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A Good Read: Book Suggestions & Recommendations

stuneville said:
Brighton Rock? Cracking book. Also the two movie adaptations both serve it well (Greene did the honours with the first one himself, and last years' allowed the visceral nature to be fully portrayed.)
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A most satisfying read. Though I was hoping for a direct confrontation with Colleoni that never arrived. That dreadful unseen ending was, nevertheless, masterful.

I'm now on The Human Factor and am feeling some cross-pollination with Le Carre - perhaps just the Cambridge Spy connection, but also the tone. More generally, I've started to assemble my own putative chain of style and influence, which seems - happily enough - to run through my favourite authors:

Conrad>Maugham>Greene>Le Carre

Can anyone offer links I'm missing?
 
theyithian said:
...

Conrad>Maugham>Greene>Le Carre

Can anyone offer links I'm missing?
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Rudyard Kipling. Erskine Childers. Geoffrey Household. Len Deighton.
 
The name only means one book to me:
The IPCRESS File.

And I haven't read it. I had always assumed he was more a Frederick Forsythe-type writer. Have I done him a grave injustice?
 
theyithian said:
The name only means one book to me:
The IPCRESS File.

And I haven't read it. I had always assumed he was more a Frederick Forsythe-type writer. Have I done him a grave injustice?
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Lighter than Greene, better than Forsythe.

IMHO :)
 
Gerald Kersh, possibly. Eric Ambler.

I think Patrick Hamilton might also be lurking in the wings somewhere - at least for tone and atmosphere, if not for plot and subject. The same might be said of Julian Maclaren-Ross.

Possibly Norman Collins should also be at the party - although I'm basing that suggestion entirely on London Belongs to Me, which is the only novel of his I've actually read. Still, there's more than a whiff of those other authors about that wonderful novel.

Edit: To avoid disappointment I should emphasise that, as I said, those recommendations are based more on tone than content; Ambler's the only dedicated writer of spy novels.
 
Deighton and LeCarre kicked off at about the same time, and I think both were a kind of natural reaction to Fleming. IIRC it was LeCarre who observed that the vast majority of espionage is hanging around in the drizzle waiting for nothing to happen, and both he and Deighton encapsulate the humdrum - though Deighton's Harry Palmer gets into slightly more Bond-ish territory than Smiley, it's never glam. Palmer gets hurt, and like Smiley is aware of the dubious morality of what he has to do (whereas in the books, as opposed to the films, Bond is a borderline sociopath, so doesn't actually care.)

Agree that Household, Kipling (esp Kim and Man Who Would be King), and Norman Collins should be there (London Belongs To Me is a fantastically evocative book - you can taste the smog and the desperation and the unrealistic hope in every sentence.) Maybe Buchan - the books a deal less derring-do than the adaptations? Am thinking about other potential candidates..though should really be setting off to work right now :)..
 
I've sent off for a couple of ghost books that scared me rigid as a kid. That's me sleeping with the light on.
 
escargot1 said:
I've sent off for a couple of ghost books that scared me rigid as a kid. That's me sleeping with the light on.
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They'll give you shell shock.
 
I'd just like to add that Len Deighton's, Bomber, is probably a true modern classic.
 
Another new one from Headpress...

The Eccentropedia: The Most Unusual People Who Have Ever Lived by Chris Mikul, illustrated by Glenn Smith. An A-Z of eccentrics. 266 true stories of the most original and outrageous people on earth.

The most comprehensive book on eccentrics ever published. Everyone from George ADAMSKI, ufo contactee, to Nicolas ZUNIGA Y MIRANDA, self-professed ‘President of Mexico’. Entries include both the contemporary (Michael JACKSON) and the less familiar (Martin VAN BUTCHELL, dentist).

An A-Z of eccentrics! 266 true stories of the most original and outrageous people on earth, from bad poets to transsexual evolutionary theorists this encyclopedic guide covering ancient times to the present, includes reams of material never seen in book form before.

Famous eccentrics like King Ludwig, Salvador Dalí and Howard Hughes rub shoulders with a host of lesser-known, but equally colorful, characters in these - mostly - life-affirming stories. There are unsuspected parallels and connections throughout creating an alternative, off-kilter history of the world.
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HEADPRESS
 
Zoffre said:
I'm reading John Le Carre's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy at the moment. Never read the book before, but I'm a massive fan of the 1979 TV series with Alec Guinness. I recently watched the film version with Gary Oldman and was mightily disappointed with it, so I wanted to check out the novel so I could compare all three versions. I'm about two thirds through it and I must say the TV series was absolutely spot-on, not only plot-wise but in terms of the "feel" of the novel too.
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I read The Spy Who Came in from the Cold first, and I'm glad I did. I think it supplies a good background of all the nitty-gritty, trade-craft and occasional action which is seen mainly through a lens in Tinker Tailor...; it also features a skeleton Smiley, of course.

Myself, I've finished The Human Factor: I can see how he never got a job writing for Disney with these endings! Fabulous stuff, once again. For some reason several of his characters put me in mind of something Martin Amis later wrote:

Cities at night, I feel, contain men who cry in their sleep and then say Nothing. It's nothing. Just sad dreams. Or something like that...Swing low in your weep ship, with your tear scans and sob probes, and you would mark them. Women--and they can be wives, lovers, gaunt muses, fat nurses, obsessions, devourers, exes, nemeses--will wake and turn to these men and ask, with female need-to-know, "What is it?" And the men will say, "Nothing. No it isn't anything really. Just sad dreams.
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At any rate, this marathon Greene session is making me think I need to a) drink more spirits and b) start watching my neighbours more carefully. :D

The Honorary Consul next. Apparently it was Greene's personal favourite.
 
Thought we had a thread on this but we don't, so I'll mention here that what with the big movie out recently it reminded me I still hadn't read Susan Hill's semi-classic ghost story The Woman in Black. Turned out to be a really good pastiche of M.R. James and his ilk, one excellent scare which I won't spoil but involves the wind and the lights (you'll know it when you read it!).

Only problem I had with it was that it's one of those stories where if someone had just taken the hero aside and explained to him what was going on then it would have saved him so much bother. But apart from that, it's good stuff. Haven't seen the play, the TV movie or this new version yet, but they'd have to be quality to live up to this.
 
gncxx said:
one excellent scare which I won't spoil but involves the wind and the lights (you'll know it when you read it!).
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I re-read this recently, and I can't remember the bit you're talking about
:oops: :(

The Left Hand of God was okay. Readable. The writing was rather immature, and the characters were fairly two-dimensional, but it was an okay read. I'll get the sequel.
 
gncxx said:
Thought we had a thread on this but we don't, so I'll mention here that what with the big movie out recently it reminded me I still hadn't read Susan Hill's semi-classic ghost story The Woman in Black. Turned out to be a really good pastiche of M.R. James and his ilk, one excellent scare which I won't spoil but involves the wind and the lights (you'll know it when you read it!).

Only problem I had with it was that it's one of those stories where if someone had just taken the hero aside and explained to him what was going on then it would have saved him so much bother. But apart from that, it's good stuff. Haven't seen the play, the TV movie or this new version yet, but they'd have to be quality to live up to this.
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There's a somewhat meandering Woman in Black thread here.

It's ages since I read the book but I remember enjoying it. I thought the setting, and the sense of absolute isolation (albeit intermittent) was particularly effective.

The play, which is great, is based on the book but is framed differently, which works pretty well. I'd recommend it - despite the fact that there's very little in the way of set, props and general business compared to a movie, there's a a visceral quality to the suspense that you get out of a play which can't really be compared; watching people who are probably very used to the histrionics of the cinema jump out of their skin in response to comparatively little, at least in the way of effects and action, is great fun.
 
Ravenstone said:
gncxx said:
one excellent scare which I won't spoil but involves the wind and the lights (you'll know it when you read it!).
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I re-read this recently, and I can't remember the bit you're talking about
:oops: :(
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OK, spoiler: The bit where he's in the house near the end, and ventures out of his bedroom down the corridor to investigate the noise as the wind is blowing a gale outside. Suddenly, although he's alone, there's a huge, house-shaking gust of wind, someone brushes past him out of the corner of his eye - and the lights go out!

Thanks for the link, Spookdaddy!
 
Oh! That bit!

I was probably more scared whenever he went into the room. I kept waiting for the "boo!".
 
Talking of crime fiction - I'd recommend Gillian Flynn's first two outings: Sharp Objects and Dark Places. Gillian Flynn obviously has a bit of a thing about damaged women: the protagonist of the first novel is a deliberate self-harmer - the second, a kleptomaniac.

Bit of Southern Gothic going on - quite spooky and atmospheric. The latter book sticks in my mind because (I don't think I need a spoiler alert as I'm not really giving anything away) the reason for the killing around which the book is based is kind of outside the ordinary, but nevertheless really quite horribly believable.
 
I've taken a step back in age and read two Biggles novels. (...in Borneo and ...in the South Seas) - and they've been rather a fun way of winding down after a rather hectic few weeks at work.

Anyway, Brian Aldiss?

I always meant to read something or other after enjoying this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brothers_of_the_Head

at a film festival several years back.

I know there are some full-on Sci-fi obsessives here, so I'm sure someone could tell me a) What's his best? b) What's his most famous beyond Supertoys...? - Which I'm obviously aware of owing to that rather dire adaptation.
 
Ariana Franklin - The Mistress of the Art of Death. Enjoyable, easy to read stuff.

Well, maybe not the bit when she shoves a reed up the bloke's willy :D
 
In tribute to the late great Harry Crews, I read one of his best known novels, A Feast of Snakes. Tying in with a recent thread here, it's about an annual festival in the Deep South where the populace and some tourists kill thousands of snakes in a frenzy of bloodlust. But that only happens in the last ten pages or so, as the events leading up to it depict a mentally unstable tough guy building up to actions he should regret but doesn't.

Incredibly vivid and intense writing, strong stuff by any measure, but full of Crews' unmistakable humanity. Stephen King listed it as one of the best horror novels of the 1970s, and when I think of it I can see where he's coming from.

Next up, a certain book of true ghost stories...
 
gncxx said:
In tribute to the late great Harry Crews, I read one of his best known novels, A Feast of Snakes...Incredibly vivid and intense writing, strong stuff by any measure, but full of Crews' unmistakable humanity. Stephen King listed it as one of the best horror novels of the 1970s, and when I think of it I can see where he's coming from..
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Another coincidence (this place is full of them):

Last week I watched again the Jim White/Arena documentary, Searching For the Wrong-Eyed Jesus - in which Harry Crews, among other things, describes the correct way to bury a dead possum.
 
Some books not to read. Anne Fine The Devil Walks - not helped by being a children's book misplaced among the adult books at the local library, and therefore never going to be quite as scary as it promised. Nevertheless, children's books don't mean a boring read - and this one was so obvious, so predictable, and so utterly boring. Fortunately, it took less than two hours to read.

Vampire Zero by David Wellington. Well, you could accuse me of not giving it a fair chance, because I cast it aside after reading the first page. To try for at least a semblance of fair play, I flicked through the rest of it. Passive voice, dull dialogue, no description. It's like reading the ingredients list on a bag of salted peanuts.

Tall, Dark and Dead by Tate Hallaway. Okay, at £1.99 from the local cheap book shop, I wasn't too bothered by how boring it was. I was far more bothered about why she mentioned someone playing a bodhran without bothering to look up how to spell it correctly. I mean, if it's worth mentioning, it's worth getting right. If there's no point to it, then don't bother. Boring vampire chick bit lit. Yawn. Another couple of hours I won't get back.
 
I'm really enjoying reading The Complete H.P.Lovecraft. Full of short stories I've never seen before.
 
Monstrosa said:
I'm really enjoying reading The Complete H.P.Lovecraft. Full of short stories I've never seen before.
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I have it in 3 pb volumes. truly great.
 
I'm reading The Left Hand Of Darkness, by Ursula K LeGuin. I find her stuff slightly heavy going, but it's very interesting and has an almost Gormenghast setting (without the dreadful writing) within a sci-fi plot line.
 
James_H2 said:
I'm reading The Left Hand Of Darkness, by Ursula K LeGuin. I find her stuff slightly heavy going, but it's very interesting and has an almost Gormenghast setting (without the dreadful writing) within a sci-fi plot line.
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Excellent book. Should be required reading.
 
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