Fiction Suggestions
17Jul2003 Filed under: Product PlacementAnyone have any books they’d like to suggest? Good summer reading. Light fare.
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24 Responses to “Fiction Suggestions”
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Hey there. I'm Ariel Meadow Stallings, a native Seattleite who's written my way up and down the Left Coast. Electrolicious is where I post daily randomata, but I also write for a living. My first book, Offbeat Bride, was published last year.
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Joy
July 17th, 2003 at 8:17 am
I’d recommend “The Girls Guide to Hunting and Fishing” It’s a fun read, and quick…I devoured it in about 2 days.
Also, any David Sedaris book. Hilarious!!! “Naked” and “Me Talk Pretty One Day” are the only one’s I’ve read, but I think you can’t go wrong with any of his collections.
Ariel
July 17th, 2003 at 8:20 am
I’ve inhaled all David Sedaris’ books.
He’s been a big influence on my writing. Thanks for the “girl’s guide” recommendation, though!
helenjane
July 17th, 2003 at 9:19 am
Life of Pi–quick, imaginative… Just don’t read when boating on the Pacific for a honeymoon…
nick
July 17th, 2003 at 9:26 am
try anything by Haruki Murakami (Wind Up Bird Chronicle) or Mark Helprin (Memoir in an Ant Proof Case or A Winters Tale). Delightful fiction.
for a little heavier, but wonderful, nonfiction try anything by Eduardo Galeano. (try The Book of Embraces or the Memory of Fire Trilogy). You may have run into Galeano’s work while you were in Olympia… pretty standard reading at Evergroove… at least in the late 80s.
enjoy.
n.
yara
July 17th, 2003 at 10:24 am
the philip pullman books–amber spyglass, golden compass, subtle knife. they’re kids books, but they’re really well done.
Ariel
July 17th, 2003 at 10:33 am
Yup! Read ‘em all a couple years ago!
LOVED them. My dad’s reading “The Amber Spyglass” now, at my recommend.
Cyn
July 17th, 2003 at 10:58 am
Francesca Lia Block! She writes young adult fairy tales about Los Angeles, and they’re AMAZING.
sijeka
July 17th, 2003 at 11:29 am
Paul Auster’s true tales of American Life.
Light, funny, wild, crazy, entertaining, excellent.
rannva
July 17th, 2003 at 12:09 pm
Jack Vance, “The Compleat Dying Earth”
Majgull Axelsson, “April Witch”
Tell me what you thought of them.
heather
July 17th, 2003 at 12:48 pm
Bill Bryson, “A Short History of Nearly Everything”. It’s a good size book about science, but it’s layman science with lots of historical anicdotes. Great book.
esther
July 17th, 2003 at 1:23 pm
any Richard Brautigan (especailly “sombrero fallout”) if you can get a hold of it.
i just read “a moveable feast” by hemingway and loved it.
Cy
July 17th, 2003 at 2:05 pm
The Idiot Girls’ Action Adventure Club. It’s a collection of short pieces (some of the author’s newspaper columns). You can read one any time you have a few spare minutes, and if you don’t pick it up again for weeks it really doesn’t matter. Parts of the book actually made me laugh out loud.
nancy
July 17th, 2003 at 3:21 pm
Pastoralia by George Saunders, I just finished it!
joshua
July 17th, 2003 at 4:11 pm
Two beach reads I recently enjoyed:
Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem.
Your basic detective novel. Except the detective has Tourettes.
[Bonus: Ed Norton just optioned this one, so read it now to later act superior for having 'read it ages ago' when the movie comes out.]
and
The City of Your Final Destination by Peter Cameron
A grad student heads to Uruguay to write the biography of a novelist he admires. A quick and engaging read that’s still beautifully subtle.
Beth
July 17th, 2003 at 5:46 pm
The Secret History by Donna Tartt. Despite the author’s name, it’s a slightly intellectual (the cover says “erudite”) thrill novel about students at a small northeastern college.
Monkeyspit
July 17th, 2003 at 6:35 pm
ah..everyone should have a good book. “More Than Human” by Theodore Sturgeon. Good good sci-fi.
Liz
July 18th, 2003 at 7:22 am
Bee Season by Myla Goldberg: Great fiction combining spelling bees and theology woo hoo!
alphie
July 18th, 2003 at 9:00 am
“A Million Little Pieces” by James Frey & “Running with Scissors” by Augusten Burroughs. Both sad and shocking in parts, but also inspiring.
brodie
July 18th, 2003 at 9:23 am
now reading the eggers book “you shall know our velocity.” good. not spectacular though. however, for summer reading, since you like sedaris so much, and he is excellent, try ” Take the Cannoli : Stories From the New World
by Sarah Vowell ” its super super super great.
julia
July 18th, 2003 at 2:14 pm
Invisible Monsters - Chuck Palahniuk…an excellent, jolting read. Dragqueens and scarred supermodels–can’t go wrong!
TChem
July 18th, 2003 at 2:57 pm
Two recent ones I enjoyed (I just like good stories, so I’m usually a bad judge of “beach reading” as you more literary types think of it):
*Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood: well written, mystery-ish, set in the 1800’s.
*Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson: Maybe a little deep for the beach, but neat. Goes through world history from the middle ages on, if Europe had been completely wiped out during the black plague. A lot of neat details.
*And, oh, yeah, the obvious: Harry Potter. Good for traveling, at least. Can’t remember you mentioning having either read them or avoided them.
Dameon
July 18th, 2003 at 9:05 pm
Gee-zus, I keep doing this. I emailed you before reading your posts. Anyway, had emailed to recommend “Ishmael” by Daniel Quinn or “Beyond Civilization” by the same author.
Monica
July 20th, 2003 at 6:56 pm
“Meely LaBauve” by Ken Wells. This is a pee-in-the-pants funny book set in southern Louisianna. Of course the dialect is particularly funny to me ’cause my spouse is from that area and….well, let’s just say, they really do speak with a thick accent over there.
grayson
July 20th, 2003 at 9:37 pm
banana yoshimoto!