with the death of a musician (that's a real fact, the death of one of the members of what later will be Los Secretos, one of the most popular bands of the 80's in Spain) and continues with the homage concert of that guy where the main characters appear. One of them will be dead in the next morning.

While in the USA the 80's were pretty conservative, in Spain was a very interesting decade. It was like the country was a teen, everybody made music, films or paint. It was like a big party with tons of drugs and sex. People wanted freedom after so many years and they had it for a while, because the party didn't last. AIDS and a lot of deaths by heroin overdose put and end to the party.

The movement was called La movida and had it's focus on Madrid (and in Vigo too). The beginning's of Almodovar's career and settled at that time.

The writing is fantastic and it's a very dynamic novel but a pretty sad one.

His first novel was a success so maybe he'll be translated in a future

Has anyone read the new Tana French?

R297, I’m reading it now. So far I’m really enjoying it.

If you're looking for a gay memoir, I can recommend [bold]Insomniac City[/bold] by Bill Hayes. His story as Oliver Sacks' widower, but not at all "cashing in" on that. It's as much about his own life journey as well.

Thanks to the earlier posters who recommended "A Beautiful Crime" by Christopher Bollen. The novel was such a pleasant distraction, and I'm hoping a movie is made based on it. I can already imagine certain scenes with Venice in all its cinematic glory.

I started Autumn by Ali Smith

Is Ali Smith worth reading?

to whomever recommended Jonathan Strange up stream: thank you??? this 10 pound nearly 800 page tome has taken me a month to get thru. (i usually read 2 or 3 books a week!) the pacing of this novel is S L O W. finally the pace quickens near page 600. but soon slows again. and then gets a bit more exciting 100 pages later. the whole trip was a journey! and the type face of this book was apparently designed to force eyestrain. one read thru this "magical" book was more than enough.

"Hunting Eichmann."

Just started Fall of Giants, Follett.

R302 I'm loving Autumn thus far

R32 I recommend The Absolutist by John Boyne and Two Gentlemen from Brussels by Eric Emmanuel Schmitt.

I'm listening to the novel [bold]Munich Airport[/BOLD] by Greg Baxter. Many folks said they disliked the stream of conscious narrative with no chapters, but as an audio, pausing every hour or so, it's not bad.

This is probably the gayest award literary season i remember. It's not only that Shuggie Bain is everywhere (i don't remember such high percentage of success getting into longlist and shortlist of big awards) it's there's a good bunch of gay authors and novels getting nominations, Brandon Taylor (Real life) is shortlisted for the Booker, Corey Sobel (The redshirt) for the Center for fiction first novel prize and Bryan Washington (Memorial) is longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie medal of excellence

I'm not sure if it was recommended in this thread, or another recent thread, but on a DLer's review I recently bought Gareth Russell's biography of Henry VIII's rarely discussed fifth wife Catherine Howard, "Young and Damned and Fair", and I am enjoying it immensely!

It is exactly the type of book I like. Thank you to whoever mentioned it.

Just started reading "Neighbors" by Thomas Berger. Initial impression is that it's slow-moving but strange and vivid. I think I'll like.

In addition to Berger I also read a Charles Portis novel for the first time this year -- "Masters of Atlantis," which I *loved*. Chronicles the rise and setbacks of an odd religious group that's somewhere between Scientology and the Masons. Very dry, funny and quite well-written.

Berger and Portis were prolific at the same time ('60s to the '80s, roughly), both had movies made from their novels (Little Big Man and True Grit, respectively), but neither achieved fame to the level of contemporaries like Roth or Updike.

I'm really liking Skippy dies.

I have a bunch of novels that i want to read before the end of the year, Un mundo huérfano (an orphan world) by Giusseppe Caputo, The piranhas (i think that's the english title) by Roberto Saviano, My cat Yugoslavia by Pajtim statovci, Gilead by Marilynne Robinson and GRB brainfuck by Sybille Berg. So a colombian, an italian, a finish an american and a swiss, pretty international

Just finished This House is Haunted by John Boyne and liked it a lot

I started The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell last night and so far I like it

Listening to "The Chaperone" by Laura Moriarty. Point of view of Cora, a middle aged Kansan housewife, accompanying 15 year old Louise Brooks to New York City for a month from Wichita in 1922.

The Wildling Sisters by Eve Chase

Isn’t that Lady Grantham narrating, r314?

Yes. R316 - she's doing an awesome job!

Chasten's bio. He seems so sweet, I want to marry him, too. Lucky soon-to-be-Cabinet Member Pete.

Slightly off topic but curious how many books you all read a year? I do the Goodreads challenge and usually set it to 12-14 books a year. I know, not that impressive. Was hoping to read more due to quarantine but, not so much.

R319, I just counted and I’m on my 48th book of 2020.

I usually read about 2 books a month

BTW, if you're interested in gay history, The Sins of Jack Saul is a really good read

I've taken 134 kindle books out of the library since January 4, 2020. I probably read half of them, so that's a book and a half per week this year. That seems about right. I'm retired and it's La Pandemica, so I'm reading a lot.

In the last few years I've read about 50 books a year. I retired just before Covid hit so I've plenty of time on my hands and might even surpass 50 this year.

I'm another fan of SKIPPY DIES. However, I then tried reading a couple of Paul Murray's earlier books and they were disappointing. THE MARK AND THE VOID was intermittently interesting but I couldn't even read 10 pages of AN EVENING OF LONG GOODBYES before giving up.

One of my favorite books this past year was THE GLASS HOTEL by Emily St. John Mandel who wrote the great dystopian novel STATION ELEVEN . The new one is not science fiction but employs the same device of a large cast of characters whose lives connect in strange ways. Also loved an earlier novel of hers called THE LOLA QUARTET. Great sense of creepy tension and very readable page turner.

And an older book I discovered and loved is by Brit author A.N. Wilson LOVE UNKNOWN. Written in the mid1980s, it's about 3 girls in swinging 1960s London who share a flat and some men, and then go there separate ways, taking them up to the 1980s. I don't know why Wilson isn't better known in the US, his books are not easy to find here except used on Amazon. I've now read a few more by him but none have come up to LOVE UNKNOWN.

R320 I'm on my 43th

Skippy dies is one of the funniest books i read in recent years (i laughed out loud a good bunch of times) i think i didn't enjoy a comic book that much since Spoonbenders.

And well, it's all laugh till the book turns somber.

I started Gilead, i will probably combine it with something light, i was thinking on Limpieza de sangre which is the second book of Capitan Alatriste saga (by Arturo Perez Reverte), adventures on the golden century of Spain. And given that book is short and i will finish it faster, probably will combine with GRM brainfuck, just for the sake of contrast, because that novel looks almost the opposite of Gilead.

Just finished Peter Cameron's new novel, "What Happens at Night." I loved it -- chilly and weird, unlike anything else out there. I like that he's always doing his own thing. He's such a good, under-rated writer (I think).

Newest biography of Cary Grant, by Scott Eyman. A little bit of new archival digging, but a refusal to sensationalize or draw too many inferences about CG's sexuality, leaving that up to the reader.

R326 I read two of Cameron's novels, i loved Someday this pain will be useful to you and i hated Coral Glynn, so he is a love/hate type of writer for me

Debbie Harry’s memoir is fun.

R328 I can understand that -- his books are all very different from one another. If you hated Coral Glynn, you would probably hate this one, too.

Not reading this year. Just too much time online with dl and election. I miss being a reader but can't break the online habit. The other distraction is I've finally started streaming services. Enjoyed some great shows, but more time away from reading.

Has anyone read Jess Walters' latest COLD MILLIONS? Hearing great things about it and was able to get my library to order it for me. HIs BEAUTIFUL RUINS is a great fun read.

I adored Beautiful Ruins. I recommended it to everyone. It’s the kind of book I’d like to write. Smart and reasonably literary but great fun and highly entertaining,

I read half of Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 yesterday and will read the rest today. I posted about reading his V. earlier this year and this is similar but much shorter -- a bizarre series of conspiracies, rumors and coincidences all linked to one person, in the case of V., or in the case of Lot 49, a shadowy group or entity ("Tristero"). It's all a little silly, with his ludicrous character names and stupid song lyrics, but he's such a powerfully good prose writer that it all somehow works.

Beautiful Ruins is in my to-be-read pile, I've always figured I'd like Jess Walter but have never picked up one of his books. I've also long meant to read Peter Cameron -- which book would his fans in this thread say is the best place to start?

I meant to mention -- Lot 49 will be my 30th book read this year, which is a personal high for me. I still work full time but, ya know, pandemic timez.

R334, I've read all of Cameron's novels other than Elinor Glynn. The Weekend is a good start. It's brief and full of the deft characterization and eye for detail that Cameron has mastered.

according to my library, i've read over $2000 worth of books, which averages to about 70. and i've bought and read a ton more. covid is to blame!

just started my 2nd Hollinghurst: the line of beauty

Has anyone read Hollinghurst's latest The Sparsholt Affair from a couple of years ago? I was very excited about it but then my husband and several reviewers expressed their disappointment with it and I never read it. Apparently the first half is wonderful.

Yes, I've read The Sparsholt Affair. It gets stodgy now and then and is not among Hollinghurst's best but is still worthwhile.

Agreed with R339 on Sparsholt. Worth reading, but I thought the most interesting character (or most potentially interesting) was the one seen the least (the protagonist's father).

I’ve read all of Hollinghurst’s novels and I’d put The Sparsholt Affair in my top three. None come close to his masterpiece, The Line of Beauty.

I just tried to read this bio and gave up. Skimmed the rest. Exec summary: he was a vile shallow queen with all the money in the world, who collected art. The prose is dead flat, and it's jammed with tedious detail.

Interestingly, Philip Hoare wrote Serious Pleasures about another vile shallow English queen, Stephen Tennant, but turned coal into a diamond of a read through ravishing writing.

I've been reading the Chiffon Trenches by Andre Leon Talley. I feel sad for him, I don't think he's ever had sex and he wasn't a cow his whole life but he did give his whole life to Anna Wintour, Karl Lagerfeld, YSL and they turned on him. I think DVF and he are still friends and he and Sandra Bernhard speak almost daily.

Also reading A Beautiful Crime. So far pretty good.

Re: 'Sparsholt', it's in my Hollinghurst top three too. I loved its historical span and obliqueness. Several scenes stay with me thanks to AH's vivid skill.

AH's novels which didn't work quite so well for me, despite obvious deep talent, are 'The Folding Star' and 'The Stranger's Child.' But he's so good I'll happily re-visit them one day for another immersion.

Agree with Sparsholt being a lesser if worthwhile Hollonghurst that is still worth reading. Line of Beauty is one of my favorite books ever.

I am about to start a bio on Valentino called: Dark Lover by Emily Leider.

R338 The Sparsholt affair is the only Hollinghurst novel i didn't read. I have the book at home so it could be the next read anytime.

Hollinghurst is really a great writer but The line of beauty is my fave by far, the folding star and the swimmingpool library are very good. The strangest child stars very well but it's very uneven. I didn't like The spell at all

Thanks for reminding me of A BEAUTIFUL CRIME by Christopher Bolle, r343, another novel I enjoyed this past year. Maybe not brilliant but a very engaging thriller with highly effective descriptions of the seedier sides of Venice. As a matter of fact, it made me feel I never have to visit.

Venice struck me as a sad place

I started Gilead

I have read 84 in 2020 so far , r319, but a lot of them were thrillers and you read faster.

I am currently reading the Cazalet Chronicles, by Elizabeth Jane Howard. They are wonderful and the war years resonate with our current situation. They are quite big but so good you read really quick.

From the ones i read this year I absolutely recommend Standard Deviation, by Katherine Heiny. It has one of the funniest female characters ever and, originally, a very good natured one.

Thanks so much for those recommendations, r351. I put them all on my TBR list. I understand there's even some gay element in the Cazalets.

E J Howard was close to her gay brother all her life, so there's that.

"Call of the Horned Piper " and "Masks of Misrule"

Both by Nigel Jackson

Try googling them, or look them up on Amazon.

Hope you enjoy it, R352, there are indeed gay characters (with the usual constraints). There is also rape, incest, terrible marriages, etc. It strange to read a period piece with a modern viewpoint, especially as most of the books written at the time omitted these things.

I didn’t know that, r353, I have bought both her memoirs and her biography, but decided to read the Cazalets first as they seem very autobiographical and did not want spoilers, so to speak (I understand some of the names of her family are even unchanged).

Just discovered the BBC series of The Cazalets is all on youtube and watched the first episode.

Absolutely enchanted! Starring Hugh Bonneville, Lesley Manville, Stephen Dillane and a host of familiar faces. I think they only filmed the first two books.

Guapa by Saleem Haddad centers on a young gay man in an unnamed Middle Eastern country. Highly recommended.

Finished A UNICORN AMONG LIONS, a bio of Edith Sitwell, who has fascinated me since I saw a late-in-life video interview with her. A controversial poet and writer, she seemed to know everyone of literary note in the 20th century, from Noel Coward to George Cukor. Fell hopelessly in love with a gay painter and was herself probably a virgin when she died. (And her brother Osbert was gay.) A true eccentric—not beautiful, but made the most of her looks by magnificent clothing and headgear. Her life would make a wonderful film. Paging Tilda Swinton.

R357 Oh, i bought that novel a couple of years ago but i didn't read it yet

My Lobotomy by Howard Dully. A kid was given the frontal lobe icepick treatment from Dr. Freeman’s Lobotomobile.

Reading Veronica Lake's autobiography

I'm a big Trollope fan but haven't read him in a long time, having completed most of the major novels.

But Covid has pushed me to try some of his minor efforts and I loved MISS MACKENZIE (1865). It's very much as if Trollope decided to write in imitation of Jane Austen but with a (slightly) more liberated heroine that the passing 50 years allowed. A middle aged spinster suddenly comes into a small inheritance that brings her several marriage proposals, each with its advantages as well as flaws. It has lots of humor as well as poignancy and pathos. Highly recommended.

R362 I loved Miss Mackenzie too. It's really a very funny and charming book. And not as dense as the major Trollopes (which I also love, especially the Paliser novels). I have a huge crush on Phineas Finn.

Agency - William Gibson, it just came yesterday.

Anyone read the new NBA winner, INTERIOR CHINATOWN? It seems intriguing and I've heard good things, but am amazed that it was considered the best book of the year.

R365 I was rooting for it. Of the nominated novels i really had interest in Interior, Chinatown and Shuggie Bain (which received enough attention to guarantee being published in my country no matter what).

NBA winners are sometimes controversial, i remember people being divided about Trust exercise, but i loved that novel

And Shuggie Bain won the Booker.

I think Stuart is the third gay winner of the Booker this century

So thrilled for Stuart. Loved his writing from that first story in the New Yorker. Seems like a nice guy too.

I liked Shuggie Bain but it is hardly the best book of the year.

The nickel boys was not the best novel of the year and won the Pulitzer.

Life of Pi is in fact a very bad novel and won the Booker (and became the best seller booker ever).

It's all about the juries and the moment.

This year, Shuggie Bain had all the numbers to win the booker, it was the less divisive of the nominated by far and that got Enright her booker in the past. The fact that he was the only british surely wasn't a bad thing neither

Just added INTERIOR CHINATOWN to my library's Overdrive Hold list. 4-6 months wait for either audio or book. Didn't know anything about, thanks to DL book thread for the tip.

Don't wait for filthy library books. Support authors now and buy their books with the money you'd be spending on restaurants, bars, hotels, etc.

No, Shuggie probably wasn't the best book of the year. How do you judge that anyway? (Better than Hilary Mantel's book, for one example?) These awards are always a combination of luck, timing, diversity issues, etc., with diversity taking the forefront right now. As someone said, "These days judges read the authors' bios, not the books." So what the hell. I'm just glad that the prize went to an extremely gifted queer author who seems a decent bloke who is gratified and encouraged by the honor. Good enough for me.

I thought Shuggie was way better than the Glass Hotel

Was The Glass Hotel in serious consideration for the Booker? That was one of my favorite books this year.

I then sought out a couple of Emily St. John Mandel's earlier books The Lola Quartet and Last Night in Montreal and quite enjoyed them, too. And of course, there's her brilliant Station Eleven. She has a wonderful ability to build tension in her writing and I love the way she brings seemingly unrelated characters together.

Frankly all the debate around Mantel was a little too much for me.

I read Wolf Hall it's a good novel but frankly it's not even in my top 5 of favourite booker winners.

She won two times and she is a totally established author but for some people it's a complete outrage she didn't won a third booker (she is probably totally over it but not some of her fans)

I've tried to read Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies at least 3 times (each) and can never get past the first 50 pages.

But the book covers are sure purty!

I loved Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies but The Mirror and the Light is about 200 pages longer than it needs to be. I think her editors were probably afraid to suggest any cuts! Still, she's a great writer and the ending is incredible.

Wolf Hall was a hard slog but loved it by the time I finished. BUTB was easier to read and also fantastic to finish. TMATL has been the least enjoyable and taking the longest to finish. I'm at 75% (ebook) and I'm determined to finish. I'm positive the ending will be great too but so far it's been the least engaging.

There's a big controversy in Spain with Nobel winner Louise Glück.

Nobody knows her here, but half of her books were published by a small publisher (the same it has At swim two boys in its catalog). They were negociating a new deal before the award, but suddenly Glück's agent (the jackal Andrew Wylie himself) offered Glück's work to other publisher. That one didn't accept and called the original publisher, so the thing ended on the press.

Some people think Wylie has all the right to search for a better deal, but most people think he should give Pre-Textos (the name of the publisher) an opportunity because they publish her works for years without any benefit. The two bigger publishers in Spain (Penguin Random House and Planeta) rejected the deal (Nobel or not they know for sure poetry doesn't sale, with very few exceptions), so right now she doesn't have publisher here (Wylie wants to force them to destroy the books they have in print).

The curious thing is Glück was very critic with this kind of behaviour but didn't said a thing about her own case (even if the publisher wrote her a letter)

Interesting story, r380, i am always fascinated by the balance between commercial gain and artistry for its own sake, but tend to favor the former, even more so for poets.

Here in Portugal, when Saramago won the Nobel prize (in 1998 the amount seemed much higher than now), he was more than once asked what he was going to do with the money, as if it was some kind of lottery (instead of the result from his work). He answered why people ask writers that instead of footballers or CEOs.

And Saramago was on a different league in terms of popularity and sales.

I don't know in Portugal, but he was huge in Spain. His novels had good sales way before the Nobel and he was one of those writers that critics love but the public loves too.

Nobody knew Glück here before the nobel, and frankly i don't think she'll get more attention after winning it (there are a few cases that really benefited from the winning, Svetlana Aleksievich is probably the most recent example). That's probably the reason why big publishers didn't accept the offer, they have little to gain and more to lose in terms of image

Fascinating to read that about Wylie, who doubtless relishes his omnipresent nickname. Poetry might not ever sell much, but Wylie would take that as a challenge. He'd use the Nobel for a publicity blitz to make Gluck yet more unignorable. The sort of thing alien to most genuine poets.

Not going to happen.

A lot of Nobel winners just don't sell (and i'm talking about novelists). Poetry is totally marginal in Spain (with a few exceptions) and this kind of publicity is clearly working against Glück and not in her favour.

Right now everything she got is bad publicity.

The fact that Penguin Random House and Planeta pass is a clear show that this is considered bad business

I started GRM brainfuck by Sybille Berg. I think she is the first swiss author i read. I don't know much about the novel but i watched part of her tour introducing the novel and she was like a rock star and she even have a teen rapper performing, so i couldn't resist.

And about Gilead, it's very well written but it's boring for sure. Anyway i liked it. At first i thought it wouldn't read anything more from Robinson (to be honest the theme is not exactly what i'm interested) but i wouldn't be surprised if i end reading more of his novels (specially Lila and Jack). It's that kind of novel that let you satisfied when you end (more than the type you really enjoy when you are reading it)

In the middle of The Glamour Boys by Chris Bryant. If you like gay history and/or World War 2 history you will enjoy it

Did someone upthread recommend The Cazalet Chronicles by Elizabeth Jane Howard? I got it out of my library and I'm reading it now and quite enjoying it. Bit of a family soap opera but the characters, settings and period details are so well written that it's hard to believe it was written in 1990 and not 1937.

Thank you!

I just finished What Happens at Night by Peter Cameron and it’s one of my favorite novels of the year. It reminded me a little of Paul Auster at his best.

I did, r387, so glad you are enjoying it. Which one are you reading? I finished the third one, Confusion, and am waiting a little bit to start the next to make it last.

I had just finished Alex Trebek's autobio a few days before he died. The new knowledge that he was a bit of a dull asshole really took the sting out of the sad news.

More books to read, albeit with a very UK bent.

I'm interested in a couple of the sports books but they're not available at my libraries.

Thanks so much, r389!

I'm about 2/3 through The Light Years. The writing is so good, Howard's evocative descriptions of the settings, the clothes, the food, and, of course, all of the characters, even the servants, keep me turning the pages even with just the everyday occurrences of life. This volume was the only one in my library so I'll be ordering a full set from Amazon soon. Perfect winter reading.

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides was excellent. A real psychological drama- it’s set mostly in psychiatric institution- with interesting and complex characters. It would make an excellent movie, in fact there has been talk of it. The author is also a screenwriter.

I feel guilty about not using the library, but I only read ebooks now because I need the larger print. Yes, libraries circulate ebooks but you’ll be on a reserve list for months before you can get anything that was new at the time you signed up. So I buy ‘em.

R392, you are in for a treat as it only gets better, as you will see the characters develop, the children becoming adults. The war period feels particularly t right now. I find her books very underrated. Hilary Mantel considers her one of the greatest writers.

I'll end 2020 with Hannah Arendt's "The Origins of Totalitarianism." I got interested in Arendt last year, having read about her idea of the "banality of evil" for my thesis. But I've read how this remains to be seminal Arendt, so I'm gonna give it a go. Plus, its subject seems to be so relevant today.

Would anybody have any book suggestion that tackles the same topic (authoritarianism, totalitarianism, etc.)? Thanks! 😀

PLOT AGAINST AMERICA by Philip Roth

I'm re-reading a true crime classic called EVIDENCE OF LOVE about the murder of a suburban housewife by another suburban housewife, which I originally read when it came out in the 1980s. Anyone know it or remember it? It's a real page turner, the best of its genre I've ever read.

Does anyone remember a writer from the late 60’s, early 70’s named Tom Burke? He wrote profiles for Look magazine and I used to have a book of his Burke’s Steerage (or Peerage). There were profiles of people like Ryan O’Neal when married to Lee Taylor-Young. The book was very of its time. There was also a story of witches in LA after Manson. Does anyone remember Tom Burke?

During the pandemic spending so much time alone, I've been drawn to non-fiction and current events a lot more. Watching less TV news, but still wanting to get up to speed. So I'm reading Peter Strzok's book. Yes he was forced out of the Mueller probe and ousted from his position, but it's smart and well written and he was and is a counter terrorism expert. I'm enjoying it. And baby, he KNOWS Trump's a fucking traitor.

Also waiting in the wings is Andrew Weissman's book. THis guy is a giant among litigators. He was Mueller's #2 and the lawyer who got the Manafort convictions and he is awesome. I'm also trying to get my hands on anything by Laurie Garrett about plagues and pandemics.Maybe I sound like a bore, but I'm enjoying myself. Oh. Just finished a great gossipy book about the Mountbattens.

Strzok and Weissman are both gay, yes?

Speaking of great forgotten writers, whatever became of Peter Lefcourt who wrote the hilarious and poignant THE DREYFUS AFFAIR (about the gay baseball player) as well as THE WOODY and THE DEAL (both about Hollywood lowlifes)? Smart and funny American satires.

He also was the exec producer/writer of a wonderful 1990s TV series called BEGGARS AND CHOOSERS, also about Hollywood. I miss writing like his.

I wondered about Weissman's sexuality, but Googling him unearthed only a bio that says he keeps his private life private. So . . .

As for Strzok, didn't his affair with Lisa Page cause him all sorts of trouble?

Well lately it's way more difficult to guess about an author just for his books.

Last year a famous journalist published a novel in Spain, he is quite known for his articles, he was even criticied for the excess of testosterone in them. He had several known girlfriends, but the novel is about young gay love. The novel is obviously not autobiographical but he used a lot of autobiographical things, the novel is set on his town, his school and he has the same age the protagonist in the 80's (which is the time of the novel)

I’m reading Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann and am enjoying it.

I read Buddenbrooks a few years ago. I found it just OK, a glorified soap opera, mostly about characters I didn't care much about. But to each his own.

Mark Merlis' "American Studies," thanks to a DL recommendation.

Love all of the Merlis books.

A Time of Gifts

I just finished The Lost Child of Philomena Lee by Martin Sixsmith, the original source material for the film Philomena (2013). I haven't seen the movie, but the book, as the title would indicate, is weighted towards the story of the son she was forced by the Irish Catholic Church to give up for adoption, Anthony Lee / Michael Hess. It's a good DC story of a gay man who hated himself so much, he sought the approval of the Reagan / Bush Republican party. He was as responsible as any Republican, one of which he claimed not to be, for bringing us Gingrich's Contract on America.

It's called Stalin's Ghost, about a Russian Detective. Got a lot of good detail about life in modern Russia. It's light, it's fun, and it is pure escapism

Started MY ABSOLUTE DARLING. Already quite a gut buster.

I'm reading the Destroyers by Christopher Bollen, he wrote the book I just finished A Beautiful Crime. It takes place on a Greek island so it is a little mental vacation.

I enjoyed A Beautiful Crime. But it cured me of ever wanting to visit Venice.

I just picked up Jess Walter's new one The Cold Millions from my library. They kindly ordered it for me. Anyone else read it yet?

Just tried reading Anna Burns MILKMAN and gave up after 100 pages. The non stop stream of consciousness narrative filled with laborious details just exhausted my patience.

Yeah Venice kind of sucks

Glass hotel will be the next

I loved The Glass Hotel.

I am reading The Glass Hotel right now. It is an incredible book and I will be a bit sad when I finish it sometime today.

The Glass Hotel fueled my love for author Emily St. John Mandel and I then read a couple of her earlier books The Lola Quartet and Last Night in Montreal, both excellent. And, of course, there's the superb Station Eleven. She has a brilliant way of building tension in the most ordinary circumstances.

I just finished Swimming in the Dark, which some reviewer called a Polish CMBYN. It wasn't.

It wasn't horrible, exactly, and maybe it simply lost a lot in translation, but I can't remember the last time I was this underwhelmed by a gay love story told by a gay man.

Anyone read Cleanness? I just couldn't get into it. I read the one before and thought is just alright.

i loved both Cleanness and Swimming. and could not believe how much i enjoyed Insomniac City by Hayes.

To be honest i never get the CMBYN vibe from Swimming in the dark (about what i heard because the novel was not published in my country yet). And Jedrowski writes in english so it's not a translation

Aciman's writting is gorgeous but he is totally focused on the romance which frankly it's not my thing and after reading Enigma variations i think i realize that i probably going to hate all his main characters.

Cleanness was not published here neither but i really liked What belongs to you, curiously the less sex the more i liked (i have some trouble on the first part of the novel because i didn't understand the motivations of the main character)

Dirk Bogarde's letters (1969-1997), compiled by his biographer William Coldstream (2008). My god, what a "luvvie" and a total bitch he was!

"The Strange Case of Donald J. Trump: A Psychological Reckoning," by Dan P. McAdams.

Gist: Like Oakland, there is no "there" there, within Trump. He lives for the daily battle in his perceived dangerous world, so today he might need you, tomorrow he might call you an enemy of the people. No constancy, no consistency, no loyalty, no interior anything. Empty. Never reflecting.

Don't think you need a book to know that.

R428, In fairness, this was only the first 10 pages or so.

Plus the author explained how he had this "the world is dangerous" (i.e., the enemy) attitude instilled by his father.

I don't recall reading others' comments to the effect that Trump lives a completely episodic life, like a daily amnesiac.

Nor that, for all his interviews and his decades of public life, Trump has told no anecdotes of his life, no stories that comprise HIS story.

Well, that's quite simple, r429, he obviously could never face the truth about his life.

Hey. this guy just died, Jerrold Post. He was the real spymaster guy. Lots of cred. CIA profiler, wrote lots of books,....a real analysis of Trump.Said he was dangerous and crazy.

I've been into the crime noir novels of Jim Thompson. Just finished The Grifters and Killer Inside Me and now into The Getaway.

Just read Jess Walter's new novel THE COLD MILLIONS. Wonderful smart book, unforgettable characters, plot twists and a great historical setting, Spokane, WA in 1909-11. You can count on a fabulous mini-series in a couple of years.

Went to my wonderful local book co-op today and scored some great (if middle brow) titles for $12:

FLAUBERT'S PARROT (Julian Barnes)

MY BRILLIANT CAREER (Miles Franklin)

FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Alison Lurie)

BEE SEASON (Myla Goldberg)

Never read any of them but I've had my eye on them all over recent years.

RIP John le Carre

If I was going to start reading him, where would I best begin?

The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, followed by Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy then The Little Drummer Girl.

I highly recommend the audiobooks narrated by Michael Jayston who played Peter Guillam in the definitive miniseries of TTTS with Alec Guinness and Ian Richardson.

'Fame', volume two of the Lucian Freud biography by William Feaver.

Quite as unputdownable as volume one ('Youth'), if just a shade less lively as reputation, serious wealth and age advance. Still packed with great stories as the genius lives out his long extraordinary life, painting till the end.

Barchester Towers, a wonderful saltire on academia.

Another vote for Trollope!

Saltire? Is that a satire with high sodium levels?

And one for Mahler!

It comes from Latin “saltus” = jump, R440.

Can anyone recommend me a decent, rich, long historical fiction novel? I need to get one as a gift for my Dad.

He's most into reading about ancient military cultures, like the Vikings or the Romans or the Alexandrians, but he also enjoys the occasional Tom Clancy. Anything with a lot of emotionally-wrought warrior types angsting and doing battle and all that homoerotic stuff. He goes for story, characters, and world-building more than intellectual or stylistic prose.

R443 Has he read all of Bernard Cornwell's books already?

A TALE OF TWO CITIES, r443

R444 indeed he has! Twice, in fact. He's a big Sharpe fan.

R445 he doesn't like Dickens, I'm afraid. Charles is more to my mother's taste.

R443, my father is a great fan of Ken Follet historical dramas (i have never read them, though).

I'm really liking Glass hotel, not as much as Station 11 but i like it anyway. I had some doubts because it won't be the first time i love the first novel i read from an author only to not like the following (Meg Wollitzer came as a prime example).

So i hope they publish her previous work (Station 11 was her first novel here)

r443 William Dietrich has a series with a "James Bond" type hero that covers early American and Napoleon's several wars.... fun characters, and lots historical facts mixed in....

A dozen or so books on Wicca, & Witchcraft. Classics by Bonewits, Buckland, Crowley, The Farars, Huson, Lady Sheba, Starhawk, and others. "Spiritual Rx", & "Spritual Literacy" both by Frederic Brussat, "Clean Eating" by Terry Walters, and various books on herbal & home remedies.

And absolutely none of it will be of any interest to DL, whatsoever.

r443, has he tried the Aubrey-Maturin series from Patrick O'Brian?

R450. And why should it be—it’s all ludicrous crap.

How about the ancient culture novels of Mary Renault? Two are about Alexander, but they're homoerotic, if that matters.

R443, has your dad read I, Claudius and Claudius the God? Wonderfully delicious historical novels that cover first 4 Roman emperors. Then there's Hilary Mantel's triology of Henry's 8th reign from Thomas Cromwell's perspective. Not as much fun as Grave's Claudius' books but Mantel is a masterful writer.

I, Claudius is fantastic.

I've tried to read I, Claudius about 4 times over the decades and can never get past the first page or two. As a kid I loved a YA book Graves wrote called Gods and Heroes and so always looked forward to Claudius. Is it the ornate language? I can't remember now what kept me away.

would someone who has read "The Folding Star" please give me a clue as to the last paragraph in the book?

I read the Folding star in 2016 but frankly i don't remember how it ends

Death in Venice

After many years of people telling me that I should, I'm finally reading "Fire From Heaven" by Mary Renault, and I just can't get into it.

My next will be or The night circus or Vernon Subutex I, it will depend of my mood

Just finished Marking Time, volume 2 (of 5) of The Cazalet Chronicles by Elizabeth Jane Howard. God, how I love these books and how the experiences of WWII and living an isolated existence in the English countryside resonates for me and life in the pandemic. I'm reading 2 or 3 books in between each volume to parse them out. Up next will be Bee Season by Myla Goldberg; several friends have recommended it.

Just finished Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth and it was superb. An absorbing story-within-a-story told from multiple perspectives of some of the main characters, and the narrative voice was bitchy and macabre, which are two of my favorite moods.

Renault takes some time to adjust to her prose, but it's usually worth it. Persian Boy is a masterpiece.

I have the charioter at home, i bought it a good bunch of years ago but never read it

I also bought the The Charioteer, read a few pages and then stopped. I was attracted by the beautiful cover portrait.

Charioteer probably not the best place to start.

Does anyone remember Whitley Strieber? This belongs on things that terrified you as a child thread but he wrote a very convincing book called Communion about UFO abduction. Scared the shite out of me.

I remember him R468. Scared me too. There was another mystery/horror writer, Peter Straub who scared the pee out of me too.

I just finished another re-reading of Mary Renault's Fire From Heaven. I will read The Persian Boy and Funeral games next. Starting PB tonight. Then after I complete the Alexander trilogy, I'll re-read The Last of the Wine. Now someone ought to make that into a movie. I found it beautiful and profoundly sad.

Alexander is one of my favorite historical characters. I love him and the love story of Alexander and Hephaestion. Mary Renault's writing is poetic and lyrical and I love it. Also extremely well researched. so while it's a fictionalized biography, it is very accurately told. I've probably read it more than a half dozen times over the years.

[quote] Mary Renault's writing is poetic and lyrical and I love it

The writing style is what's keeping me going. I think my problem is that I don't like books about young children. Not even Exceptional Chosen One Demi-God children (or maybe especially not Exceptional Chosen One Demi-God children.) I feel like I've been reading forever and he's still only eight!

LOLOL! I agree,R471. But I really I love the ancient History parts too. It is my absolute passion. There really is almost nothing left that was recorded about Phillip of Macedonia, and of course nothing is left of Alexander except from other decades after his death. And all his family was wiped out. Plutarch and a few others write about him, so the research Renault did was meticulous, and very exhausting. She was really effective in recreating the times. So when Renault dwells a bit over long on the machinations of Olympia and Phillip, Alexander's parents, and all the political stuff it drags. And then of course she goes into exhaustive details when the boys go off to school and Alexanders young companions are sort of formed then. The second book, The Persian Boy is much more personal. And funeral games is just brutal. Taken altogether it's a fascinating period.

R456, my brother and I read it as very average teenagers so the language can't have been that ornate. What likely helped immensely was that we had watched the BBC series. We loved it so much watching it in the afternoons that one summer. We had summer school in the morning and then would rush home to watch IC. So knowing the whole story was helpful in reading the two enormously long books. That tv series set off our love of Roman history. We were reading Suetonius, history books, etc. My brother even checked out Greek and Latin books to self-learn the languages. Though that didn't amount to much.

Close to finishing "The Big Rock Candy Mountain" which is a big slab of a novel published by Wallace Stegner in 1943. It's beautiful and slow-moving but not in a bad way - feels like 19th Century literature in the way it follows a family's descent over many years. He writes beautifully of the Western landscape and his treatment of women characters feels more progressive than peers who came along a bit later -- Bellow, Roth, Updike. I read his "Angle of Repose" last year and loved that too.

I read my first Stegner, CROSSING TO SAFETY last year and found it rather dreary and formulaic. But maybe I'll give one of your titles a try, r474.

R472 Can I skip straight to Persian Boy, or will I be lost?

The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs. Anyone who is interested in why American cities had "urban renewal" and became shittholes until the 90s or so should read this book.

Strong Towns, Charles Marohn. If you think the past few economic crises were bad, just wait until two to three decades from now. The vast majority of cities--regardless if they are red or blue--are basically financially insolvent. The post WW2 growth model has emphasized "build and they will come" over organic growth. This has huge ramifications for our country. And it explains a great deal about why we Americans feel so disconnected, tired, unhappy, etc. This book is both terrifying and uplifting.

Patterns of Democracy, Arend Lijjpart. A study of democracies all over the world, presidential model vs. parliament, consensus building vs. majoritarianism, etc. Highlights what is both good and bad about American government structure.

What should I read by Walker Percy? I want to try one.

Another Stegner fan. He was one of the beginnings of the bucolic strain of literature that gave us Barbara Kingsolver. I think Crossing to Safety is my favorite, but it may be because of its academic milieu, which is pretty accurately and keenly observed.

Favorites of my own: Edmund White, Ethan Mordden...and to a lesser degree Felice Picano. White is the only one who publishes with any frequency.

On Hilary St. John Mandel..I loved Station Eleven and gave it to several friends, none of whom were much interested in post-apocalyptic literature, but all of whom raved about it. Was eager to read The Glass Hotel, then.. meh. There is less here than meets the eye, as they say.

I loved The Glass Hotel and then read a couple of her earliest books One Night in Montreal and The Lola Quartet. Really enjoyed those, too, and of course Station Eleven.

R480 In my country Station Eleven was her first translated novel.

Curiously i find it out of the blue that was published back in the day (even i was waiting for the book), and something similar it happened this year with The glass hotel.

Due the pandemic Station Eleven received a lot of attention in the press.

Sometimes the success of a novel makes the publisher release the previous work (here it happened with Louis Erdrich and Philip Meyer) i hope it happens with her because i really liked her two last novels

I am doing the sams, r462, will start the 4th , Casting Off soon. They are wonderful. I recently read The Long View, which has been my least favorite of her books so far.

I liked Station Eleven but got bored on the Shakespeare troupe at times, and it felt somewhat forced. Have tried twice Glass Hotel, but didn’t take. On apocalyptic books I would recommend Louise Welsh Plague triology , very similar to our current situation. Book 2, Death is a Welcome Guest even starts with a ship being forbidden to coast, as it happened some months ago.

R476, Fire from Heaven talks about the forming of Alexander's character. His unbreakable bond with Hephaestion. And the personalities of the people who populated his world, important characters who would circle back later. I love the history, so I found it valuable. You can skip it, or you can skim over the boring parts, the overly descriptive parts. I mean, I'm glad the 12 yr old Alexander found a goat trail that later allowed him to mount an attack on a warring tribe, right? But I didn't need to read about it. He hung out with his father's soldiers as a child. They grew to love him, understand him and respect him as he grew up. That was important to his effectiveness as a leader. Easy to skip over Olympias holding religious ceremonies and putting curses on people and celebrating Dionysus in the olive groves., or her resentments of people, but some of that becomes important to the story later. Short answer, yeah you can just go right to the Persian Boy. I just find the whole experience richer by following the Renault story as it evolves.

Agree that you can begin with Persian Boy. It's self-contained. I started there and was none the worse for it!

I'm reading this book and it's an amazing dissection of where we are as a country thanks to postmodern theory rippling from academia into the greater culture. The first chapter talks about how critical theory arose out of a rejection of modernism and enlightenment, not of religion. The current left is anti reason and anti science.

What’s with the occasional and terrible gay jokes in Louise Penny’s Gamache series? They stop me every time.

Just finished Death in Venice

Enjoying Ishiguro's BURIED GIANT. Looking forward to his new one early next year.

R489, is it good? I love Ishiguro but the story of that one made me cautious...

Before the advent of Film, back in the early 20th Century and earlier, writers had to be descriptive. So people like Edith Wharton, or Trollope or the rest tended to write in ways that seem boring now, but being able to visualize a place, a room, a face was important.

r490, the jury is still out. I was also put off a bit by the description and the idea that it's something of a fable. But it was recommended by someone I trust. So far it's still a mystery as to what it's up to, but it's beautifully written and has kept my attention—1/3 of the way through.

Question for the Ishiguro fans:

I loved The Remains of the Day but all of his other books seem so different from that one. Which book would you recommend I read next?

I can't help you because The remains of the day is the only Ishiguro's novel i read (and i loved it). Curiously i was searching for Never let me go when i bouth The remains of the day, i bouth it a couple of months later but never read it.

Never Let Me Go, r493, it is one of my favorite books. A Pale View of the Hills is also very good.

Agree with r493 about Never Let Me Go. The film is excellent, too.

Andrew Sean Gear's [italic]Less[/italic] is on sale today in the Kindle edition for $3.99. It has a gay protagonist, and won the 2018 Pulitzer. I never got around to it, so just bought it.

It's probably been mentioned before, but I couldn't find it.

Less is one of my favorite novels of the last ten years. It starts out seeming like a light travelogue and then creeps up on you with emotional depth.

The Little Drummer Girl, RIP John laCarre

I have a near illogical wariness of Ishiguro. Likely because he's so highly regarded and I'm afraid I will be disappointed or bored. So I've only read two of his books, Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go and they are stunningly good! He really has a way of just leading you on a pretty good read and then the emotional impact dawns on you. He takes his time, builds it up and it's never rushed--like a beautiful sunrise.

That's what I'm hoping for with Buried Giant. And very excited that he has a book coming this spring.

I'm reading FOREIGN AFFAIRS by Alison Lurie which I picked up second hand in my local book shop. Written in 1984, it's about American academics in London and brings back a lot of that era and how relatively innocent it all seems now. Only about 75 pages in but finding it quite delightful, though it's hard to believe it won the Pulitzer that year.

I just finished A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh. It’s fantastic. Highly recommended.

Have any of you read My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell? I read it a few months ago and found it absolutely haunting. Sadly, the controversy surrounding the book, seems to have distracted attention away from the book itself.

Just finished Jean-Claude Izzo's A Sun for the Dying. Down and out in Marseilles.

In the middle of Tana French, The Likeness. I loved In The Woods and thought I'd give her another go. Very good writing, thought-provoking premise, lots of (republic) Irish angst, Jameson and Guinness.

Next on the nightstand, Robert Wilson, The Company of Strangers. Wilson's protagonists are Spain and the Spanish and Portugal and the Portugese. Wilson's The Blind Man of Seville was excellent.

I thought Less was mediocre at best

I've tried reading Less about 3 times but never get past 20 pages or so.

Less is one of the weakest Pulitzer winners in recent times. It's not a bad novel but not what you expect from such an award.

And it's weird that with all gay writers that were successful and critically acclaimed it was Andrew Sean Greer the one who got the prize.

Anyway, part of the criticism (and it happened the same with The Goldfinch or All the light you cannot see) came from the fact that the novel was a bestseller. There are some winners like Tinkers who are far from being that great, but the fact that the author was a complete unknown and nobody read that novel before the award helped to avoid any criticism.

Anyway, in my oppinion the Booker is making a better job than the Pulitzer lately. I was not that impressed with The Nickel boys either, a good novel but far from being great enough to get Whitehead a second Pulitzer in such short period of time

We will look back and say the same thing about Shuggie Bain R508. It’s no more award worthy than Less.

There are a lot of differences between Shuggie Bain and Less, first Stuart was a completely unknown who was rejected for a lot of publishers. The interest in the book was a surprise.

It's true that Less was a surprise winner, but that was becasue the book is a comedy, something not usual in awards. Shuggie Bain was front and center, and a contender to all the awards at the start of the season, something most hyped debut novels are unable to do

I don't know how well is going to age Shuggie Bain (it was not published in my contry yet), there are some award winners and nominates that i highly doubt they'll pass the test of time, i think novels like The idiot or Exit West won't be remembered at all. And once the fever for Sally Rooney pass people will wonder why her novels received that much attention.

Anyway, not always the most loved by critics are the ones that are remembered with the pass of the years

Less is not a bad novel, it's simply not Pulitzer material (at least it's way better than Story of a marriage), of course it could be a case of not being fond of his writing style

Please list the recent Pulitzer winners you think deserving of the award.

I'm the poster upthread who's reading Alison Lurie's FOREIGN AFFAIRS which won the Pulitzer in 1984. Though I said it was a delightful read (I'd read about 75 pages at that point), I'd now say it's a hopelessly insipid piece of writing, the equivalent of a bad1980s movie-made-for-TV romcom. I'm struggling to finish it. Can't imagine why it was awarded a Pulitzer....I wonder if the choice was controversial. I must look up some of the original reviews.

R512. I live in the town (Ithaca) where Laurie lived for forty plus years. My friends, many of whom knew Laurie and admired her, say they think she won the Pulitzer on the basis of the charming opening chapter and that the novel goes downhill from there. (I enjoyed the novel for what it is—and Hallmsrk did make a TV version with Joanne Woodward and Brian Dennehy.)

R511 The overstory, The underground railroad, A visit from the goon squad. Of course it has a lot to do with personal taste. I follow a page that predicts the pulitzer and there people seemed to love The nickel boys while having mixed oppinions about Trust Exercise (the winner of National book award), i liked Susan Choi's novel way more

Anyway, nobody knows how time is going to treat award novels, and even it's different in different countries.

For example in my country The shipping news or A thousand accress without being very popular never went out of print, while more recent Pulitzers like March or The known world were out of print pretty soon.

I remember reading a page about forgotten pulitzer winners, while most of them were from the first decades of the award, they mentioned the case of Martin Dressler as very curious. There seem to not be any interest in the novel while the author is not forgotten at all and even was nominated to big awards after winning the Pulitzer.

And there's a clear change in the nominees of big awards. It's pretty obvious they avoid lack of diversity in the nominees. The result is the discovery of very good novels that would be ignored not so long ago, on the other hand there are novels that wouldn't get that nomination without the diversity points (of course there were a good bunch of sacred cows that got nomination by their name only in the past).

This years booker attracted that kind of attention (specially because a lot of the nominees were debut novels). The winning of Shuggie Bain was not a surprise because it was less divisive novel of the bunch by far (Anne Enright knows that's a good quality when a jury doesn't know what to choose), and even the most adverse critics thought it was a worthy winner (even some of them probably only thought that compared with the rest of the short list)

Sorry, Laurie not Laurie above. Autocorrect changed it and I was too lazy to proofread

LURIE but I knew who you meant. Thanks for your comments, 515.

The Hours by Michael Cunningham is a Pulitzer Prize worthy book by a gay writer.

R517 The hours was the one that opened the path but in my oppinion the award that made the difference and make gay writers more visible (it's true that only a few got the award but a lot gay writers were nominated in recent years) was Alan Hollinghurst' The line of beauty.

Novels like What belongs to you would be ignored by mainstream awards not so long ago.

It's like the most anticipated books of the year lists, now it's pretty common to see gay authors and novels. The last type of that kind of list the i watched had several gay authors (Memorial by Bryan Washington or This violent delights by Micach Nemerever). I don't think that was that common in the past.

Is Linwood Barclay any good?

The works of David Leavitt and Edmund White both made a splash in the world of mainstream fiction.

Will David Leavitt ever make a decent comeback? His last few novels were terrible.

Has anyone here read his latest SHELTER IN PLACE (2020)?

I lost interest in Leavitt's books some years ago. But his early ones, such as LOST LANGUAGE OF CRANES, were trailblazers.

Right now I'm very much enjoying HAMNET.

Successful and mainstream are two different things.

Literature (unlike cinema or music) doesn't need to get out of a niche to be successful, Edmund White and Armistead Maupin are perfect examples, they were/are successful but i doubt they have many straight readers. In fact White is the clear example of someone who has a very good reputation as writer but never was nominated to a big award (of course there are straight examples of that like James Salter) even White made some effort to avoid gay characters in recent works (something i found utterly absurd).

The lost language of cranes is one of the 80's classic, and unlike others Leavitt was nominated (i think it was to the PEN/Faulkner), i'm not too fond of Lost language of cranes (there are parts that are amazing but in my oppinion the story didn't age well). He got some recognition from recent works, The indian clerk is interesting but cold (it's difficult to be invested on the characters), and The hotel franckforts it's pretty good till he decides to screw thing up on the last part of the novel (something that remind me of the old times were the gay character had to be punished while the rest live a happy heterosexual life).

And talking about screwing things up in the last part of the novel, we have Colm Toibin (i'm thinking on his novel Brooklyn, i generally hate love stories and this time i was totally engagged in a straight love story till the stupid main character had to screw things up in the last part of the novel). Colm is a writer who has both things success and mainstream recognition, even if he didn't won the booker he was nominated several times.

Right now new gay writers have an easier path to at least catch the attention but curiously if you go to the debut novels that did well in award season you don't find the Homegoing, City on fire or The gilrs types, that were hyped to high heaven even before the release. ,Novels like What belongs to you or Shuggie Bain gained traction after being published (and Shuggie Bain was rejected multiple times)

Hannet is going to be published in my country in the following months, i am quite curious because i didn't read anything from Maggie O'Farrell yet

Hammet is wonderful. I read it 6 months ago but still think about it.

Would love to hear of other Maggie O'Farrell novels from those who've read them. She's written quite a few, but this is the first I've been aware of.

I haven't read Hamnet but I've read a few other Maggie O'Farrell novels. The only one I really enjoyed was This Must Be the Place. I remember among the characters one who was once a famous movie star in the 60s/70s (think Julie Christie) who'd retired and was living an anonymous life who I thought was very well-drawn.

The other two, The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox and Instructions for a Heatwave were very disappointing....I really struggled to finish the last title. Rather mawkish soap opera. So I've been dubious about picking up Hamnet. I've heard very different opinions about it from friends who've read it.

I think i'll start 2021 with Jenny Offill's Weather and the second of Tom Ripley's books (i read The talented Mr Ripley ages ago)

The Ripley books are wonderfully entertaining. Worth rereading.

Don't get me started on Tinkers. WTF was that?

R530 Tinkers is a very strange case. I find the novel interesting but not particularly good and clearly uneven (one thing is an uneven book of The golfinch or A little life length and other thing an uneven short novel) but when you go to literary forum absolutely nobody criticises that Pulitzer.

In my oppion people has no problem to trash The goldfinch or All the light you cannot see because they were bestsellers, but Harding was a debut author and nobody had read Tinkers before the Pulitzer.

Of course you have highly praised novels like Exit West were almost everything he tries fall flat or a disaster like The idiot which was a Pulitzer and women's prize nominee.

And you have A girl is a half formed thing, well, the novel is a literary experiment but you should not get the women's prize just for trying, because it's a failed experiment.

Sometimes you don't like a novel but you can see clearly what others see in it, but in some cases it's really really difficult.

I was reading some best of the year list, and in Spain almost every list is topped by Un amor (One love) by Sara Mesa, but in my book forum everybody disliked the book (i don't have an oppinion, i read a book from Sara some years ago and i really liked it but it was just before she became one of the most hyped spanish writers)

I thought Tinkers was quite good.

R532 It has some brilliant parts, others don't work at all (in my oppinion)

just finished SHUGGIE BAIN. it took me 6 days to read it. i had to lay it down and walk away several times. the back cover said it would make me cry. and it did, but not so much for Shuggie. the "ghost" brother, Leek, made me the saddest. but all in all, i recommend it. well done.

so excited! i just got the new John Connolly "CHARLIE PARKER" novel. "Dirty South".

Well, i suppose it was the booker effect (the novel is selling very well in the US right now), but there were several polititians talking against Shuggie Bain, because it portrays Glasgow in a negative light.

Yes, i know the novel is set in the 80's but that never stopped a polititian in their way to get some headlines. Of course there were some that said that even today there are parts of the city that are exactly like Stuart describes them.

And talking about John Connolly and Charlie Parker i always read one of the novels in january or february, this year it'll be The reapers

"Leave The Wordld Behind" by gay novelist Rumaan Alam. "Instant New York Times Bestseller" (cover) and optioned for Julia Roberts. Apocalypse Lite, Home Invasion Lite. Don DeLillo's "White Noise" did it better.

2021, Part 1

R537 I didn't know he was gay. The song was a nyt bestseller and if my memory doesn't fail it was nominated to the National Book Award

Anyone read the The Prophets?

Hard to find a copy, r540, unless your an insider or critic. Hope it lives up to the hype.

Well, it's been a while without an overhyped debut novel, so i'm totally ready for it

I'm surprised there hasn't been more hype for Jess Walter's THE COLD MILLIONS. I loved it.

Similarities to RAGTIME with historical characters mixing with wonderfully drawn fictional creations, set during labor and union strife in the Pacific Northwest in the early1900s. A fun adventure story but very literate read.

I LOVED Beautiful Ruins but was only so so on The Cold Millions. I know Jess Walter is a huge fan of Ragtime so I’m sure it was an inspiration for him.

I'm currently reading Liz Nugent's novel "Little Cruelties" about the lives/relationships of three Irish brothers. I like it so far.

I'm in the middle of House of Ghosts by W.C. Ryan. So far, so good.

Jess Walter resisted the urge to turn The Cold Millions into more of a period bodice-ripper, and perhaps it's a duller novel because of that. But I can easily see it being turned into a fabulous mini-series or film. So many great roles for actors and especially actresses. The younger brother would be a perfect role for DL Scourge Timothee Chalamet....it's like it was written with him in mind.

R547, a 16-year-old? How Stockard Channing.

The Splendid and the Vile

I want to read the book by the Indian author that the movie White Tiger is based on. I watched it on Netflix and enjoyed it.

I loved Splendid and the Vile. I had no idea how truly awful the London Blitz was. And the color commentary about Hitler and his crew was great.

To celebrate the Patricia Highsmith centenary, "Ripley's Game". She was an expert plotter.

I am ending Ripley under ground and i'm dissapointed.

I liked Tom way more Tom in the first novel when he was a cold murderer but a guy who suffered too (and his repressed sexuality was prominent) but the problem is there are some parts of the novel that are simply very difficult to believe.

Don't get me wrong, the novel is entertainning but very far from the level of The talented Mr Ripley

I've just finished The Persian Boy by Mary Renault. It's the second book in her brilliant trilogy about Alexander the great and I have to say, the final chapters have to be the saddest ever written. It's so realistic, I walk around my empty apartment feeling as if I am grieving in a very personal way. Fire from Heaven was wonderful, and I will begin the last book, Funeral Games, tonight. If you have any interest in Alexander and like historical novels I can't recommend this enough.

A recent watch of the Merchant-Ivory film Heat and Dust drove me right back to Paul Scott's The Jewel in the Crown. I think this may be my fifth time reading it. (I've watched the superb miniseries even more.)

This year the gay authors are gettin a lot of recognition on literary awards.

Bryan Washington was nominated to the National Book Critics Circle Award for Memorial, and Douglas Stuart (Shuggie Bain) and Brandon Taylor (Real life) are nominated to the John Leonard Prize

James Baldwin biography.

....

I just started Raw shark texts, but this was not my best reading week so i don't have an oppinion yet

"DREADFUL." David Margolick's biography (2013) of burned-out (literally) gay novelist John Horne Burns (1916-1953).

FYI

And also for myself since DL's threadwatcher is on the fritz. Old threads like this one still update but newer ones, like the 2021 Book thread does not.

Bump

Anyone read Kara and the Sun by Ishiguro yet?

Klara and the Sun

I enjoyed We Run The Tides by Vendela Vida. Smart and fast paced.

I’m slowly slogging through Rage by Bob Woodward, and it is not an easy read. Lots of taped Trump conversations with Woodward.... and I wonder why it’s a chore to read.

I'm over Woodward and Trump.. He had Trump on tape and said nothing for months. He could have saved lives. Instead, he kept Trump's secret. We condemn Bolton for selling his book instead of testifying, but Woodward could have gone public too.

Since I'm not commuting to work, I had more time to read novels this past year.

With my congregation's LGBTQ ZOOM book club, I am reading THE BRIGHT LANDS by John Fram, we just finished Emily Danforth's PLAIN BAD HEROINES (fun), PATSY by Nicole Dennis Benn (very good), and MEMORIAL by Bryan Washington. We also recently read AT SWIM TWO BOYS by Jamie O'Neill (terrific, heartbreaking, epic, historic). Over the summer we'll be reading BITTERWEED PATH by Thomas Hal Phillips and THE SEVEN HUSBANDS OF EVELYN HUGO by Taylor Jenkins Reid.

I recently read THE NIGHTINGALE by Kristin Hannah (terrific). I will be reading SHUGGIE BAIN, both recommended to me by my local librarian.

Good Eggs By Rebecca Hardiman, finished it today,

before the person who immediately downed it because it was like another book he read...I loved it and would highly recommend it

I'm just starting Leo Lehrman's diaries and they're fun. They capture and era 1930's, 1940's etc. I can start or stop at my leisure. There's no plot to worry about.