Oh, How I’ve Missed You
The Biblioracle will be open today from 1 to 3 p.m. Back from a late-summer hiatus, the Biblioracle takes the last five books you read and tells you what to read next.
Biblioracle, Biblioracle, where have you been? I was shocked to see that we have spent so long apart, fellow readers. Summer has turned into fall, the leaves have colored and soon will be down. I have missed you, because while reading about books may be a solitary exercise, talking about them is a group pleasure, and the best part of the Biblioracling for me is hearing about what everyone else has been reading.
You didn’t answer the question. Where have you been? Summer break ended. School began and the time previously earmarked for recommending books is filled with preparation and teaching and grading and also finishing the edits on my own novel that will be released next year by the fine folks at Soho Press.
As a professional book recommender, how does that feel to know that your own novel will soon be in the world of all these other books? It is hugely gratifying, of course. It’s something I’ve worked toward for the better part of my life. At the same time, it’s fraught with anxiety because at the end of the editing process, it’s hard to even know what the thing is anymore. I am periodically seized with the desire to call the whole thing off.
I read so many wonderful books this year, truly one of my best years of reading ever, certainly the best since graduate school, and I can’t help but wonder if my own work even comes close to stacking up against the books that have brought me so much pleasure. That was my goal in writing my book, but we’ll find out if I’ve struck the target next fall.
But even if you strike the target for some, it’s going to be a miss for others, isn’t it? See, this is why I’ve missed you. I think you’re right, and I’m trying to steel myself for this a year in advance. What any writer is looking for is this, but the reality is that once a book is out in the world, you’re lucky if enough people hear of its existence to hate it in large numbers.
Here are a few reviews I’ve culled from Amazon for a book released this summer that achieved both critical and popular success.
Just painful. (The author’s) riding (sic) is so sophomoric and pedantic. Dull, Long winded and uninteresting. The words wallow on the page. Reading his book is like walking on broken glass. I wanted to believe the hype—that this was a great work of American fiction, but it’s not. In ten years time no one will be forced to read this drivel.
[O]ne of the worst books I have attempted to read. I cannot think of a single good thing to say about this book. I could hardly wait to delete it from my kindle.
This book is painful to read. Each character is more vile than the last. Their lives are thoroughly depressing and pointless. Depictions of mental illness are childish. Depictions of friendship, love, and romance are even less on point. Mutual friendship or love never lasts more than about 10 minutes in [the author’s]-world. After slogging through this long novel, I could not see the point. Worse than a benign waste of time, it was truly distasteful.
These are just three of the (as of this writing) 113 one-star reviews for Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom, a novel that I was inclined to scorn out of professional jealousy and resentment, but ended up absolutely loving. It consumed my life for the four or so days it took me to read. It was like the start of any love affair, where the object of affection crowds out all other earthly concerns. When I was away from the book doing something else, like showering or sleeping, I wanted to be with the book. After I finished Freedom I didn’t start reading anything else for at least a week because I wanted to linger in the memory of it for as long as possible. If Freedom had hair, I would have cut a lock free and secreted it away in my special keepsake box. (Glenn Bishop-style, for you Mad Men fans.)
Franzen famously sabotaged his ethernet port with superglue, so maybe he doesn’t have the ability to obsess over his one-star reviews, but my hunch is that if he does see them, even that cover of Time or his private audience with Barack Obama aren’t enough to completely soothe away the pain.
Are you implying that all writers are fragile flowers incapable of receiving criticism? Maybe. Or maybe I’m trying to offer a pre-emptive disclaimer on my own recommendations if they wind up fizzling like the Fox Network’s new fall prime-time lineup. We’re doing our best here, but sometimes our best isn’t good enough for everyone. For me, the best books read like they were custom-done for me alone, and if that’s the case, there’s going to be plenty of people who don’t see it the same way.
But there’s always more books. That there are, my friends. That there are.
Can we get a reminder of how this works? It really has been a while. Between the hours of 1 and 3 p.m., Eastern time, list the five most recent books you’ve read, and I’ll tell you what you should read next.
As always, the Biblioracle loves to hear from you at biblioracle@gmail.com. He can also be followed on Twitter, @biblioracle.
List the last five books you’ve read, and the Biblioracle tells you what to read next.
The Biblioracle will be open today, Oct. 29, from 1 to 3 p.m. ET. These comments are now closed.
205 comments
Fire when ready.
THE POSSIBILITY OF AN ISLAND, Michel Houellebecq
A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN, James Joyce
BRIGHT LIGHTS, BIG CITY, Jay McInerney
THE MYSTERIOUS FLAME OF QUEEN LOANA, Umberto Eco
THE THOUSAND, Kevin Guilfoile
The Book of Evidence - John Banville
Despite this recent spate I actually never, ever read mysteries/thrillers -- anything more on the introspective young person bent?
Trust me, this book is no mystery/thriller. It's all introspection. I think you'll like it.
Room by Emma Donoghue
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender
Santa Evita by Tomas Eloy Martinez
Madame Bovary (translated by Lydia Davis)
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
Model Home - Eric Puchner
Edward Dolnick - The Rescue Artist
Sam Kean - The Disappearing Spoon
Alex Ross - Listen to This
Dava Sobel - Longitude
Simon Winchester - The Map That Changed the World
Nonfiction here. I'm tempted to fire a novel your way just because, but I'll play it a bit safer.
Banvard's Folly - Paul Collins
Well, my to-read list grows more daunting by the day, but what the hell.
1. Y: The Last Man - Brian K. Vaughan (technically the last volume, but I finished the series.)
2. Mockingjay - Suzanne Collins
3. For The Win - Cory Doctorow
4. Zombies vs. Unicorns - Anthology edited by Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier
5. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
Ship Breaker - Paolo Bacigalupi
The Wind-Up Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi
Where Men Win Glory, Jon Krakauer
So Cold the River, Michael Koryta
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, JK Rowling
The Thousand, Kevin Guilfoile
If it counts, I'm currently listening to Freedom, but I've got another week or so of commutes before I can count it as read.
Glad to see two Kevin Guilfoile fans already.
Winter's Bone - Daniel Woodrell
TMN/Rooster fans are a natural part of the Guilfoile constituency.
Thanks for the rec. Looks interesting, definitely something I wouldn't have run across on my own.
Love reading all the lists and recs!
A Visit from the Goon Squad (Jennifer Egan)
Whatever (Michel Houellebecq)
The Mystic Art of Erasing All Signs of Death (Charlie Huston)
Lush Life (Richard Price)
The History of Love (Nicole Krauss)
I'm so glad to be here (I missed the last two chances!).
Bad Marie - Marcy Dermansky (I've been dying to recommend this book to the right person since I read it.)
Ha! It sounds great, and I wouldn't have found it on my own - thank you.
Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel
The Whole Story and other Stories, Ali Smith
The Privileges, Jonathon Dee
How the Dead Dream, Lydia Millet
The Summer Book, Tove Jansson
The Book of Night Women - Marlon James
A Mercy, Toni Morrison
Big Machine, Victor LaValle
Pattern Recognition, William Gibson
Shining at the Bottom of the Sea, Stephen Marche
Shop Class as Soulcraft, Matthew Crawford
Everything Matters! - Ron Currie Jr.
Sweet, thanks Biblioracle!
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency - Douglas Adams
Jitterbug Perfume - Tom Robbins
Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace
Zeitoun - Dave Eggers
Lolita - Nabokov
So glad the Biblioracle is back!
A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
My last five books are: Freedom (Franzen), Little Children (Perotta), Zeitouin (Eggers), The Virgin Suicides (Eugendies) and What is the What (Eggers). What should I read next?
Then We Came to the End - Joshua Ferris
The Other Side of the Bridge - Mary Larson
The Tenderness of Wolves - Stef Penney
Saturday - Ian McEwan
The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins
The World to Come - Dara Horn
The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
I'm glad you're back!
My last five:
Fat Vampire by Adam Rex
A Tale Dark and Grimm by Adam Gidwitz
Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helene Simonson
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
Nice, Big America Baby - Judy Budnitz
The Loser - Thomas Bernhard
Great House - Nicole Krauss
Mystery Guest - Grégoire Bouillier
The Men's Club - Leonard Michaels
Cherry - Mary Karr
The Imperfectionists - Tom Rachman
Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest - Stieg Larsen
One Thousand White Women - Jim Fergus
The Passage - Justin Cronin
Island under the Sea - Isabel Allende
Watership Down - Richard Adams
This one is tough for some reason. The signals from the great book recommending beyond are mixed.
Remarkable Creatures - Tracy Chevalier
One was a book club pick that I might not have stumbled across on my own (One Thousand White Women). I'll bump Chevalier up the list, thanks so much!
Angels and Demons, Dan Brown
Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
Absurdistan, Gary Shteyngart
The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot
Father of the Rain - Lily King
Joan Didion: The Year of Magical Thinking
Rohinton Mistry: A Fine Balance
Gabriel Josipovici: In a Hotel Garden
Elizabeth Pym: No Fond Return of Love
Rudolph Delson: Maynard and Jennica
Help!
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - Muriel Spark
I feel ungrateful...but I've read The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. It was good, but not a favorite. Any chance of a second recommendation?
How about:
Saturday - Ian McEwan
Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel
Mockingjay - Suzanne Collins
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz
Harry Potter 7 - JK Rowling
The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
Geek Love - Katherine Dunn
Biblioracle, oh Biblioracle, how we’ve eagerly awaited your return!
The Thousand Autums of Jacob de Zoet – David Mitchell
Light Years – James Salter
Matterhorn – Karl Marlantes
True Grit – Charles Portis
Skippy Dies – Paul Murray
Skippy Dies, awesome. Someone's getting that recommendation from me today. Matterhorn too.
Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro
I've actually read Never Let Me Go (and loved it! Ishiguro's amazing.) Any other thoughts?
Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World - Haruki Marukami
I'm incredibly impressed by how on-the-ball you are - that was another one I've read, and one of my favorites! Maybe I'll give it a reread. Thanks!
Trying again. We shall connect with one you haven't read.
The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov
Success! The Master and Margarita has been on my TBR list for a while now - consider it bumped to the top. Thank you!
Hello, good sir. The last 5 books I read were:
1. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
2. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
3. Absurdistan by Gary Shteyngart
4. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
5. Pattern Recognition by WIlliam Gibson
You've probably read it, but...
Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut
The Instructions by Adam Levin
Half-Empty by David Rakoff
The Colour of Memory by Geoff Dyer
Salvador by Joan Didion
You Had Me At Woof by Julie Klam
Just started the Instructions myself.
Last Things - Jenny Offill
Thanks! And The Instuctions is a lot to take on but I really did like it and I hope you do, too.
The Voyage - Philip Caputo
Shantaram - Gregory David Roberts
The Time of Our Singing - Richard Powers
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay - Michael Chabon
Carter Beats the Devil - Glen David Gold
Middlemarach, Eliot
Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
Night Country, Loren Eiseley
After Rain, William Trevor (short stories)
As I Lay Dying, Faulkner
Winesburg, Ohio - Sherwood Anderson
okay, I have tried that one (a year or two ago) but will give it another go. thanks!
Swann's Way by Proust
Red Dragon by Thomas Harris
Tinkers by Paul Harding
C by Tom McCarthy
The Report by Jessica Francis Kane
Gone Baby Gone - Dennis Lehane
Dostoevsky - The Brothers Karamazov
O’Connor - Wise Blood
Kerouac - Big Sur
Robinson - Gilead
Dyer - Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi
The Financial Lives of Poets - Jess Walter
Let the Right One In- John Ajvide Lindquist
The Book Thief- Markus Zusak
Zeitoun- Dave Eggers
Stranger than Fiction- Chuck Palahniuk
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance- Robert Pirsig
The Passage - Justin Cronin
Moonlight Mile by Dennis Lehane
Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger
Our Kind of Traitor by John le Carre
Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (re-read)
The End of Vandalism - Tom Drury
Kindred - Octavia Butler
The Book of Night Women - Marlon James
Island Beneath the Sea - Isabel Allende
Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
Stitches - David Small
Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins
Room - Emma Donoghue
The Passage - Justin Cronin
- Please not The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, I couldn't get through it.
I'm not sure which page you got to in Thousand Autumns, but it gets better.
Finch - Jeff Vandermeer
Out, Natsuo Kirino
Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert
Enough About Love, Herve LeTellier
Monsieur Monde Vanishes, Georges Simenon
THe Wrong Blood, Manuel de Lope
I posted something here and now don't see it, and now I can't remember what it was.
The Razor's Edge - W. Somerset Maugham
Angelfire by Courtney Allison Moulton
Immortal Beloved by Cate Tiernan
White Cat by Holly Black
Shadow Hills by Anastasia Hopcus
Wild at Heart by Patricia Gaffney
All outside of my expertise (such as it is) here, but I'm up for a challenge.
Wake - Lisa McMann
The 351 Books of Irma Acuri by David Bajo
No More Dying Then by Ruth Rendell
Three Doors to Death by Rex Stout
Heroic Measures by Jill Ciment
The Tower, The Zoo and the Tortoise by Julia Stuart
Blame - Michelle Huneven
Thank you!
Moonlight Mile by Dennis Lehane
Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger
Our Kind of Traitor by John le Carre
Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (reread)
The End of Vandalism - Tom Drury
Hi, and thanks!
Flood - Andrew Vachss
Freedom - Jonathan Franzen
Housekeeping - Marilynne Robinson
Tinkers - Paul Harding
Class - Paul Fussell
Lark and Termite - Jayne Anne Phillips
The biblioracle is back! This makes me miss the Tournament of Books less (or maybe more).
Last bunch (yes there are 8 here. I'm cheating):
Oryx & Crake - Margaret Atwood (this was actually the book suggested by the great biblioracle the last time I was able to get a list of five in and I really liked it.. as much as the depressing subject matter would allow anyway.)
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet - David Mitchell
Far North - Marcel Theroux
Corvus: A Life With Birds - Esther Woolfson
The Complete Buffy - Keith Topping (mentioning this just for fun)
A Wild Sheep Chase - Haruki Murakami
Three Men in a Boat - Jerome K. Jerome (of course I had to read this before the Willis)
To Say Nothing of the Dog - Connie Willis (currently reading and loving it)
edited to add: And somehow I really loved all of these.
Finch - Jeff Vandermeer
The Ask - Sam Lipsyte
Super Sad True Love Story - Gary Shteyngart
What I'd Say to the Martians - Jack Handey
Without a Hero - TC Boyle
The Night in Question - Tobias Wolff
The Water Method Man - John Irving
The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them - Batuman, Elif
Zero History - Gibson, William
Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self - Evans, Danielle
The Lovers- Vida, Vendela
Buddha's Orphans - Upadhyay, Samrat
A Visit from the Goon Squad - Jennifer Egan
The Moonstone--Wilkie Collins
The Quickening Maze--Adam Foulds
Started Early, Took My Dog--Kate Atkinson
Freedom--Jonathan Franzen
The Easter Parade--Richard Yates
Wait a minute. How have you read a new Atkinson months before release? /jealousy
Disgrace - J.M. Coetzee
Thanks! My husband ordered the Atkinson from the British publisher as a surprise for me.
Room by Emma Donoghue
C by Tom McCarthy (Thank you for the ARC, TMN.)
Kraken by China Miéville
Brooklyn by Colm Toíbín
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Thanks! You've sold me on Freedom too.
Skippy Dies - Paul Murray
Freedom - Franzen
Season of Ash - Jorge Volpi
You Lost Me There - Rosecrans Baldwin
JR - William Gaddis
Gasoline - Quim Monzó
Austerlitz - W.G. Sebald
The Makioka Sisters -- Junichiro Tanizaki
The Alienist -- Caleb Carr
The Chosen -- Chaim Potok
Party of One -- Anneli Rufus
Eat Pray Love -- Elizabeth Gilbert
You Remind Me of Me - Dan Chaon
Stiff - Mary Roach
Ella Minnow Pea - Mark Dunn
Whistling Season - Ivan Doig
Her Fearful Symmetry - Audrey Niffenegger
I'd Know You Anywhere - Laura Lippman
Case Histories - Kate Atkinson
You skipped three down by the bottom!
For some reason it's not registering all my replies. I'll make sure to check back upthread (or downthread depending on how you sort them) periodically.
The Looming Tower -- Lawrence Wright
Out Stealing Horses -- Per Petterson
The Secret Agent -- Joseph Conrad
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet: A Novel -- David Mitchell
Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York -- Luc Sante
Matterhorn - Karl Marlantes
wow -- Haven't heard of it. Thanks so much!
The Sporting Club - Thomas McGuane
The Anthologist - Nicholson Baker
Children of Men - PD James
Fifty to One - Charles Addai
Scott Pilgrim #1 - Bryan Lee O'Malley
Help me!
God is Dead - Ron Currie Jr.
South of the Border, West of the Sun - Haruki Murakami
The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen
The Painted Veil - W. Somerset Maugham
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet - David Mitchell
Bone - Jeff Smith
My Dog Tulip - J. R. Ackerley
An odd mix, I suppose!
Cruddy - Lynda Barry
excellent! thank you!
The Fourth Bear - Jasper Fforde
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Larssen
Girl who kicked the Hornet's Nest - Larssen
A Dirty Job - Christopher Moore
Horseradish - Lemony Snicket
A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
"Wake Up Sir" - Jonathan Ames
"You Shall Know our Velocity" - Dave Eggers
"Jesus' Son" - Dennis Johnson
"The Corrections" - Jonathan Franzen
"Less Than Zero" - Brett Easton Ellis
Emporium - Adam Johnson
"Clockwork Angel", by Cassandra Clare;
"Monsters of Men", by Patrick Ness;
"The Exiled Queen," by Cinda Williams Chima;
"X-Isle", by Steve Augarde;
"One Crazy Summer", by Rita Williams-Garcia
Soulless - Gail Carriger
A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz
My Life in France by Julia Child and Alex Prud'Homme
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
The Magic Mountain (Der Zauberberg) by Thomas Mann (translated by John E. Woods)
The Door Into Summer by Robert A. Heinlein
The Pages - Murray Bail
Thanks. I've read End of Vandalism and loved it; time for a Drury reread, tho.
Pish-posh, you get a fresh recommendation.
Mrs. Bridge - Evan Connell
Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
The Hand that First Held Mine by Maggie O'Farrell
The Burn Journals by Brent Runyon
I Curse the River of Time by Per Petterson
Anthropology of an American Girl - Hillary Taylor Hamann
Thanks for your help!
Ghosts by Cesar Aira
Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey
The Sore Throat and Other Poems by Aaron Kunin
Frost by Thomas Bernhard
India After Gandhi by Ramachandra Guha
The Tanners - Robert Walser
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet - Mitchell
Hindu Myths - Penguin Anthology
Airships - Barry Hannah
Cornwolf - Tristan Egolf
Tinkers - Paul Harding
The Whistling Season - Ivan Doig
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel
Fool - Christopher Moore
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Lowboy
A Scanner Darkly
Pattern Recognition - William Gibson
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
Little Children by Tom Perrotta
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
Are We Winning? Fathers and Sons in the New Golden Age of Baseball by Will Leitch
Cutting for Stone - Abraham Verghese
1. Darin Strauss, Half a Life
2. Adam Levin, The Instructions
3. John Brandon, Citrus County
4. Jonathan Franzen, Freedom
5. Thomas Pynchon, Inherent Vice
Could you handle more noir-ish stuff at this point? If so:
Galveston - Nic Pizzolatto
The Girl who Played with Fire
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
The Hunger Games trilogy
Drop City
The Historian
The Road
Rock, Paper, Tiger - Lisa Brackmann
1. Mortal Beauty, God's Grace: Major Poems and Spiritual Writings of Gerard Manley Hopkins
2. Glory by Vladimir Nabokov
3. The People Look Like Flowers At Last by Charles Bukowski
4. Shopgirl by Steve Martin
5. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
One Foot in Eden - Ron Rash
Thanks, kid.
I'd Know You Anywhere, Laura Lippmann
The Thousand, Kevin Guilfoile
Banished, Sophie Littlefield
Monsters of Men, Patrick Ness
The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
Lush Life - Richard Price
Freedom, Jonathan Franzen
How to Read the Air, Dinaw Mengestu
Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned, Wells Tower
Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell
If You Lived Here You’d Already Be Home, John Jodzio
Miss Hempel Chronicles - Sarah Shun-lien Bynum
Already read it--it's good! Thanks!
The Feast of Love - Charles Baxter
The World Without Us. Alan Weisman.
Will Grayson, Will Grayson. John Green and David Levithan.
The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet. Reif Larsen.
Mockingjay. Suzanne Collins.
Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip With David Foster Wallace. David Lipsky.
Kapitoil - Teddy Wayne
The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
Asta in the Wings, Jan Elizabeth Watson
The Sound of Waves, Yukio Mishima
Packing for Mars, Mary Roach
The Widower's Tale, Julia Glass
Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout
McSweeney's 35
Rant, Chuck Palahniuk
Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace
God Says No, James Hannaham
I Am Not Myself These Days, Josh Kilmer-Purcel
Super Sad True Love Story - Gary Shteyngart
Barbara Comyns, The Juniper Tree
Banana Yoshimoto, Hardboiled and Hard Luck
Moto Hagio, Drunken Dream and Other Stories
Rebecca Skloot, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Jeanette Winterson, Weight
Fun Home - Alison Bechdel
The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson
The Kneebone Boy by Ellen Potter
Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal
Slob by Ellen Potter
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks - E. Lockhart
Vonnegut - Sirens of Titan
Larson - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Charles R. Ashman - Kissinger: The Adventures of Super-Kraut
Palahniuk - Rant: an oral biography of buck casey
JD Salinger - Nine Stories
The Man in the High Castle - Philip K. Dick
I already know what I'm reading next, so let's see how prescient you are. In reverse chronological order...
Ring Lardner: The Portable Ring Lardner
Finley Peter Dunne: Mr. Dooley Remembers
Andrew Ervin: Extraordinary Renditions
Studs Terkel: Working
O.E. Rölvaag: Giants in the Earth
Now that's a real needle in the haystack challenge. I'm not sure I know what you're going to read next, but what you should read next is:
The Thieves of Manhattan - Adam Langer
The Yiddish Policemen's Union, Michael Chabon
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, David Mitchell
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, Stieg Larssen
For All the Tea in China, Sarah Rose
The Scar, China Mieville
The Manual of Detection - Jedediah Berry
Netherland by Joseph O'Neill
The Way Through Doors by Jesse Ball
Shakespeare's Wife by Germaine Greer
A Certain Justice by P.D. James
Scott Pilgrim by Brian Lee O'Malley
Dark Places - Gillian Flynn
Thanks, Biblioracle!
Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi, Geoff Dyer
Zeitoun, Dave Eggers
Exit Ghost, Philip Roth
Soccernomics, Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski
Tree of Smoke, Denis Johnson
Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy
Thanks, but already read it. Anything else?
Ever read:
Deliverance - James Dickey
Lamb, Christopher Moore
Skinny Legs and All, Tom Robbins
Feng's Space Bar and Grill, Steven Brust
William Gibson - Zero History
American Gods, Neil Gaiman
A Friend of the Earth - T.C. Boyle
The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, Michael Chabon
About a Boy, Nick Hornby
Ghostwritten, David Mitchell
VALIS, Phillip K. Dick
East of Eden, John Steinbeck
The Things They Carried - Tim O'Brien
A Heart So White - Javier Marias
The Encyclopedia of the Dead - Danilo Kis
Visitation - Jenny Erpenbeck
The Vagrants - Yiyun Li
The Dead Fish Museum - Charles D'Ambrosio
Thanks John Warner!
Remainder - Tom McCarthy
Already read - and C too! I liked the latter better :-)
zeitoun, Eggers
White Tiger, Adiga
Adventures in the Screen Trade, Goldman
Never Let Me Go, Ishiguro
The Manual of Detection, Berry
Little Bee - Chris Cleave
Elegies of the Brokenhearted--Christie Hodgen
Skippy Dies--Paul Murray
Tunneling to the Center of the Earth--Kevin Wilson
My Mortal Enemy--Willa Cather
The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates--Wes Moore
The Lovers - Vendela Vida
V, Thomas Pynchon
Blindness, Jose Saramago
Winter's Bone, Daniel Woodrell
Born to Run, Christopher McDougall
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, Stieg Larsson
The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje
Dain Curse - Hammett
Catch 22 - Heller
Breakfast of Champions - Vonnegut
Education of Henry Adams - Adams
Victory - Conrad
The Friends of Eddie Coyle - George V. Higgins
Listen to This by Alex Ross
Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev
Indecision by Benjamin Kunkel
Sixty Stories by Donald Barthelme
Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
John Henry Days - Colson Whitehead
The Orchard Keeper, C. McCarthy
Actual Air, David Berman
Collected Stories of Amy Hempel
Day Out of Days, Shepard
Three Uses of the Knife, Mamet
Miss Lonelyhearts and The Day of the Locust - Nathanael West
Await Your Reply, Dan Choan
The Financial Lives of Poets, Jess Walker
The Great House, Nicole Krauss
The Trial, Franz Kafka
The Unnamed, Joshua Ferris
The Funnies - J. Robert Lennon
Suite Francaise, I. Nemirovsky
The Hours, M. Cunningham
Disgrace, J. M. Coetzee
Zero History, W. Gibson
The Difference Engine, W. Gibson
The Company - Max Barry (A bit lighter than this list, but I think you'll like it.)
It's my birthday, so I'm feeling really lucky!
The Holy Thief, William Ryan
The Wager, Donna Jo Napoli
Unwind, Neal Shusterman
I'll Mature When I'm Dead, Dave Barry
Where the Hell is Matt: Dancing Badly Around the World, Matt Harding
A Wizard of Earthsea - Ursula K. Leguin
The Life and Opinions of Tristam Shandy, Lawrence Stern
The Aeneid, Virgil
The Beckett trilogy
The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis, Saramago
Anabasis, St John Perse
Against Nature - J.K. Huysmans
The Vanishing of Katharina Linden by Helen Grant
The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain
To Fetch a Thief by Spencer Quinn
The Tiger by John Valliant
The Zero by Jess Walter
I've been wanting to recommend this book all day, but I'm running out of time and I think it could be a fit here.
Endless Love - Scott Spencer
It's nothing like the movie people. This book is crazy ass intense. I'm not even sure I liked it, but I couldn't put it down.
The Glass Bead Game, Hermann Hesse
Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T.E. Lawrence
Consider the Lobster, David Foster Wallace
Born to Run, Christopher McDougall
Alive and Well in Pakistan, Ethan Casey
The Magus - John Fowles
Cat's Cradle, Vonnegut
Confederacy of Dunces, JK Toole
The Chrysalids, J Wyndham
Nada, Laforet
The Annotated US Constitution, Penguin Books
A Fan's Notes - Frederick Exley
Super Sad True Love Story, Gary Shteyngart
Spook Country, William Gibson
2666, Robert Bolaño
Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller
Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel
Alright folks, that's a wrap. Good reading everyone!
The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart
Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann
The Icelander by Dustin Long
Street Gang by Michael Davis
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
Everything Matters by Ron Currie
Sex, Drugs, and Cocoapuffs by Chuck Klosterman
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
Mao II by Don Delillo
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald