Fiction recommendations.

[mrissa]

I've been going through the fiction on my library list at an alarming rate, because I'm not interspersing it with nonfiction at the moment. Don't know when I'll get my ability to read nonfiction back, but it doesn't seem to go well with the vertigo. So in the meantime: what fiction should I read? Recommend something, or more than one something. If I've already read it, that's okay; I'll tell you, and you can recommend something else, or not, as you like.

I read books aimed at any age of person. The main genre constraint I have is that I tend to bounce hard off genre romance, and horror and traditional westerns are not generally my cup of tea.

In other news, Ista is really not at all thrilled with this entire holiday, and she's alternating between running around wanting to figure out what those noises are and trying to stay hidden and safe behind the living room couch.

I watched the first half of Good Night and Good Luck with today's workout. Seemed appropriate. Happy Independence Day, all those of you who celebrate it today.

Comments

[pameladean]

I can't remember if you've read Amanda Cross's mysteries or not.

P.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Or Sarah Caudwell's Hilary Tamar mysteries?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yes, pameladean lent me all four of those, and I barely paused between volumes to read other things.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Nope.

[pameladean]

I think they're worth a try. The plots per se are occasionally a little slight, but the characters and dialogue are great. I also like the way that, if if there is to be a death at all, it often takes its time in arriving. The amateur is a professor of English at a university in New York City, never named -- but Carolyn Heilbrun, the actual name of the author, taught at Columbia. Professors, universities, and literature all come in for skewering, but one of the things I like about the books is that one gets to sit in quite a different bath of assumptions than with, for example, the Nero Wolfe books.

The first one is The James Joyce Murder, which contains several scenes I still can't read without falling over laughing.

The first one takes place in the late sixties and contains some remarks that will really set your teeth on edge, but the books grow up with the author, and she starts in a better place than, say, Rendell.

We can lend them if the library is deficient.

P.

[pameladean]

Ack, sorry, posting before when I'd have had coffee if I still could. Sorry about italics.

Also, I meant "amateur detective."

P.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I'd appreciate that, yes.