Here's a recommended selection of books, all new save for Fallada's 1947 but recently translated Every Man Dies Alone.
Stuart Archer Cohen, The Army of the Republic.
Hans Fallada, Every Man Dies Alone.
David Goodwillie, American Subversive.
Mohsin Hamid, The Reluctant Fundamentalist.
Ferenc Karinthy, Metropole.
P.F. Kluge, Gone Tomorrow.
Simon Mawer, The Glass Room.
David Mitchell, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet.
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2 comments:
Barry: I glanced at your recommended fiction and noted an absence of women authors. I know they aren't as heavily marketed as men are (accidentally or by design??), but there are some excellent choices I might mention:
I loved "Down on your Knees" by Anne Marie MacDonald. Not a new book, but if you like compelling epic, historical fiction, this one is excellent. It's kind of female slanted, except that the father is a stong element in the story.
Let me know if you've read it and what you thought. I'm drawing blanks on some others, but am about to finish Tracy Kidder's "Strength in What Remains" and it's also well worth the read--a story about a Burundian man who survived the ethnic massacre in that country and comes here for a new life and redemption and forgiveness.
Sue:
Thanks for your comment. I think you're right about the marketing world favoring men, as if somehow men are the real actors in the world and therefore have more insight into the play of social forces. It is certainly time we gave up on that old and tired cliche-ridden notion.
I've just finished PD James's CHILDREN OF MEN, a novel that is wonderfully nuanced in many ways bests the rather excellent film adaptation of a couple of years ago. I've recently read, and do certainly recommend, a most sensitive, splendidly written, and profoundly moving work, Gail Caldwell's, LET'S TAKE THE LONG WAY HOME: A MEMOIR OF FRIENDSHIP. Please note that last November 24 I recommended Kamila Shamsie's BURNT SHADOWS. I've not read Anne Marie MacDonald's DOWN ON YOUR KNEES, but it looks very interesting indeed, and I would like very much to read it. May I add that I enjoyed the memoirs by Suze Rotolo and Patti Smith, noted in a very recent posting, much more for what the authors write about themselves than for the boyfriends (Dylan, Mapplethorpe, respectively) they write about.
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