Literary treats - recommend great reads

"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.

Lily Dale, thanks to your campaign, I did keep digging into the Collyer Brothers family values 'til I reached Wives and Daughters!

Srsly Louise Fitzhugh rules. She taught me a lot.

I found a like-new Penguin copy of Wives and Daughters in one of those "Take a book, leave a book" boxes (a system that I've been slightly abusing). Thinking of starting that or The Man Who Loved Children.

My WaD is Wordsworth Classics; I don't recall anything else published by them, but this edition seems okay (?) At least, it is Complete And Unabridged, With an Introduction and Notes by Dinny Thorold, University of Westminster, this edition published 1999, Introduction and Notes ©2003 Dinny Thorold.
For my husband Anthony John Ranson with love from your wife, the publisher, eternally grateful for your unconditional love.

publisher, listed as Wordsworth Classics Director: Elene Gavriel Ranson.

Chuck Tatum: FWIW I'd be inclined to say that FAREWELL, MY LOVELY is like THE BIG SLEEP but better. (Also better than THE HIGH WINDOW, but THE LADY IN THE LAKE, now I think of it, is remarkable.)

If anyone is looking to follow up on any of the NYRB Classics recommendations above, they're having a flash sale weekend.

ty! good tip

Wordsworth Classics are the staple of those remaindered bookshops that no longer exist in Hammersmith and Notting Hill, extensive range of classics, like a bookcase full, decent enough quality and only £1.99 each.

My NYRB recommendations would be Warlock, On the Yard by Malcolm Braly and The along Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson

hard rain falling by don carpenter and butcher's crossing by john williams (these are both also treats)

it's not a nyrb classic but my answer is 'darryl' by jackie ess. my ILB review here Are You There, God? What Are You Reading In The Summer Of 2021?

High Wind in Jamaica is another v.enjoyable NYRB classic

Not exactly a hidden treasure, because it was such a hit in its day, but a quick, engaging book and a treat if you've not read it yet: Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain.

Much more obscure, because much older, but a fun book of the sort that often gets called "a romp": The Grand Babylon Hotel, Arnold Bennett.

Maybe not everyone's cup of tea, but I found Under the Glacier, Haldor Laxness, very enjoyable.

Any of yall read Grand Hotel? (Yet another NYRB Classic, I now see.) Always enjoy it on TCM. A best seller, at least in Europe, then on stage (will prob be a Broadway musical, then a movie of that)(wait,
reference to the recently WAYR?-cited Adventures In The Screen Trade here:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Hotel_(1932_film) Scroll down to Aborted late 1970s musical remake)

i read a different Arnold Bennett, The Card, recently and it was similarly a romp. was expecting North and South but set in the potteries, got something Norman Wisdom would be in the film of.

(ha, actually, Alec Guinness, petula clark)

hard rain falling by don carpenter and butcher's crossing by john williams (these are both also treats)

I prefer Butcher's Crossing to Williams's more acclaimed Stoner

i was looking at that but i haven't read it. i ordered augustus in the nyrb sale.

butcher’s crossing is amazing, not sure i’d call it a treat

I saw that Williams did a novel on the emperor Augustus that I may have seen locally and not payed attention to. Not sure if it was that or a different book by the title. Saw it on the NYRB page and thought oh is that that? Different edition anyway.

I want to kind of echo poster Emil.y in that by denying experimental ficiton was a bit of a block but yes, people having fun on the page (my definition of treates lol) is something I do read quite a lot of and I'd recommend Krudy's work, especially The Adventures of Sindbad:

https://www.nyrb.com/collections/gyula-krudy/products/the-adventures-of-sindbad?variant=1094931553

If we are turning to the NYRB sale everyone should read this volume of novellas by Alvaro Mutis:

https://www.nyrb.com/products/the-adventures-and-misadventures-of-maqroll?variant=1094931537

I saw that Williams did a novel on the emperor Augustus that I may have seen locally and not payed attention to. Not sure if it was that or a different book by the title. Saw it on the NYRB page and thought oh is that that? Different edition anyway.

― Stevolende, Saturday, November 20, 2021 6:43 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

i love augustus. i think i agree that both it and butcher’s crossing are better than stoner, tho i love and defend stoner

The Gone World by Tom Sweterlitsch

Sci-fi horror mystery, not my usual genre but I saw someone rave about it on Twitter so I picked it up. Some beautifully described but absolutely disturbing imagery. Time travel/apocalypse themes. Main character is a female astronaut/investigator. Lots of mind-fuckery. A total page-turner. I don’t read enough sci-fi to say this with any real conviction but I thought it was a really unique plot.

Oh I guess it’s 400pp but it reads pretty fast

butcher’s crossing is amazing, not sure i’d call it a treat

― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Saturday, November 20, 2021 8:37 AM (two hours ago)

fine BRAD it was a GEM geez

the second half of butcher’s crossing just feels too brutal to feel like a treat, i admit this is v subjective

yeah but that was the best part, to me

Some lively discussions of Williams novels on past WAYR?! More than one, prob---seems like one of those subjects we come back to over the years, like when somebody discovers Jean Stafford.t Stoner,in particular, gets folks het up. (I still mean to read it, and maybe everything by him, at least I do when I think of those discussions.)

yeah but that was the best part, to me

― certified juice therapist (harbl), Saturday, November 20, 2021 10:16 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

agreed!!!

since the hearing trumpet has already been repped for multiple times, another novel by an english surrealist i also really love: ithell colquhoun's goose of hermogenes

I found Augustus better realized than Stoner.`

I admire what he brought off: a ruler with magnificent self-control writing crisp prose that aspires to be boilerplate but ends up self-revealing.

1 good short literary type book I read this year -- John Berger's The Red Tenda of Bologna. kind of a travelogue but mostly reminiscences and opinions on art and culture. short chapters and many are self-contained. available as a penguin mini, around 60 pages, 2007.

Omg Harriet trying to come up with a rhyme for her poem in The Long Secret is the best thing

A saft ansuer tooneth away rat

Harriet watching TV, as seen through Beth Ellen's eyes, is my favorite thing.

"Look at these things. Look at all these dumb people. Look at these rotten things. I never saw such dumb things. There isn't anything I'd like to see. There's never anything I'd like to see. What a bunch of ridiculous...HEY!" she suddenly yelled. "There's a GREAT Nazi movie on!"

She turned to Beth Ellen, who was flipping channels like a zombie.

"Quick," she screamed, "turn it to that!" She leapt across the room.

Beth Ellen looked over her shoulder at the program, then turned to the right channel. Some Nazis were beating up an old woman on the street.

"Look at those rotten things! Oh, boy!" said Harriet and sat down, stuffing a great gob of popcorn in her mouth.

Hup.

I may have misunderstood the assignment here but I can definitely second Yellowback Radio Brokedown.

A lot of the time for comfort and quick serotonin hits I revert to fun creative nonfiction (Joan Didion, John McPhee or whatever) or Annie Dillard way before I open a novel.

1 good short literary type book I read this year -- John Berger's The Red Tenda of Bologna. kind of a travelogue but mostly reminiscences and opinions on art and culture. short chapters and many are self-contained. available as a penguin mini, around 60 pages, 2007.

Jon Fosse - Morning and Evening

115 pages. Gets you emotionally very quickly.

really appreciate all the recommendations!

do not personally care for John Williams, but I agree that if you like his style a book like Stoner must be a treat

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.

intrigued by this (and the Maigret recommendation) as mystery/crime is a genre I like but where I have a hard time finding enjoyable books

I would highly recommend the Maigret novels; the vibe is quite a change of pace from the typical crime novel. I love the ones where he's just sort of hanging out at the fringes of a scene where shit went down/is about to go down, but not actually acting in any sort of official capacity.

Yeah, "Hey chief, big shoot-out here 10 minutes ago, Suspect B is all over the place." And he, like his creator, knows that he can't do his job like he's committed to if he isn't tuned into that human stuff, w/o gettin' snowflake--it's just that M. and S. have seen sooo much of this over the many years: the series is built for that, w/o getting to soap opera heroine w 7 spouses, 10 comas, x number gettin' into trouble for breakin' all the rules, like so many crime series.

I mean usually there's more compartmentalization and repetition of big bravura SFX, none of that here.