[shaza]

I know there are a lot of recommendation threads, but they all just list books and I really have no idea what to pick from them. I'm a bit tired of genre books, but would love to read something that has decent prose (something that bugs me about genre is that the writing often sucks) and is entertaining. So SF recs are cool, but so are non-genre (I know it's strange coming to a genre forum asking for non-genre recommendations, but figure that you all will have similar tastes).

I'm looking for something to read for a bit before bed. So nothing too dense, please. Subject matter can be heavy, I suppose, but don't want to have to concentrate too much.

I used to read a lot of SF (frequented wotmania back in the day), but have been out of the loop for last 5 years or so. Here's what I enjoy (from what I can remember):

Genre:

Dan Simmons--Hyperion and Illium (rest of the series/Olympos were "ehh")
Scott Lynch
China Mieville--PSS and The Scar (Iron Council was "ehh" and King Rat was decent)
Gaiman--Neverwhere (wasn't huge on American Gods)
GRRM
Erikson--first couple books of the series
Matt Stover
Richard Morgan--Altered Carbon (didn't think much of the sequels)
Ted Chiang--Story of Your Life and Others

Non-Genre:

Recently enjoyed Jumpa Lahiri's short stories
Chaim Potok--The Chosen
The Classics (Orwell's always good, Dumas, Dickens, Twain)
(Kind of struggling here, you see?)

Stuff that I read recently that thought was "ehh":

Chabon--Yiddish Policeman's Union
Roth--Portnoy's Complaint
Neal Stephenson--Baroque Cycle (I just put it down)
Erikson--Toll the Hounds (had to put it down after 600 pages or so...I heard the last bit is good, so I'll pick it up again).

Stuff I don't like:

Fantasy writers whose first name is Terry.
Scott Bakker's series didn't do anything for me


Thanks!

[Posher]

Read A Confederacy of Dunces..You can't go wrong with that one..IMO

[Sparrow]

If you're up for a whodunit mystery than try Dissolution by C.J. Sansom... if you know who Peter Ellis is and enjoy his work than you'll love Dissolution. It's been ages since I've really gotten into a good mystery but this one has really got me involved.

If you're in the mood for old fashioned style space opera try one of Jack McDevitt's Alex Benedict Stories... good stuff.

[KatG]

I'm a little confused as to whether you're looking for non-category SFF or non-SFF or both here. We do have general fiction threads in the General Fiction Sub-Forum.

[shaza]

I'm looking for both. I'm cool with genre recs that are well-written (in terms of prose) and entertaining. I suppose some originality might be good, though not necessary.

Non-genre is encouraged because I'm not well-versed in it whatsoever and it'd be fresh for me to read.

Thanks to those who have replied so far!

[Rulkez]

Im assuming you read the 7 previous Malazan books before you read toll the Hounds ?

As for recommendations, try The Road by Cormac McCarthy , pulitzer prize winning post apocolyptic novel about a father and son travelling across America. It is pretty short and the prose is pretty spartan (however it is beautifully writtern) so the book can easily be finished in a day or over 2-3 days with a couple of hours reading before bed.

The Prefect or Chasm City by Alistair Reynolds are both excellent sci-fi , I also started reading my wives crime-fic before bed recently when i was getting a little burned out with SFF, try authors like Karin Slaughter / Tess Gerristan / Kathy Reichs fpr some easy to read thriller/crime-fic.

[owlcroft]

I am again, as often happens to me here, in the position of wanting to just point you at a web site (http://greatsfandf.com/) that happens to be one I run (in fact, in this case, to two such); that is something of a problem, because we're not supposed to be here chiefly to tout our own sites. On the other hand, the entire premise of the site is that it is, in a phrase (verbatim from its front page), dedicated to presenting works in the fields of science-fiction and fantasy--sometimes collectively called "speculative fiction"--that get high grades for literary quality without needing any bonus points just for being science fiction or fantasy. And that appears to be exactly what you are asking for (and especially as regards readable prose).

(And I have a similar, if much smaller and more limited one, dedicated to the same ideals as applied to mystery/crime fiction (http://matterscriminous.com/).)

Now I could extract from each a nice long list--and I often do that in replies (especially when the request is narrower in scope), so there is some substantive material in the post--but when what might be of interest to you is everything on the site, it really does seem that the link is simpler.

So, I make this post and leave the matter in the hands of the moderators. If this is too much like sheer self-promotion, it's not meant that way, but just pull it if you feel that's needed. But I really don't know how else to answer the OP's requests.

[Randy M.]

I know there are a lot of recommendation threads, but they all just list books and I really have no idea what to pick from them. I'm a bit tired of genre books, but would love to read something that has decent prose (something that bugs me about genre is that the writing often sucks) and is entertaining. So SF recs are cool, but so are non-genre (I know it's strange coming to a genre forum asking for non-genre recommendations, but figure that you all will have similar tastes).
[...]

Genre:

Dan Simmons--Hyperion and Illium (rest of the series/Olympos were "ehh")
Scott Lynch
China Mieville--PSS and The Scar (Iron Council was "ehh" and King Rat was decent)
Gaiman--Neverwhere (wasn't huge on American Gods)
GRRM
Erikson--first couple books of the series
Matt Stover
Richard Morgan--Altered Carbon (didn't think much of the sequels)
Ted Chiang--Story of Your Life and Others

Non-Genre:

Recently enjoyed Jumpa Lahiri's short stories
Chaim Potok--The Chosen
The Classics (Orwell's always good, Dumas, Dickens, Twain)
(Kind of struggling here, you see?)

[...]

I'm not much of a reader of s.f. so I can't help you there. There are a couple of books of fantasy I would suggest if you're looking for good writing, though:

In the Palace of Repose by Holly Phillips. Short stories, fantasy mostly but a mix with s.f. and even a story or two verging on horror. Quite well written.

The Bone Key by Sarah Monette. Weird Tales-type fantasy/horror. Again, well-written and a collection I would recommend to most readers who don't care much for horror.


Outside the genre, some of the better books I've read include:
The Cutting Room by Louise Welch. Thriller set in Glasgow with a subject of snuff porn. Intense in spots, and the city is wonderfully evoked, the characters deftly drawn and I found the narrator understandable and mostly sympathetic.

Father of Frankenstein by Christopher Bram. Basis for the movie, Gods and Men, itself based loosely on the life of James Whale, director of the 1930s movies Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein. Well-written, insightful. If Whale isn't entirely sympathetic, he is at least understandable. The movie is also quite good.

The Final Solution by Michael Chabon. I see you didn't care for one of his other novels, but this is a terrific Sherlock Holmes pastiche that is also a rumination on the ravages of age.

A Gun for Sale by Graham Greene. Early 1940s spy thriller. Greene wrote terrific, concise, smooth prose and his way with developing characters and interweaving them with the themes of the book make this one of those thrillers that has managed to live beyond its time period.

The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler. Chandler writes in a way people either love or hate since he spews similes like a gatling gun. TBS was his first novel, a fix-up of stories he'd written for the mystery pulps, and there's a spot or two were the seams are visible. Still, this is a fun novel.

Ironweed by William Kennedy. One of my favorite novels from the 1980s. Kennedy's prose is clean, clear and direct, and he finds ways to state a thing you've already figured from the story then restate it later in such a way that you see it from a different angle. I'd call this a well-told story of redemption.


Randy M.

[shaza]

Thank you all for the recommendation. I picked up Revolutionary Road, The Road, and Snow Crash (I enjoyed Cryptonomicon, so thought I'd try Stephenson's more famous book).

That website is great, owlcroft, thanks. I'd recommend a "Where to start" section to accompany your list; it's a bit daunting on its own!

RandyM, thanks for your recommendations. I'll refer back to it when I'm looking for more stuff to read. I appreciate the blurbs that you added with the recommendations.

[owlcroft]

That website is great, owlcroft, thanks. I'd recommend a "Where to start" section to accompany your list; it's a bit daunting on its own!
'Begin at the beginning,' the King said gravely, 'and go on till you come to the end: then stop.'
--The King of Hearts, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
I tried to make that more or less literally feasible: if you start at the site's front page, you will then be guided at each page bottom through, in turn, the Welcome "(a page that further introduces and explains this site)"; the Apologia ("the criteria used to make these lists"); How This Site is Organized; and then a brief "Where Now?" discussion with suggestions. I also tried to do coherent color-coding in the Site Directory (linked at the upper right of each page). But the thing jes' growed on me.

And thank you for the kind words.