Literary treats - recommend great reads

Dog of the South - Charles Portis

Very much appreciating all these recommendations! I had fiction in mind but not opposed to non-fiction at all as long as we're talking real treats, such as well written, perhaps even gripping journalism or narrative essays. Poetry also welcome. Most important is that it be a kind of rewarding read that is not too demanding, an archetype of the treat I'm thinking of could be The Old Man and the Sea or Babette's Feast (although I'm more interested in novels than novellas).

The True Deceiver, Tove Jansson - The best of her adult novels I've read, female children's author who writes stories about harmless little bunnies rubs up against independent, hard edged woman in small village. Ideal Winter read, a good one to gift people as they usually don't have it.

You may already be familiar with The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington but that seems well-suited here.

Also second the Charles Portis recommendation -- any of his novels, really, especially Masters of Atlantis.

_The True Deceiver_, Tove Jansson - The best of her adult novels I've read, female children's author who writes stories about harmless little bunnies rubs up against independent, hard edged woman in small village. Ideal Winter read, a good one to gift people as they usually don't have it.

War With the Newts by Karel Capek. 1936 Czech satire in which people discover and enslave a species of giant intelligent newt and the global economy becomes entirely dependent on them, leading eventually to global Newt revolution and a disastrous rise in sea levels.
― Lily Dale

Ah cool, so is Capek worth reading in general, then? Obv famed for popularising 'robot', but I've never been sure if he's worth digging into in his own right.

You may already be familiar with The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington but that seems well-suited here.
― Chris L

Seconded!

The 'no experimentalism' thing is throwing me a bit, bah. Especially as I feel like IOAWNAT isn't even close to a difficult read! Also I'm guessing that the treat element means nothing too cynical or depressing, right?

I'm going to stick to the rools and go with one: A Month in the Country by JL Carr (practically ILX canon, tbh). Swells beyond its 135 pages into timelessness.

― Vanishing Point (Chinaski), Tuesday, 16 November 2021 21:06 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

need to read this; his FA Cup book is absolutely amazing and does similar

xp I like experimentalism as much as the next person but it just doesn't really fit my idea of a treat

then again rules are meant to be broken and if you know an experimental short novel that's the equivalent of a bounty bar, well... I'd be interested!

some depressing/cynical stuff leaves the reader elated (like Thomas Bernhard) and in that case it's fine by my

*me

also The Hearing Trumpet is one of the best books ever as far as I'm concerned btw, 100% concur, get on it, etc

I think it's less that I want to recommend pure experimental lit and more that sometimes I don't know what people would consider overly experimental - to me something like The Third Policeman is a real treat, but would its quirks rule it out? But if experimental stuff is not completely banned, just not preferred, then that feels easier.

I recently got around to The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares and that felt quite treat-like. The central character is overly obsessive about a woman he never speaks to, which may be off-putting, but I didn't feel pushed into empathising with that emotion but rather found myself chuckling at its extent. Mileage might vary, I guess.

books like The Third Policeman manage to be both treats and the best books ever written tbf, this thread absolutely needs its ilk

A Happy man by Hansjorg Schertenleib is a book that's prob a treat, just a guy walking around with a happy (or well-adjusted) life and every sentence it seems like he's going to die, a very strange tension that I haven't really seen very much

Edmund White's Forgetting Elena is... [pause to consider] quite acceptable here. Don't you think?

various things by John Einarson though I noticed a few years ago that his name keeps getting mispelt on different books or possibly listiongs. He has done some really good music bios including ghost writing/compiling Arthur Lee's memoir. His Mr Tambourine Man on Gene Clark was really good too.

I really enjoyed Behind The Scenes on the Pegasus Carousel by Love drummer Michael Stewart Ware. It was one of the first insider memoirs from the band· I haven't reread it in a while and it has had 2 different updates which I also haven't caught up with.
just looking around my room and seeing love posters on teh wall so being reminded by that.

Simon Reynolds various books on post-punk including Rip It Up And Start Again.

Mark Mordue's book on the young Nick Cave Boy On Fire
Clinton Walker's Stranded on Australian punk and its aftermath

Natasha Ginzburg - Sagittarius
Joy Williams - The Quick and the Dead
Elizabeth Taylor - A Wreath of Roses

based on these selections, one would do well to read any given new york review classic

I've run into a few duds in NYRB Classics, but overall it has an excellent hit rate. If I see one shelved in a used bookshop I always investigate it and usually buy it, read it and enjoy it.

Black Wings Has My Angel by Elliot Chaze is another really good NYRB book - a forgotten classic of noir that I can't begin to describe but that made me put the book down and stare at a wall several times while I was reading it.

That may not sound like much of a treat but I meant it in a good way.

Loved reading Eva Baltasar's Permafrost earlier this year. Maybe too caustic for a treat? But the prose is really packed, maybe reads a bit like what it is -- European fiction in translation -- but it was as vital to read as anything I've read in a long time.

They hired me on a Monday, three months after my first article. For the first time, I felt colorless — a dreadful muddle of various hues, an unthinkably grim and grayish green. My skin was like a mollusk shell, my body parched, my muscles fibrous like esparto grass — and inside I smelled of a parking lot.

I enjoyed the two above-mentioned Babitz books too.

loved 'black wings has my angel'

That one’s on my list/pvmic

- The Beginning of Spring (Fitzgerald), my favourite book by my favourite author, the perfect midpoint between her early and late styles
- At Freddie’s (Fitzgerald), the funniest one
- The Beiderbecke Affair (Plater), the best ever novelisation of a TV show (not counting Steven Moffat’s The Day or the Doctor, which is probably too niche for this list)
- Harriet the Spy, one of the few books everyone should read

I really love The Long Secret, the sequel to Harriet the Spy.

I’m just about to start reading that!

Black Wings Has My Angel by Elliot Chaze is another really good NYRB book - a forgotten classic of noir that I can't begin to describe but that made me put the book down and stare at a wall several times while I was reading it.

Hard Rain Falling by Don Carpenter has a similar effect as this, and goes in a couple of directions you wouldn't necessarily expect from this genre.

May as well start rounding out the list of NYRB Treats. The classic Western Warlock by Oakley Hall was one of my most captivating reads of the last few years. You can see the seeds of Deadwood being planted as you're reading it.

Warlock rules, can confirm

gah i started it last year and had trouble getting into it. i will try again.

lol i basically tried every nyrb classic that the library had five years ago but couldn't get into any of them. the hearing trumpet and the tove jansson book look promising though.

I borrowed my brother's copy of Warlock, didn't read it, and accidentally dropped it through the library return slot because I mistook it for another NYRB book. This is a good reminder that I should get around to ordering him another copy.

The Tove Jansson one is super good.

Ish Reed's early Yellowback Radio Brokedown, The Freelance Pallbearers, and Mumbo Jumbo are short, not sweet, and imaginative, in a fun way (can see where Blazing Saddles might have come from, for inst).
ZZ Packer's Drinking Coffee Elsewhere is a stone cold classic collection of modern short stories, funny and scary and touching.
AJ LIebling's The Earl of Louisiana set standards for The New Journalism, also the old journalism; in 1959, he checks out a particularly wild turn in the epic career of Louisiana Gov. Earl Long, little brother and lifelong rival of the sainted Huey. Sprung from an asylum after brief, pesky experience, he revs up to run for re-election yet again, though now even his juggling of various shades of black-creole-cajun-WASP-country-urban-etc. interests, also the rich, who tend to hate him but make some deals, even his skillz are tested by backlash vs. civil rights movement, as both sides begin to accelerate
---Liebling is well-quaiified to hobnob with sources in NOLA and elsewhere, but mainly he's partaking of the insider gossip, while observing with the eye of a quick study and very seasoned pro (was war correspondant as weill as appreciator of racetracks and victuals, also one of the best New Yorker rovers of his era). Edutaining as all hell, serious too, and not very long (I checked pape count for all of these) _
This may well have been an inspiration for the Coen Brothers movie in which Paul Newman played Earl (good job, though visually a stretch).
Ditto for Billy Lee Bramner's The Gay Place, three novellas from the orbit of a Texas governor w some of the same feats and challenges as Earl (and some other historical pols of those crispy times)---but TGP is too long for this list sry

yes, i have and have read the tove jansson. it's also short!

oh i meant to say and is very good lol

Oh yeah, and Thomas Farber's Tales for the Son of My Unborn Child Berkeley, 1966 - 1969: thoughtful portraits of men and women he knew, also turns the camera around when he gets embarrassingly involved with a sub-Gurdjieff cult leader, a swaggering asshole, shitting on your illusions (worse than Mr. Natural, because realer, although we're left to judge, if we care to, how much of this collection is fiction).

Ah cool, so is Capek worth reading in general, then? Obv famed for popularising 'robot', but I've never been sure if he's worth digging into in his own right.

Yes! I adore Capek, and I went back and forth between recommending War With the Newts, his short story collection Tales from Two Pockets, and a work called Three Novels that might be my favorite but that I ruled out because it could be classified as experimental. He's remembered more for the sci-fi stuff because it's so prescient - he specializes in scenarios where people invent something dangerous, become economically dependent on it, and then keep using it when it's clear that it's actively destroying the world - but he's also good at the small-scale stuff; he's human and humane and funny and dark and intensely empathetic. He's a realist, a magical realist, a satirist, a visionary, and the most grounded and approachable of philosophers. I love him in the same way I love John Prine.

Damn, that's me sold!

Ish Reed's early Yellowback Radio Brokedown, The Freelance Pallbearers, and Mumbo Jumbo are short, not sweet, and imaginative, in a fun way (can see where Blazing Saddles might have come from, for inst).

Was thinking about suggesting Mumbo Jumbo myself, actually (I haven't read the others). There are elements that I would describe as experimental but it really carries you along, definitely was a fun treat for me when I read it.

Seconding Out Stealing Horses.

Adding

Love and War in the Appenines - Eric Newby’s beautifully written memoir of being a POW, escaping and then hiding out in Italy during WW II.

Edisto - Padgett Powell. Novel about a boy growing up on the South Carolina coast with an eccentric mother.

I think I read the Newby book under the title of When the Snow Comes, They Will Take You Away. It was really good.

If the question is 'what's a book that's just enjoyable to read?' -- then my most immediate answer is probably: Raymond Chandler, eg: FAREWELL, MY LOVELY.

I've only read Long Goodbye (loved) and Big Sleep (good on a sentence level, story kinda generic). Are any of the others as good as Long Goodbye, or like The Big Sleep, but better?

Two of my favorite pure treat books, just 100% delightful to read, are Brat Farrar and The Singing Sands by Josephine Tey. Both classic mystery novels but with much more emphasis on the novel part than the mystery part.

Oh cool, need to check her. After inspecting the Parker jacket in Lucy Sante's Maybe The People Would Be The Times(2020--great collection, but prob too long and experimental for this thread, so don't repeat DON'T READ IT), I did finally get to Dirty Money, l Richard Stark's last, only one local library has---doesn't matter, prob could have been at any point in the series, at least after the first, blanking on the title, but filmed as Point Blank, one of the best crime pix of 60s, next to Get Carter. In the debut, there's a revenge factor, but once he gets his groove on, Parker's just stealing to steal, doesn't even seem thrilled by it, or anything, just wants to get a plan and a crew together and go do it, as true catalyst, unaffected by the changes he causes, the havoc in other lives, leagues, other crims, and some unwitting accomplices, later w shrewdie self-images shattered ("How could I have missed that??")
What an asshole, and I was rooting for him to get caught, though I think Sante mentioned that he'd done fine in prison, duh. Not perfect, but kept me reading for sure.

"leagues other crims" I meant "colleagues, and other crims" (others being targets, also side-switchers when nec., though he still screws with them)

I really love The Long Secret, the sequel to Harriet the Spy.

― Lily Dale, Wednesday, November 17, 2021 8:15 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I’m just about to start reading that!

― Chuck_Tatum, Wednesday, November 17, 2021 8:39 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Often my favorite novel

I'm more involved with Inspector Maigret, whether he 's emotionally drawn into his latest case or not: sometimes he's just breaking it down w expertise, w something seedy and poignant through the cracks: good enough explanation for him, as he's thinking about a little paperwork, stopping in for a drink, home again so the wife can "feed him like a toddler," as one female Simenon historian observed.

Most recent fave: A Maigret Trio---Three Novels Never Before Published In The United States (early 70s, which is when he'd lived in the US long enough to get into English well enough to become dissatisfied w earlier translations, launching a big redo of complete works, which concluded fairly recently, if at all, really)
All from the Inspector and his creator's last professional decade, and figures from M.'s past figure, professionally-emotionally, in different ways (usually sucks for him, great for us).

i like those too. they are definitely treats.

About halfway through THE LAST OF HER KIND. Dense and a different voice from her most recent three but incredible so far

As you already reported upthread iirc

Joseph, The Hole In The Zero (science fiction)

*phew* finished. Guess I will either read the autobiographical A FEATHER ON THE BREATH OF GOD (which title apparently comes from Hildegard of Bingen) or else the shorter MITZ.

People seems to think the last three are autofiction presumably because the narrator's voice is apparently really close to her actuall speaking voice but only her very first novel could be reaonsably classified as such.

Joseph, _The Hole In The Zero_ (science fiction)

Read the first section, the one about her dad, of A FEATHER ON THE BREATH OF GOD. So far so good.

I see that The Hole in the Zero is on 4nn4's 4rch1v3 a.k.a. book soulseek

People seems to think the last three are autofiction presumably because the narrator's voice is apparently really close to her actuall speaking voice but only her very first novel could be reaonsably classified as such.

yeah, I think the clever construction of The Friend actually goes a long way to show that it's not autofiction

debut surely draws on her experiences but at the same time I'm pretty confident a big part of it's very fictional (let me know what you think of the final part/chapter which iirc is about an affair)

Okay, will do. This seems to be another short one.

Anything you wanna say about it?

Not much. I can't be objective, and the book can't be summarized.

Trivia: possibly the first usage of the word "quark" in a novel.

Think you'll find Joyce used it first in Finnegans Wake.

Okay, will do. This seems to be another short one.

So you think the affair in the last chapter is pure fiction?

Well, probably inspired by something real. But yeah, seems pretty made up to me. I don't know though!

Makes for a great read

Based on interviews I’ve read I assume most of it is basically true. One interview she went as far as to say something to the effect that you’d be surprised at which parts are true and which parts are invented. She gave as an example of something she had to invent her mother’s trip home when the war ended.

On to the next one I guess until I run out of steam, either MITZ or maybe FOR ROUENNA.

i'd recommend "deadwood" by pete dexter, especially if you've watched the show - it has a lot of the same characters/historical figures but they are characterized and emphasized very differently. it is over 300 pages but not by much (about 350 iirc) and funny and grimy and sad.

i can't believe i read Paris Trout by Pete Dexter in 1988! it doesn't seem that long ago. that's a great book. God's Pocket is really good too. I read Paris Trout after reading about Pete and Tex Cobb almost getting beaten to death in South Philly. it's a scary story! i was living in Philly at the time. one of the scariest moments in my Philly life was walking around a corner and almost running right into Tex Cobb. he scared the shit out of me. his face was so frightening.

Dexter began writing fiction after a life-changing 1981 incident in the Devil's Pocket, neighborhood in South Philadelphia, in which a mob of locals armed with baseball bats beat him severely. The perpetrators were upset by Dexter's recent column about a murder involving a drug deal-gone-wrong, published on December 9, 1981, in the Philadelphia Daily News.

"A couple of weeks ago, a kid named Buddy Lego was found dead in Cobbs Creek," wrote Dexter. "It was a Sunday afternoon. He was from the neighborhood, a good athlete, a nice kid. Stoned all the time. The kind of kid you think you could have saved."

The kid's mother called Dexter, nearly hysterical. How, she cried, could he write that her dead son was a drug user? Lego's brother, Tommy, the night bartender at Dougherty's, was also on the phone, screaming at the then-38-year-old columnist, demanding a retraction.

Dexter went to Dougherty's bar to talk to Tommy Lego, having told Lego he would not be publishing a retraction. In the bar, Dexter was blindsided by two blows to the jaw, splintering and breaking teeth. Later, Dexter returned with a friend, heavyweight prizefighter Randall "Tex" Cobb. In the ensuing fight outside the bar in the street, Cobb's arm was broken and Dexter was hospitalized with several injuries, including a broken back, pelvis, brain damage and dental devastation. Cobb's injuries cost him a shot at WBA heavyweight champion Mike Weaver.

Tex Cobb! that's crazy you saw him just walkin around.

holy hell how have I not read Annie Proulx till now

“the Half Skinned Steer” fwiw

are her novels this intense??

will check out "deadwood" and pete dexter, thanks!

xp james: do MITZ!

‘So Long, See You Tomorrow’ by William Maxwell

Heard about it on Backlisted & finally read it this week. Just finished (its quite short) and am uncharacteristically considering an immediate re-read

I don’t know if I’ve every read anything that is this, idk, almost-perfect? He’s so succinct but the emotional weight of everything he writes about in this story is so immense.

10/10 somehow feels too cliched lol

anyway recommend without hesitation to all & sundry

Tremendous book. Agree with everything you said.

Can also recommend *Time Will Darken It*, which has the same sense of economy and control. What a writer. Blows my mind that he only wrote one other novel in the 32 years between *Time Will Darken It* and *So Long, See You Tomorrow*.

Also, more people need the middle name 'Keepers'.

i am def going to try seek out more from him, for sure - my library has his short story collection, i will try to find Time Will Darken It also

I read Sara Mesa's "Un Amor" last week and it satisfies all five of the thread's Treat Criteria.

this was enjoyable if quite dark and somewhat frustrating

will check out ‘So Long, See You Tomorrow’ by William Maxwell

Great thread idea!

I have to say that my reading life has been immensely enriched by the existence of I Love Books and all its contributors. Finding good books used to be much more hit-and-miss, but now my 'hit' rate is over 90% and I have a long list of titles and authors to explore. Thanks, y'all.

the Backlisted podcast has vastly enriched my reading — i see references to it here & there a bit on ilx search - wondering if a dedicated thread might be good?

I'd contribute. I have a mixed relationship with Backlisted but I've got so many amazing books from it.

Andy Miller's book is a lot of fun, an atypically good example of the "I did a weird thing for six months and here's what happened" genre. Sometimes I wish he'd stop interrupting his guests (or his co-host) quite so much. But I've heard worse, and he's generally quite funny, so he gets a pass. I enjoy his tormented, self-aware relationship with his own inescapable blokiness, although I think I may have developed a somewhat parasocial relationship with them during the lockdowns.

I don’t know if I’ve every read anything that is this, idk, almost-perfect?

"A Month in the Country" by JL Carr is another perfect, very short novel with a Backlisted podcast (as are, off the top of my head, "Excellent Women" and "Human Voices").