The Book Recommendations Thread

[Bartleby]

I've asked for book recommendations before, creating individual threads for it, and I've seen others doing the same, so I thought of creating this one in order to have a single place for it. The idea is: maybe you're looking for a book set in a certain place, or having a given mood, or presenting this or that kind of characters, or developing a particular theme etc... then other members can provide you with some suggestions.


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I'll start. I was looking for some kind of dark, carnivalesque novel, something similar to Krasznahorkai perhaps, but shifting quickly between characters, presenting a wide array of them, in a vibrant way, it being this kind of celebration of life and death, merging together the sacred and the profane (perhaps from what I've read about it Daniel Kehlmann's Tyll would fit the description, but I haven't read it so I can't tell). I don't know if it makes any sense or if there's any book out there like it (had I the talent and imagination I'd take Toni Morrison's advice and write this book myself), but hopefully someone will come up with something that could satisfy these requirements of mine

 

[alik-vit]

Your words is ideal description of "Vísperas, festividad y octava de San Camilo 1936 en Madrid" by Camilo Jose Cela. One-to-one.

 

[Leseratte]

I liked Daniel Kehlmann's Measuring the World: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measuring_the_World but Tyll , which I haven´t read as yet, might fit even better your request :https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyll_(novel)
Or, maybe Lazarillo de Tormes, if you haven´t read that novel already. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazarillo_de_Tormes

 

[Liam]

Not a perfect description of what you're looking for, but it fits the "dark/carnivalesque" part; it is also not too long but feels that way because of the constantly meandering narrative: Diderot's Jacques the Fatalist and His Master (if you end up reading it in English, J. Robert Loy's translation is the best one, though currently out of print).

One of my favorite works of fiction of all time, though I happen to like French literature of that period in general,

 

[Bartleby]

Your words is ideal description of "Vísperas, festividad y octava de San Camilo 1936 en Madrid" by Camilo Jose Cela. One-to-one.

Thanks! It does sound like what I described, indeed. Sadly it hasn't been translated here, and I'm not sure my poor Spanish (if I can even grant that I can properly read in the language) can handle it; I'll try to get a copy of the English translation.

I liked Daniel Kehlmann's Measuring the World: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measuring_the_World but Tyll , which I haven´t read as yet, might fit even better your request :https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyll_(novel)
Or, maybe Lazarillo de Tormes, if you haven´t read that novel already. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazarillo_de_Tormes

yes, Tyll does sound like it fits... I remember some people here having read it, hopefully they see this and answer. As for Lazarillo de Tormes, I have it on my kindle, it's so short that I'll give it a try, I didn't even know what it was about, only that it was an important work of Spanish Literature.

Not a perfect description of what you're looking for, but it fits the "dark/carnivalesque" part; it is also not too long but feels that way because of the constantly meandering narrative: Diderot's Jacques the Fatalist and His Master (if you end up reading it in English, J. Robert Loy's translation is the best one, though currently out of print).

One of my favorite works of fiction of all time, though I happen to like French literature of that period in general,

Oh, thanks, Liam. If it's a favourite of yours I'll give it special attention. And you can sign me up for dark Lit of any kind any time

 

[Leemo]

I haven't read the book myself, so I may very well be off the mark entirely, but I think Berlin Alexanderplatz might also fit the bill?

 

[DouglasM]

Not exactly what you're looking for, but have you read Joca Reiners Terron's Noite dentro da noite? It does have a dark and carnivalesque nature, though I think it lacks your desired merging of the sacred and the profane.

Speaking of Terron, I remember him posting this tweet a year go, in which he compares obscure writer Ricardo Guilherme Dicke with Laszló Krasznahórkai and gives us some excerpts as parameters. He doesn't have the endless sentences and paragraphs Krasznahórkai does, but look at that impressive writing.

 

[alik-vit]

Sadly it hasn't been translated here, and I'm not sure my poor Spanish (if I can even grant that I can properly read in the language) can handle it; I'll try to get a copy of the English translation.

It was published in Portuguese (after his Nobel in 1989) by Publicações Europa-América . But I think, it's Portugal Portuguese, not Brazilian one)

 

[Leseratte]

Not exactly what you're looking for, but have you read Joca Reiners Terron's Noite dentro da noite? It does have a dark and carnivalesque nature, though I think it lacks your desired merging of the sacred and the profane.

Speaking of Terron, I remember him posting this tweet a year go, in which he compares obscure writer Ricardo Guilherme Dicke with Laszló Krasznahórkai and gives us some excerpts as parameters. He doesn't have the endless sentences and paragraphs Krasznahórkai does, but look at that impressive writing.

Never heard about Ricardo Guilherme Dicke, but his writing is simply wonderful:
I found an essay about him which contains the unpublished short story “Os olhos” (The eyes)

https://proa.ua.pt/index.php/formabreve/article/view/448/373

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[tiganeasca]

Does Rubem Fonseca, especially his stories, match your requirements?

 

[Leseratte]

Before he became a writer, Rubens Fonseca worked as a cop and later as a police commissioner.That is how he got familiar with the universe of crime he depicts so well in his books.

I read only one of them, Agosto, translated as Crimes of August (translation by Clifford E. Landers of Agosto, University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst, Mass., 2014). The context is the still somewhat mysterious suicide of Brazilian President Getulio Vargas in August 1954. I liked the way he blended fiction and real events, crime thriller and History in it.
I just learned that he died last year. I think he is a good author, but I never thought of him as a candidate for the Nobel.

 

[Bartleby]

Does Rubem Fonseca, especially his stories, match your requirements?

I'd have to take a closer look at him, I've only read one short story by him. thanks for reminding me of him

 

[hayden]

I'd vouch Angela Carter's Night At The Circus. One of my favourites.
William Lindsay Gresham's Nightmare Alley.

Ish, at least.

And I own a copy of a book by Rawi Hage called Carnival, which I think fits your description, but I admit in my many years of having it on my shelf, I've never read it ?. No promises if you pick it up. (if I remember correctly, I bought it heavily discounted shortly after it came out...).

That Camilo Jose Cela novel sounds interesting. It's been a while since I read him.

 

[Liam]

Hey guys, so I'm looking for a short, interesting, NON-fiction book to assign to my college freshmen in the Fall. Due to the requirements for this particular class, I cannot assign fiction, which kills me.

I was thinking of Jon Krakauer but his books are a bit on the longer side (I am looking for things within the 200-250 pp. range).

These kids are coming fresh out of high school, are reluctant readers, and probably skip half the reading assignments anyway, which I can't do anything about, ?

So ideally the book should be sufficiently short, focusing on issues that very young people can easily relate to, nothing too complex, and something they can (hopefully) write their final paper about.

Right now I am thinking of assigning Amin Maalouf's In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong (at 175 pp.), but I'm worried it might not hold their attention for very long, ?

 

[Stevie B]

Hey guys, so I'm looking for a short, interesting, NON-fiction book to assign to my college freshmen in the Fall. Due to the requirements for this particular class, I cannot assign fiction, which kills me.

I was thinking of Jon Krakauer but his books are a bit on the longer side (I am looking for things within the 200-250 pp. range).

These kids are coming fresh out of high school, are reluctant readers, and probably skip half the reading assignments anyway, which I can't do anything about, ?

So ideally the book should be sufficiently short, focusing on issues that very young people can easily relate to, nothing too complex, and something they can (hopefully) write their final paper about.

Right now I am thinking of assigning Amin Maalouf's In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong (at 175 pp.), but I'm worried it might not hold their attention for very long, ?

Since you mentioned Krakauer, how about Into the Wild? It's an engaging read and is 240 pages long. Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried sits at 233 pages.

 

[The Common Reader]

Hey guys, so I'm looking for a short, interesting, NON-fiction book to assign to my college freshmen in the Fall. Due to the requirements for this particular class, I cannot assign fiction, which kills me.

I was thinking of Jon Krakauer but his books are a bit on the longer side (I am looking for things within the 200-250 pp. range).

These kids are coming fresh out of high school, are reluctant readers, and probably skip half the reading assignments anyway, which I can't do anything about, ?

So ideally the book should be sufficiently short, focusing on issues that very young people can easily relate to, nothing too complex, and something they can (hopefully) write their final paper about.

Right now I am thinking of assigning Amin Maalouf's In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong (at 175 pp.), but I'm worried it might not hold their attention for very long, ?

I know this is slightly longer than what you need, but it is both accessible and important: Elizabeth Kolbert's The Sixth Extinction. https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250062185/thesixthextinction

If you are looking for something more of a classic, and again, slightly longer than the length you mentioned, but Ruth Benedict's Patterns of Culture opened the world to me when I was that age. https://www.harperacademic.com/book/9780618619559/patterns-of-culture/

But most of all good luck with this assignment, you might not hold everyone's attention but you might light in fire in at least a few of your students and that makes it all worthwhile.

 

[Bartleby]

Hey guys, so I'm looking for a short, interesting, NON-fiction book to assign to my college freshmen in the Fall. Due to the requirements for this particular class, I cannot assign fiction, which kills me.

I was thinking of Jon Krakauer but his books are a bit on the longer side (I am looking for things within the 200-250 pp. range).

These kids are coming fresh out of high school, are reluctant readers, and probably skip half the reading assignments anyway, which I can't do anything about, ?

So ideally the book should be sufficiently short, focusing on issues that very young people can easily relate to, nothing too complex, and something they can (hopefully) write their final paper about.

Right now I am thinking of assigning Amin Maalouf's In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong (at 175 pp.), but I'm worried it might not hold their attention for very long, ?

Some possible choices that could suit your request; they are all critically acclaimed contemporary books that should also be intriguing and easy to read:

Zadie Smith's Intimations.

The author of White Teeth and Grand Union offers timely meditations on life during the covid-19 pandemic, considering subjects from the creative process to the characters who populate her New York neighborhood to racism in the United States.

The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson.

A genre-beniding memoir about the author's relationship with the artist Harry Dodge, and a voyage out to the frontiers of the latest thinking about love, language, and family.

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado.

In the Dream House is Carmen Maria Machado’s account of a relationship gone bad, and a dissection of the mechanisms and cultural representations of psychological abuse. Tracing the full arc of a harrowing relationship with a charismatic but volatile woman, Machado struggles to make sense of how what happened to her shaped the person she was becoming.

Constructing a Nervous System by Margo Jefferson.

Margo Jefferson has lived in the thrall of a cast of others—her parents and maternal grandmother, jazz luminaries, writers, artists, athletes, and stars. These are the figures who thrill and trouble her, and who have made up her sense of self as a person and as a writer. In her follow-up to Negroland, Jefferson brings these figures to life in a memoir that is also a performance of the elements that make and occupy the mind of one of our foremost critics.

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner.

Singer for the band Japanese Breakfast tells of growing up one of the few Asian American kids at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother's particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother's tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food.

Additionally, I guess most of Ernaux should count as non-fiction, right? And her books are quite short

 

[Liam]

Thanks guys, I love all of your suggestions! Another possibility is to assign parts of a book (if it's broken up into shorter essays), like Peter Singer's Animal Liberation, which can be assigned partially if need be, ?‍

The other thing to consider is theme: these kids are mostly interested in two things: politics/current events and contemporary race/sexuality/gender identity spectrum(s).

Alice Walker's non-fiction came to mind but she's basically been blacklisted recently as an unrepentant anti-Semite, ? And while I personally love controversy, I also don't want to lose my job! ?

 

[Liam]

Stevie, I was leaning toward Into the Wild initially, myself!

TCR: I'll take a look at Kolbert, I am not familiar with that particular title, thank you! ?

Bartleby: wonderful suggestions all; with Ernaux, maybe her abortion chronicle(s)? seeing as that's a topic young women in particular care about, and our college campus has many support groups and demonstrations in light of current American swing to the right, in that regard, ?‍?

PS. The CUNY school where I currently teach has a female to male ratio of 2:1, so more young women (including transwomen) than men in the classroom, pretty much all the time.

 

[Bartleby]

Stevie, I was leaning toward Into the Wild initially, myself!

TCR: I'll take a look at Kolbert, I am not familiar with that particular title, thank you! ?

Bartleby: wonderful suggestions all; with Ernaux, maybe her abortion chronicle(s)? seeing as that's a topic young women in particular care about, and our college campus has many support groups and demonstrations in light of current American swing to the right, in that regard, ?‍?

PS. The CUNY school where I currently teach has a female to male ratio of 2:1, so more young women (including transwomen) than men in the classroom, pretty much all the time.

I've now realised the synopses I've found don't necessarily cover the main topics of the books. In The Argonauts, for instance, Harry Dodge is a trans person; In In the Dream House the said, toxic, relationship is a lesbian one.