@Reading/Writing Era, Help Pls

[DoubleTake]

So a friend of mine recently got accepted into a relatively prestigious school for writing. They said they wanted to refresh a bit their higher level reading hoping to be better prepared when they ship off.

They also asked me to help pick out a book and read and analyze it with them over the next 6 weeks. I agreed.

This is where I need you guys' help. I'm a bit behind when it comes to reading over the past few years. Scholarly psych articles have taken most of my time and the most recent book I read(House of Leaves) is a bit too experimental to suggest, imo. So what are some good, thought provoking books that I can suggest to them? Preferably something conducive to deeper analysis but not so out there it becomes a chore to engage with.

I was thinking The Stranger by Camus as it's something I've always wanted to check out myself but that might be a bit too heavy on the philosophy.

TLDR: Help find book to read with friend please?

 

[Deleted member 46489]

'Kafka on the Shore' by Haruki Murakami is one of my favorite books.
'The Gods Themselves' by Isaac Asimov is a great read if you're into sci-fi.

I'd be able to help more if you specify what you're looking for. Genre fiction? Literary? Upmarket?

 

[Deleted member 290]

'Seasons of Migration to the North' by Tayeb Salih, a very interesting post-colonial era Arabic novel with strong themes of personal and cultural identity, underpinned by the protagonists inability to reconcile the changes he's undergone while away studying in the West, with the reality of day to day life back in his homeland.

'Il Gattopardo' by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, a sublimely written beast of a novel that charts the Italian unification through the eyes of a Sicilian prince, who struggles with tradition and his responsibility to a way of life that is being eroded in the face of wide-sweeping revolution and cultural change.

'The Left Hand of Darkness' by Ursula K. Le Guin, a wonderful speculative science-fiction novel about an envoy to a planet that's populated by a genderless people. While the book deals heavily with the envoy's concepts of gender preventing him from truly understanding the people he's been sent to treat with, it's wrapped up in an engrossing story of loyalty and betrayal that's heavily critical of the political systems human beings construct.

 

[kvetcha]

'The Left Hand of Darkness' by Ursula K. Le Guin, a wonderful speculative science-fiction novel about an envoy to a planet that's populated by a genderless people. While the book deals heavily with the envoy's concepts of gender preventing him from truly understanding the people he's been sent to treat with, it's wrapped up in an engrossing story of loyalty and betrayal that's heavily critical of the political systems human beings construct.

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Absolutely adored this.

 

[DoubleTake]

Thanks so much for the suggestions snowhite BritishMonsoon kvetcha

I thought this thread was doomed for the abyss lol.

I'll definitely look into what you've recommended so far.

'Kafka on the Shore' by Haruki Murakami is one of my favorite books.
'The Gods Themselves' by Isaac Asimov is a great read if you're into sci-fi.

I'd be able to help more if you specify what you're looking for. Genre fiction? Literary? Upmarket?

Click to shrink...

I'm more of a literary fiction type myself but I do enjoy genre fictions as well. Having said that I dont really know what they're into(relatively new friendship) lol so either one works I guess? Thanks again!

 

[Kurtikeya]

Since it's just a refresher I'll group books under devices/themes you can quickly jump off from for some analysis. Since prestige is an element, these are all books you'll typically find on a syllabus, so forgive me if they're not too exciting.

The "If you're thinking of The Stranger but feel it's overly-philosophical then I'd rather you read..." list
- Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being
- That's it. That's the list. No book has attempted to ask what the meaning of life is more charmingly than this one.

Unreliable narrator
- Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go
- Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita
- Mark Haddon's The Curious Case of the Dog in the Night-time
- Haruki Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
- Toni Morrison's Jazz

Postcoloniality (Note that these are mammoth books and the shortest one is probably at least 400 pages on paperback)
- Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children
- Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude
- Zadie Smith's White Teeth
- Chimamanda Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun
- Carlos Fuentes's Vlad (Except this one. You can read it in a night and it's a modern Mexico take on Dracula)

Feminism and gender studies
- The Left Hand of Darkness as already wonderfully endorsed
- Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale
- Jeffrey Eugenides's Middlesex
- Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber

 

[Nappuccino]

For semi-recent works. (Nearly done with my PhD in fiction. Most of these authors were either assigned or recommended to me during my time in the program).

Short Story Collections (Most fiction programs prioritize this form largely because it makes sense to teach during a semeseter and there's still the wide-held old guard belief that short stories get attention, then you get your novel. This is . . . maybe less true than it was before).
Denis Johnson's Largess of the Sea-maiden -- His last collection before he died, but so worthwhile. He wrote this amazing mix of blue-collar academic. His experience as a poet shows through in the voice and structure of his stories, but his dialog and characters are just so impeccably rendered. Truly a master.
Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad-- A great example of the modern story sequence. Each story pushes us through a variety of character POV's as time passes. There's some wonderful playfulness in terms of the medium at hand. And deeply beautiful over all.
Karen Russell's Orange World
Charles D'Ambrosio's Dead Fish Museum
Steven Millhauser's Voices in the Night -- wild, fantastical stories. A good jump into lighly experimental work. Do you want to know what happens when what might be a mermaid washes ashore and a town becomes obsessed with mermaids? I do.
Gary Lutz's Stories in the Worst Way -- an incredible, unique voice. His stories are just immense even though they're often shorter than 6 pages.
Aimee Bender's The Girl in the Flammable Skirt. Her story "The Rememberer" might be my favorite thing that I've read this year. https://www.missourireview.com/article/the-rememberer/


Raymond Carver's What We Talk About When We Talk About Love -- the godfather of modern minimalism. Important to read if only to know how beautifully sparse stories can be.
Renetta Adler's Speedboat -- a bunch of beautiful, interlocking journalistic passages that get at the heart of the human condition.
Amy Hemple's anything -- dark humor about death and c'mon. Her voice is incredible.
Rachel Cusk's Outline -- A novel where the narrator is in some ways erased by the people around her. Some of it takes place in a writing class, which may give your friend some insight there. Really wonderful and a speedy read.

 

[wandering]

So many good suggestions in here, great taste. Seconding Salih's Seasons of Migration to the North, and Smith's White Teeth. Also a fan of Haruki Murakami, even for all his quirks!

My personal contribution is Teju Cole's Open City, a semi-autobiographical novel regarding a Nigerian immigrant's navigation of identity set against the backdrop of NYC. It's less plot-focused and more impressional, and the prose is just beautiful.

I'd sayThe Stranger is actually pretty perfect for getting back into analysis. It's relatively short but with plenty of material to work with.

 

[shnurgleton]

Raymond Carver's What We Talk About When We Talk About Love -- the godfather of modern minimalism. Important to read if only to know how beautifully sparse stories can be.

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Thanks for reminding me of Carver. Learned about him when a friend said Cathedral was their favorite story. Amazing writer

 

[Nappuccino]

Thanks for reminding me of Carver. Learned about him when a friend said Cathedral was their favorite story. Amazing writer

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He's long been one of my favorites. I have to push myself away from his style when writing, though. Interiority is so important in contemporary literary fiction and he excises almost all of it.

I think half of my instructor's feedback each semester is explaining why Carver and Hemmingway were great, but why it's important we don't just replicate their work.