I'm coming off the back of some heavy-going science fiction (Hyperion 1 and 2) and I generally read a lot of similar stuff. I'd love to expand my genre horizons a bit. What are your favourite books around 350 pages or so that aren't scifi? I'm open to a lot but the genres I'm least interested in reading are romance and heavy historical fiction (I don't mind books set in historical contexts but not ones that are so infodumpy they border on non-fiction).
Also, why did you like them? There are other threads that ask this question but they usually end up with just a list of book names and no further info in which case I might as well walk alone through a library. It would be neat to know what you liked in particular about your suggestion.
by bacon_cake
9 Comments
I loved misery by Stephen king because of how interesting it was when most of the book is just two characters or a character by themself in a room. Almost all of the book is spent in one room but it’s so interesting that it didn’t matter
Sisters of Jade, by James Downe. Four piratey adventurers go on a mission to save an old friend’s daughter.
The Flashman Series, by George MacDonald Fraser. A British Officer from the 1800’s struggles to save his own skin while getting caught up in all manner of shenanigans across the planet. This is historical fiction, which you said you don’t like, but this ain’t no exposition dump!
Of Mice and Men, beautifully written, thoughtful, sad.
Up the Down Staircase, funny, both hopeful and cynical in ways that seem realistic, likeable characters.
Flann O’Brien’s _The Third Policeman_, which I love for being funny, confounding, and also saying something about what it means to be an author, given that it didn’t come out while he was alive.
Similar feeling for Thomas Bernhard’s _Extinction_, which is a death novel _par excellence_. Funny, sassy, angry, satisfying final novel by one of the greatest to put pen to paper.
Only the silence of Ellory cf. The review I left in babelio 6 years ago
This book opened doors in me that my mind had never gone through before. It exploded in my hands several times, going back again and again to savor one last time the sensation experienced at this or that passage. It’s less the story here that keeps you in suspense (although the ending…), than the power of the writing crossed by poetry of absolute darkness. Story of a cursed life, of a way of the cross haunted by death which transports us from abysses to precipices in the depths of the soul of Joseph Vaughan. Flashes of life and love dot this novel like the sun’s stray ray through the clouds, bringing us respite without loosening the grip that the author continues to strengthen throughout the novel. A novel filled with strong images, flights of fancy that suddenly detach themselves from the narrative, those that make you put the book down and meditate. I experienced plenty of moments like that in this book, of which I kept rereading certain passages, thus delaying the pleasure of knowing the ending but also the fear of finishing it too quickly.
It was a companion book for two months of my life, me reading a novel in a week max, a book that I still wonder how I could have waited so long before encountering it completely by chance. a book that will haunt you for a long time” boasted the cover…Bet won.
A Fools Alphabet, by Sebastian Faulks
I read SF mostly, then Fantasy, then other. Other has been Police Procedurals (Ann Cleeves) or stuff like The Lost Man, Jane Harper and bits and pieces of other like All Quiet On The Western Front. Because it’s the top book on the Great War.
A bit of non fiction, medical, gardening, cooking, whatever takes my fancy really. No not endless cookbooks. More history of, or techniques or ingredients, history of, about, what they are good for etc. That kind of thing.
I confess to getting sidetracked in Wiki often and reading whatever struck me as interesting at the time…veering off into other stuff related.
Read a bit of historical too, not much as I am not interested in the kings, emperors etc. Needs to be about more ordinary people. Hild by Griffith or Shackletons Voyage and stuff.
Why? Can’t say. They all have nothing in common. Just appealed to me personally. I liked the topic, the characters, the events.
The Pigeon by Patrick Süskind.
The novella follows its protagonist for a single day as he experiences an existential crisis. It has depth, humour and the satisfaction of a resolution.
*Jitterbug Perfume* by Tom Robbins. I’m not sure what genre you’d call it, maybe postmodernism. Although that makes it sound a bit heavy, which it isn’t at all. It’s very funny, whimsical even.