Please recommend a book. I need something good to read and I've read just about everything.?

Question

Looking for something new and different. Love non-fiction but I've read all the current bestsellers. I've also read most of the classics. Something literary in fiction or an interesting topic in non-fiction. Thanks

Answer 1

The Novel "The Historian" by Elizabeth Kostova makes for a good read. It incorporates the history of Vlad Dracul into a fictional concept of a young girl trying to discover who she really is. Descriptions of eastern Europe are very good. Overall it is a Fascinating book.

Answer 2

The Dream of Scipio is a fine fairly recent historical novel, with three plots distanced from each other by several centuries, but all taking place within the same area of France. Through these stories, the British author Iain Pears describes one of the undercurrents of European history: the relationship between Jews and Christians. The middle plot takes place in the time of the plague.

Kristin Lavransdatter is a trilogy by Sigrid Undset, Nobel prize winner, also set in the time of the plague. Look for the new translation.

Stendhal's The Red and the Black and The Charterhouse of Parma are fine classics from the French, and Italians grow up with The Betrothed (I Promessi Sposi) by Alessandro Manzoni. One of my all-time favorites is Babette's Feast by Isak Dinesen.

It's a shame that we Americans read so little written by non-English writers, as if English were the only language with a literature! Welcome the writing of other peoples into your reading, and you'll be the richer for it.

Answer 3

The King Hereafter by Dorothy Dunnet, it's historical fiction about the "real Macbeth". She meant to write a nonfiction "dissertation" that Macbeth was also Thorfinn the Earl of Orkney, and had done massive amounts of research on this topic. However, the book would have been mired in footnotes and bibliography, so it's fiction. It's a fascinating story, long (if you read fast) and very informative.

I also recommend anything by Ole Rolvaag, Giants in the Earth (1 of a trilogy) for instance. He writes about Norwegian pioneers.

Answer 4

Have you read any of the writings of the Dalai Lama?
You say that you have read all the 'bestsellers' but I am not sure if you are American, British, etc. so...since I am Canadian, how about reading some books by Canadian authors--Michael Ondaatje (The English Patient), Yann Martel (The Story of Pi), Carol Shields (The Stone Diaries), Stuart McLean (Secrets from the Vinyl Cafe), Mordicai Richler (The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz), Khaled Hosseini (The Kite Runner).

Answer 5

Try a non fiction book "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down" by Anne Fadiman. It is very interesting.

Answer 6

Have you read Into The Forest
by Jean Hegland?

The Darkest Child by Delores Phillips is a definite page-turner.

Kindred by Octavia E. Butler is excellent.

Midnight by Dean Koontz, I also enjoyed.

Well, I tried to give you all different types of books. I'm in the haunt for a good book right now myself. Good Luck!

Answer 7

I love Mary Renault's historical fiction about ancient Greece. I recommend first her Laexandriad- a trilogy about Alexander the Great. It starts with Fire From Heaven, then The Persian Boy, then Funeral Games.

Answer 8

The Reader
by Bernhard Schlink

The story takes place in Germany during the years after World War II and revolves around the love affair between 15-year-old Michael and 36-year-old Hanna, a woman who cannot read. Hanna suddenly disappears, but years later she and Michael meet again when Hanna is prosecuted for war crimes and Michael is a law student observing her case.
Schlink's prose is clean and pared down, stripped of unnecessary imagery, dialogue, and excess in any form. What remains is an austerely beautiful narrative of the attempt to breach the gap between Germany's pre- and postwar generations, between the guilty and the innocent, and between words and silence.

or

The Sea
by John Banville

From Amazon.co.uk Review
Incandescent prose. Beautifully textured characterisation. Transparent narratives.
Max Morden has reached a crossroads in his life, and is trying hard to deal with several disturbing things. A recent loss is still taking its toll on him, and a trauma in his past is similarly proving hard to deal with. He decides that he will return to a town on the coast at which he spent a memorable holiday when a boy. His memory of that time devolves on the charismatic Grace family, particularly the seductive twins Myles and Chloe. In a very short time, Max found himself drawn into a strange relationship with them, and pursuant events left their mark on him for the rest of his life. But will he be able to exorcise those memories of the past?

Answer 9

Perhaps you could read all of the Pulitzer Prize winners or the Nobel winners in literature. Usually these books never become best sellers.

Or you could try to reading some of the sacred texts that are available from the past to the present. Very few people have read their own sacred texts let alone those from other faith systems.

Answer 10

If you like the paintings of Hieronymous Bosch and the violence of movies like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and like moral tales that deal with religious and/or biblical themes, and like a book that is written in a literary style, try the novel "Blood Meridian."