The Recommend a Novel Thread.

[Jekyll]

What it says. Post what you like and someone will recommend something. (Hopefully)


I'll start. I want something light and silly, but not stupid. Douglas Adams, P.G. Wodehouse, and Hugh Laurie's The Gun Seller are the kind of thing I'm talking about.

 

[MetroStyles]

Yes Man - Danny Wallace

 

[Thomas]

Fool, by Christopher Moore.

 

[chorse123]

SALTY by Mark Haskell Smith. Or his earlier books MOIST, and DELICIOUS.

 

[dfagdfsh]

just read The Remains of the Day

 

[bc78]

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

 

[Markus Laczko]

I wholly endorse reading anything by Christopher Moore and Douglas Adams. If you're into absurdist fiction/counter culture/"out there" type stuff, check out Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club), Kurt Vonnegut (Sirens of Titan).

 

[skidsm]

not a work of great literature, by any stretch, but a book i read this past year that i found very touching was

population 485, by michael perry

the writer returns home to rural wisconsin to write, and joins the volunteer fire department. it's a very interesting study of small towns, family, and the emotions of life and death through his EMT work.

 

[Jekyll]

Thanks for the recommendations, guys.

 

[denimdestroyedmylife]

light and silly but not stupid brings to mind TC Boyle's The Road to Wellville
don't let the movie remake put you off-----the book is a romp!

 

[Modernist]

If you like Douglas Adams, you may enjoy Neil Gaiman's and Terry Pratchett's Good Omens.

 

[denimdestroyedmylife]

^ yeah i enjoyed that. though it has been some dozen years since i read it.

 

[Modernist]

Same here. It was great though, for what it is. On a tangent, there was a rumor circulating once that Terry Gilliam was to film it.

Raymond Queneau's The Blue Flowers may also fill the bill. Funny, surreal, silliness a-plenty, yet still a great post-modern novel in the vein of Borges and Calvino.

 

[CDFS]

Joseph Heller Catch 22 and God Knows Tom Sharpe Wilt series (4) (The last one is not his best work. Riotous Assembly and Indecent Exposure And, frankly, all his other works Bret Easton Ellis American Psycho and Glamorama And Frankly, all his other works Irvine Welsh Trainspotting, Porno and Filth (Written in spoken Scottish English which takes 10-20 pages to get into) + 1 on Chuck Palahniuk Although I liked Survivor, Diary and Invisible Monsters best, I think. When I read my own recomendations, they all seem more or less absurdistic. And d*** this makes me remember one of the best works read by me in the last years: Absurdistan by Gary Shteyngart My Favorite quote: "That night the sepsis set in" (or something couldn't find it easily)

 

[gdl203]

I'd add Chabon's "Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay" and "Yiddish Policemen Union". Both are really witty and entertaining.

Almost anything by Paul Auster, but a special mention for the "Music of Chance"