What Books Are You Reading In 2025? Part 2

Stories to be Whispered: The Collected Short Fiction of Cornell Woolrich

Halfway through PLAYGROUND, Richard Powers. He's very progressive in his political/environmental values (Overstory, Bewilderment et. al.)... but something about the way he writes feels like "old style heroic"... novels. More Leon Uris than Thomas Pynchon.

Reading "Angel Down" by Daniel Kraus, a kind-of stream of consciousness novel about soldiers during WWI who discover a fallen agent on the battlefield. Beautifully written and intense.

Bringing over from the last thread:

We Were the Mulvaneys is really good JCO. Such a slow burn of one family’s complete downfall. And I loved how it’s narrated by the youngest son of the family (“We were the Mulvaneys. Remember us?” I always remember that opening line of the novel).

Why did you abandon it, [R593]?

Also from old thread:

Yesterday, I finished the YA classic Bridge to Terabithia, which honestly I found a bit dated and underwhelming. My question: was the boy implied to be gay (possibly girl as well)? His rednecky parents were openly concerned about his artistic interests indicating so. The main message about fitting in when you're "different" came through loud and clear.

Anyone looking for something to read, consider *The Chaperone* by Laura Moriarty, engaging main character with a gay sub-plot.

Apocalypsh Ashashin by JJ Thorn.

r4, I read We Were the Mulvaneys coming off the high of Oates' latest novel Fox, which I absolutely loved, one of my faves of the past several years.

Long ago I'd read a few of her other books, The Gravedigger's Daughter, The Falls, Because It Is Bitter, Because It Is My Heart, and liked them all but there was a melancholy sameness to them. Fox, OTOH, was sharp, satiric, lethally witty and utterly contemporary....qualities I hadn't ever seen in her writing and so I was intrigued to search for something else of hers.

I realized I owned Mulvaneys but never read it and heard many considered it among her best. Unfortunately, I just found it so sad and depressing and halfway through I could see the characters were only in for more and worse of the same. And there was no sense of humor whatsoever....not that I expected it to be funny per se but it was all just too gloomy. Do the family fortunes ever change? Ever improve? All that inevitable tragedy...

I also bought Blonde and now I'm looking forward to eventually reading it. Hoping that a book based on Marilyn Monroe's life will be provocative, funny, poignant if also sad.

"Night and the City," Gerald Kersh's atmospheric novel of London's Underworld just before WW2. Brilliantly captures the stink and sleaze of Soho.

La Chartreuse de Parme / Stendhal

Tramps Like Us - recommended here - great flashback to 1970s-80s gay life of freedom

Marriage at Sea - interesting description of a straight British couple stranded on a raft in the 1970s and how opposite personality traits can create a stronger whole

Bee Sting - the lauded Irish book by Paul Murray. Throughly enjoying it. Told form the perspective of each member of a family - including a surly teenager, nerdy boy, kind father and striving mother. Much better than Skippy Dies

The Doorman - fiction that gives a snapshot of the extreme affluent in 2024 NYC and the current social/economic culture of NYC.

If you're prone to audiobooks, r10, The Bee Sting is one of the best. It's a great companion to the written book.

Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. It's the first book in the series Cemetery of Forgotten Books.

So far, I'm intrigued. I lived in Barcelona for three months and I like that I'm familiar with a lot of the places.

I have two more Tana French books to read, so I will read those after I finish Shadow of the Wind, and then return to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books series.

Good luck with Martin Chuzzlewit, r12. I love Dickens but that one eluded me. Same with Barnaby Rudge.

I just downloaded the Baldwin biography. Also reading 'The Leopard' by Lampedusa but find myself wishing I hadn't seen the movie first. It makes the book feel a little dry, but it's still good.

[quote] I have two more Tana French books to read

I was disappointed by In The Woods and The Likeness and gave up on her.

Tramps Like Us - taking it with me on a trip overseas this Thursday.

late to the party but Garrett Graff's history of Watergate is unbelievably good.

The History of Sound (and other short stories), in anticipation of the upcoming film. Really enjoying it.

[quote] reading 'The Leopard' by Lampedusa but find myself wishing I hadn't seen the movie first. It makes the book feel a little dry, but it's still good.

My experience exactly, R15. Twice I made at shot at the book, being assured by what I'd read and heard it was great, great novel. But I'd seen the movie long ago (a couple times) and the movie just filtered anything I was trying to read.

It's an interesting topic for this group of readers: has seeing movies before you read a novel affected your ability to read it? How? Give examples. Due Friday.

Well, I had seen the movie of “The Leopard” a few times before tackling the book but I was still completely blown away by the it. Though I remember it took a few minutes of adjustment for me to get into that fly-on-the-wall, moment to moment sense of tactile detail that starts the book off. but once I got the rhythm of it, I loved it. Started reading it again as soon as I finished it, it’s entirely unique.

r13, I loved "The Shadow of the Wind" but I didn't like any of the other books in the series.

The Emperor of Gladness: stunning second novel from Ocean Vuong.

[quote]has seeing movies before you read a novel affected your ability to read it?

Seeing the movie and then reading the book just makes it easier for me to visualize what I'm reading.

On the other hand, reading a book before seeing the movie usually leaves me disappointed in the movie. The movie in my head is rarely the movie on the screen.

[Italic]The Elegance of the Hedgehog[/italic] worked better for me as a movie than the dense book.

With Trollope's [italic]The Way We Live Now[/italic], I liked the book after seeing the video, later appreciating the material left out of the film rather than a thousand page slog first.

THE WAY WE LIVE NOW is one of my favorite novels and I found the BBC version, which I watched a few years later, excellent. Ben Kingsley, Shirley Henderson, Cheryl Campbell, Matthew McFadyen, Douglas Hodge, Cillian Murphy.....OMG.

The BBC version of LITTLE DORRIT is also spectacular, making a rather dense and inscrutable novel far more exciting. Claire Foy, Tom Courtenay, Judy Parfitt, Russell Tovey, among so many others - you just can't beat these British casts.

"ASK NOT: The Kennedys and the Women they Destroyed."

Based on Benjamin Woods' recent Booker longlist inclusion for SEASCRAPER, I bought his first novel THE BELLWETHER REVIVALS. Just started it, but it so far seems an absorbing read. (Lots of hints of THE SECRET HISTORY from its reviewers.)

I was referring to the one with David Suchet (Poirot) as Melmotte, R24.

R16 - I enjoy her books. I used to be a big reader. About 20 years ago, after coming out, I fell out of the habit. I moved to a different city, started a job and a new life basically, and didn't have much time. When I tried reading books again a few years later, I couldn't seem to concentrate and finish them. I hadn't read a book in forever. Earlier this year, my daughter-in-law sent me one of her books, and I just devoured it. I've now read seven of her nine books. They are easy reads for me, and that's what I needed to start reading again.

I'm so happy - I thought that age had fried my brain and I couldn't really read anymore. That is true to some degree. I did try to start a very dense novel, and had to put it aside. For now, I'll content myself with easy reads.

The first time I read EM Forster's "Howard's End" I didn't quite get it. I understood it, but so many of the characters seemed rather amorphous. Then the Redgrave-Thompson-Hopkins movie came out, and it all seemed much clearer. I went back and reread the book (and have several times since) and loved it. With some authors a visual crutch may help, at least initially.

I'm with you R29, I enjoy a movie-book relationship either way, and sometimes it's very helpful.

Mark Merlis -read 3 of his books so far this year. All gay themed - 1960-1990s - with great details of gay life in those eras. But most importantly, I absolutely loved his writing and storytelling. I’ve been recommending him to all my gay friends - he seems to be an underappreciated gay writer about whom I knew nothing until I read his first book, American Studies. Love them all - especially An Arrows Flight which I resisted because of the pseudo-Greek mythology element but was a brilliant gay AIDS-era update of Philoctetes that requires no knowledge of Greek mythology or appreciation of fantasy/mythology novels.

In a reverse order, I finally got myself reading much of the classic Victorian canon in my elder years, beginning with The Way We Live Now, by telling myself: just imagine Maggie Smith and Judi Dench and John Gielgud and how they'd play the characters and it really helped me get into the world of Trollope, Dickens, George Eliot, et. al. It made it less intimidating, and of course, so much of the plotting is no more than soap opera, albeit brilliantly written.

‘Suddenly Something Clicked,’ by Walter Murch

r27, my poor memory...thanks! I was confusing Ben Kingsley with David Suchet, who was indeed the brilliant Melmotte in that BBC The Way We Live Now.

100 Years of Solitude

Murderland

Everybody's Fool, by Richard Russo.

Merlis is underappreciated. Didn't realized he died some years ago. I hope there's a period of rediscovery in his excellent books. Especially Arrow's Floght and American Studies. Are they still in print?

The Six: The Lives of the Mitford Sisters by Laura Thompson.

I liked Outrageous, but I didn’t love it. I’ve been hearing or reading about the sisters for years now and I wanted something more thorough.

Diana especially has always fascinated me and I don’t mean in a good way.

Also want to second a recommendation for THE CHAPERONE by Laura Moriarty, mentioned upthread, a surprisingly good read.

And the newly published THE CORRESPONDENT by first time author Virginia Evans is excellent.

Both novels start in seemingly simple, unassuming ways but ultimately go very deep,

What do you think of it, R36? I'm finding it at times gripping, but at other times in need of editing with a machete. And I'm not sold on the author's thesis.

I’m reading Helen Garner for the first time since reading Monkey Grip and The First Stone in my teens.

Yes, it’s because of Dua Lipa!

I'm reading my first Mitford now, R39: [italic]Christmas Pudding[/italic].

The Merlis book that interests me most seems to be [italic]Man About Town[/italic].

Man About Town is good - and the most mild and relatable Merlis. Elements that are dated/problematic to non-elder gays - but describes issues of growing old as a gay man and relationships after breakup of a LT partnership/“marriage”. As with all his stuff, it hits home based on my experiences as a gay man in late 20th century/early 21st urban gay metropolis. (DC in most of his books)

AS a 76 year old eldergay and avid fiction reader I'm shocked that I've never heard of Mark Merlis.

How can that be? Which novel should I read first? Just went on Amazon to read readers' reviews on his various novels and several intrigue me.

I vote for American Studies. I think you haven't heard of him because his books weren't well-publicized and widely reviewed or awarded. His publishers didn't do their job.

R46: he was writing decades ago. The market for gay fiction increased since then, post-internet era (2000+). Prior to that, gay fiction was very niche.

Perhaps his books were all published by small companies?

Merlis’ American Studies was a little too far back (1950s-60s) for me as Gen X. I enjoyed the 80s-90s novels like A Man About Town. An Arrows Flight is perhaps his masterpiece - and worked for me as an analogy for the 1980s (like Demon Copperhead was to David Copperfield except Greek myths and hustlers, AIDS).

JD was a little….disturbing. But writing was very real. Relatable, fully fleshed out characters - who were living through the sexual revolution after the repression of the 1950s. Again great writing - like all of his books, i didn’t want it to end and it stayed with me long after.

The Fountainhead. About time I did.

Another fine writer of the time was Paul Russell: The Coming Storm, Sea of Tranquility., etc. As I recall, his work was very sexy and readable—but also smart. Seems that he's still in print, acc to Amazon.

Also liked Christopher Bram. He was prolific for a time. Novels like HOLD TIGHT and FATHER OF FRANKENSTEIN (filmed as Gods and Monsters). Also very readable.

caspoacpaccq. cmpe9cec cmepc-cmvmoid

Also a fan of Christopher Bram. Even his more minor work like Lives of the Circus Animals and Exiles in America are fun light reads.

Thanks to Datalounge, I read Fox by Joyce Carol Oates last week and quite enjoyed it. Now I’m reading Mice 1961 by Stacey Levine. It was a Pulitzer Prize finalist a few months ago. This is my first time reading her but it won’t be my last. I’m finding her voice fresh and unique.

Started FLESH by David Szalay (a finalist for the Booker Prize) a few hours ago and can't put it down. I've already read more than a hundred pages. Spare yet totally compelling writing about a teenager in Hungary in the 1980s and how life propels him along through the decades. Sex, money, power and existentialism.

R56, that’s one of my favorite novels of the year.

I’m reading Watership Down because it was recommended to me as something that might cheer me up, or take my mind of everyday pressures.

Anyone reading romantasy books?

I just finished FOX was a thrilling and chilling read (and often quite darkly funny). I was hooked from the first page until the last. Oates’s ability to freshly describe the most commonplace objects and emotions is so legion. I was consistently in awe by her prose and just how quickly it goes once you’re fully mesmerized by it. There are also some genuinely mind-blowing metaphors. Francis Fox was a very compelling character to follow throughout the novel that was giving me some interesting Tom Riley vibes. And I was genuinely startled by the final conclusion/twist which I thought was expertly executed (as well as telegraphed).

One of her best novels, by far. I would say this will get Pulitzer Prize consideration. It’s shocking that at age 87, Joyce Carol Oates is at the top of her game.

Journal du voleur, Jean Genet, which gave me interesting comparisons to the inversions of Trump and his cronies.

Culpability is impossible to put down.

I, too, believe FOX and Oates are worthy of this year's Pulitzer but I worry that the book isn't being talked about as much as it should be.

Does anyone have recommendations for contemporary French fiction?

[QUOTE] Oates’s ability to freshly describe the most commonplace objects and emotions is so legion.

Even those little marble notebooks we all had to get at back-to-school Oates manages to make sinister in FOX.

I've recently been reading psychological crime thrillers by A J Cross. Very good, in my opinion and wasn't expecting one of the villians to be a necrophilic which was a bit squeamish but there you go.

Most recently, Moonstone: The Boy Who Never was by Icelandic writer Sjon; John Rechy's After the Blue Hour; John Lahr's Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh; and then several Michael Ondaatje novels.

This thread inspired me to read Man About Town by Mark Merlis. I just started it this afternoon but I’m finding it captivating. I loved American Studies.

Started Katie Kitamura's AUDITION last night. First 50 pages are very interesting.

I'm working on Paraic O'Donnell's [italic]The Naming of the Birds[/italic], sequel to the Victorian mystery [italic]The House on Vesper Sands[/italic]. I recommend reading them in order for background.

However, this one features a murder in a Molly House, gay brothel. Inspector Cutter makes a (libertarian) point of not giving a feck about "sodomy criminals" but solving a murder. At one point, there's a throw-away line that to me hinted the older married-to-my-job single detective refused to succumb to pressure to marry.

Outstanding audio narration!

Someone recommended Goldfinch. Anyone ever read it?

R71. Not worth the effort. And I count The Secret History as a guilty pleasure.

R71, I loved it.

[quote]Anyone ever read it?

Well, it won the Pulitzer. So I would assume that at least the jury read it.

I loved The Goldfinch except for the excruciating Las Vegas chapters which could be its own (bad) book. The rest reads like a modern Dickens story.

Bad book, worse movie.

Started BUCKEYE on audio. Reviews have been very positive. Enjoying it so far.

The Las Vegas section of The Goldfinch was actually my favorite part of the novel.

Isn’t Donna Tartt due for another novel? She usually drops one every ten years?

Better Davis and Other Stories by Philip Dean Walker. Very funny, very sad, and everything in between.

One story in the collection (“Brainstorm”) seems to heavily imply that Robert Wagner murdered Natalie Wood. There is also a suggestion that Christopher Walken might have had an affair with the actor who played the Cowboy in “The Boys in the Band.”

I thought Donna Tartt was overrated. Good storytelling - but not a memorable, meaningful book - for me.

Many years ago I heard that Frank Gifford had a long-time fling with the actor who played Cowboy in BITB.

Baldwin was liberal white America’s token black guy. He was truly overrated. He’s like Jean-Michel Basquiat. I just roll my eyes when I hear some white savior mention their names. They’re full of it.

Still reading the box set of Detective/Murder mysteries. I didn't know the British said "half after 2:PM" for instance rather than 2:30 as Americans do. Ya learn something new all the time.

My experience, R83, is that they say "half two" instead of half past two.

I was gifted a Proust collection. Which one should I read first?

You have to read Proust in order/-start with Swann’s Way

You have a treat in store r85!

French lit has been a desert since Jean-Christophe Rufin stopped churning them out.

Started the first audiobook in K J Charles' historical mystery series featuring bookshop owner Will Darling. Like the title character already, can't wait to meet him new "partner" as well!

But Andrei Makine is still hard at work at least.

Mrs Palfrey At The Claremont by (not that) Elizabeth Taylor. So good. I wonder if boarding houses/hotels for mobile and non-infirm senior citizens still exist? Well, not in Kensington.

Starting Tower of Babylon by Alejandro Varela. Anyone read it?

Reading Deep House by Jeremy Lin. It’s a memoir and a review of US marriage and immigration laws and how standing laws were used to discriminate against gays and lesbians.

I've been reading all the Philip Marlowe novels of Raymond Chandler. They're strange, off kilter, complex, atmospheric and engrossing, and very much of their specific LA war and postwar era. I had been listening to the Eliot Gould narrations of several of them, (he's a great narrator for Marlowe, but went back to read them in print because the audiobooks had been abridged and much of the poetry and beautiful descriptions had been excised in the abridgment

"Crazy Pavements" (1927), by Beverly (a man) Nichols. A rawther delicious satire of the London high life, as camp as a row of tents. One character, a titled nymphomaniac, has had 7 face-lifts. It's all in that vein. Reprinted by the admirable Valanacourt Press.

Beverly Nichols was family (of course)

R94: He has his detractors, but I liked Scott Brick's unabridged narration. My parents had an acquaintance called Linda Loring, so that name was hard for me as a fictional character.

This lpoks like it will be very quick match

[quote]Baldwin was liberal white America’s token black guy. He was truly overrated. He’s like Jean-Michel Basquiat. I just roll my eyes when I hear some white savior mention their names. They’re full of it.

Is that why his essays are still read and admired 50-60 years later, and why he continues to be the subject of documentaries? He'd have been long forgotten if what you say were true. "Giovanni's Room" (1956) is considered a classic of gay literature.

Baldwin's "Go tell it on the Mountain" is also a classic, and is taught quite frequently in colleges, as are many of the short stories (like "Sonny's Blues").

"The Fire Next time" is considered one of the most important book-length social criticism essays of the 20th century.

I was amazed by how well Baldwin captured a white main character in Giovanni's Room.

Loved his "The Devil's Finds Work" as well. He's earned his acclaim, referring to him as an "over-rated token" just ain't so.

Baldwin wrote and said things about race relations that were ahead of their time and are still relevant today.

I also loved MRS. PALFREY but tried reding a few of Elizabeth Taylor's other novels yet none were nearly as engaging.

And if you haven't seen it there's lovely small 2005 film of the book starring Joan Plowright and Rupert Friend that's an excellent adaptation. I think it can be found on youtube.

Just finished Katie Kitamura's 2025 AUDITION which I said had an interesting beginning upthread when I started it.

Thank god it's a short book (197 pages) because I never would have gotten through it otherwise. So damned annoying. I have no idea what the author is trying to say and I'm shocked at the rave reviews it's gotten everywhere. If anyone can explain the plot to me, please have a go at it.

My favorite of Taylor's novels is IN A SUMMER SEASON.

Oh! Don't think I tried that one but I'll have a look. Thanks, r105.

1. Baldwin wrote stunningly about race and the experience of being Black, and gay. It was highly relevant art for its time. Some passages are still great American writing.

2. He was a superior essayist and pretty good novelist... whether Black or white or purple.

I just went on ThriftBooks and ordered The Mommie Dearest Diary: Carol Ann Tells All. I hope it's good.

Any other gossip/trash books I can order? Will be getting heart surgery soon (CABG) and need books that will keep me amused.

r108, try The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson

R109 this one sounds so juicy and salacious. Thanks!

R97, yeah, I'm one of those Scott Brick detractors unfortunately. I had to actively seek out and pirate those Eliot Gould versions, they're hard to find. When does Scott Brick find time to sleep? He seems to read everything

r108, if you're a Broadway fan you can't find a better dishier posthumous bio than Mary (daughter of Richard) Rodgers' memoir SHY.

Taylor's ANGEL is pretty good too.

François Ozon made an adaptation of ANGEL with a young Romola Garai and Michael Fassbender; with Sam Neill and Charlotte Rampling.

I think the French appreciate Elizabeth Taylor more than the British.

[quote]He’s like Jean-Michel Basquiat. I just roll my eyes when I hear some white savior mention their names. They’re full of it.

I agree that for a lot of “white saviors”, James Baldwin is the be-all and end-all.

[quote] Baldwin was liberal white America’s token black guy. He was truly overrated.

But this is not the case at all. White America love Baldwin because he truly is undeniable; raw and prescient.

Baldwin's appeal reaches well beyond "liberal white America." He is read all over the world; his work has been translated into over 30 languages. Funny how the "overrated" crowd always ignore that. I went to high school in France in the 1980s and we read and discussed "The Fire Next Time" in our English class. BTW even a right-wing conservative like Douglas Murray is an admirer of his work.

I tried to read The Thursday Murder Club but was bored. And I enjoy any number of cozy mysteries featuring senior citizens.

I agree that Baldwin is a treasure, one of the giants of his era. I do think that he will be more honored for his essays than his fiction (Giovanni's Room excepted.) .He's like Gore Vidal in that respect.

The Ozon film is very good. Never read Taylor. There’s just so much I can get to. I agree about Audition. It was so stylized there wasn’t a breath of life in it

I'm reading "Sex, Power, & Murder", about the Chandra Levy/Gary Condit affair. I'm only 2 chapters in.

Her mom told her before she left California for D.C. "Don't you become a Monica Lewinsky."

I just finished “I Regret Almost Everything,” which is completely charming and wonderful.

I want to move on to something more literary…Considering “The Way Of All Flesh,” or maybe “The Forsyte Saga.” Has anyone read either of these?

R122 I was assigned to read 3 Samuel Butler works in one week at uni. The Way Of All Flesh was the one I skipped and lied about reading.

I've tried reading The Way of All Flesh a few times but could never get very far into it it. Just dull. Don't be misled by the seemingly sexy title.

I think The Forsyte Saga is also pretty dull. If you're looking for a well-written highly-readable Victorian soap opera you can't beat Great Expectations. Armadale by Wilkie Collins is also fabulous.

Not sure I understand why some posters upthread are talking bout Mark Merlis like he began writing fiction in the 1960s. His first novel AMERICAN STUDIES was published in 1994, though of course, it deals plot-wise with earlier decades and the present day of the narrator seems to be 1989 (the scenes in the hospital).

Nevertheless, based on the recs here, I started reading it over the weekend and I'm loving it....though there's a certain whimsicality (for want of a better word) to the writing that I could imagine might put off younger readers.

Which is Sally Rooney's best book/ worth reading?

R125, Intermezzo was my favorite. I found the brothers’ relationship realistic and moving.

I couldn’t finish Conversations With Friends because of the gormless lead character.

Okay ... like many of you I'm turned off by all these women and their MM "romance" books featuring what women want to see. However, K J Charles is an exception.

I totally identified with Will Darling in the first book of his trilogy: [italic]Slippery Creatures[/italic]. If I didn't know better, I'd swear she had a gay guy "consulting" her on the more ... personal aspects. There is explicit sex, but more to the point, the characaters' reactions/feelings towards each other.

Based on the opinions shared here about Fox by Joyce Carol Oates, I was eager to listen to the audiobook. Even though I was aware the subject of the book was a pedophile before I began, by the time I was halfway through, I stopped and jumped to the confession and through the final revelations at the end.

The sections told from the perspective of Francis Fox, the titular character, were challenging to listen to and the darkness of the material became too much for me. Still, as with any whodunit, I wanted answers and got most of them.

I agree that Fox is well written and profound. Some day, I may go back to it and listen to the middle portion I skipped.

I’m half way through The Way Of All Flesh. After a slow start it’s turning into a masterpiece.

I can see why R123 gave up on it, I almost did as well. But now I’m completely in love with it.

Now you make me want to try it again, r130. How many pages in before it turns into a masterpiece?

I'm one of the big fans of FOX but I have heard from some friends who tried the audio book version that it was ruined for them by too many different actors' voices and some overacting.

[quote} How many pages in before it turns into a masterpiece?

About 50 or so pages…Or when the protagonist (Earnest) finally becomes the center of attention, and his aunt enters his life.

I'm reading Murderland and agree on the editing and thesis R41, but I am finding it a mostly compelling and engaging read. I can't say the same about The Doorman R10. I'm about 60 pages in and not inclined to finish. It's just too in your face with the social/cultural/economic aspect. Not really an enjoyable read.

R134-The Doorman wants to be Bonfire Of The Vanities but ends up closer to The Anderson Tapes.

I just started "Small g -- A Summer Idyll" by Patricia Highsmith, one of her later novels and published a decade after her death in 1995. It kicks off with the brutal murder (what else?) of a 20-year-old gay man on the streets of Zurich and then switches to the perspective of his mourning partner, an older artist in his forties named Rickie (who happens to be HIV-positive). I'm a bit puzzled by the dialogue here and there, as she uses decidedly more British than American expressions ("Having bollocksed one sketch beyond repair"; elsewhere, "pissed" is used in the British sense of being drunk). This language looks sort of out of place in a novel with a Swiss setting written by an American author (though she did, apparently, live in Britain for a few years in the 1960s), and then there are parts where the dialogue otherwise seems off--almost not like native English at all. "Small g" is the name of the mixed, gay-friendly bar where Rickie and his circle of friends all hang out. I think this is one of the few Highsmith novels featuring *explicitly* gay characters. So far, so good.

Saltfish girl

Highsmith moved from the U.S. in 1963 and resided in Europe (primarily France & Switzerland) until her death in 1995, R136. I suspect that may be the reason her language doesn't sound "American".

Hi R138, I'm aware of that. I've read both the Andrew Wilson and Joan Schenkar biographies of her (though it's been a while) and watched the "Loving Highsmith" documentary more recently. I still think, though, that the colloquialisms she uses seem off--either too dated even for the 1980s, or a bit "naff" (as Highsmith might have said). Of course, she's rendering what would be dialogue between native German speakers into English, which adds to the confusion. All that said, she describes the Zurich gay scene of the 1980s very vividly.

For my money Highsmith never wrote a decent novel besides The Talented Mr. Ripley (which is indeed quite brilliant). Strangers on a Train comes nowhere near the brilliance of Hitchcock's film and the additions he made. Her later novels have a very weird sense of the modern worlds they're all set in, whether NYC or elsewhere. I'm not a fan.

Patricia Highsmith is something of an acquired taste. I like her a lot, she is a unique, weird one (and from the biographies, horrible in real lfe). One thing i love about her books is that the characters make irrational and stupid decisions. This is far stranger than it sounds like. For instance, in A Suspension of Mercy, a character decides to lie to the police about his wife’s disappearance just because he wants to know what it feels like for a book he is writing. Naturally, things go wrong.

I have small g but never read it as i thought nothing much happens in it. Tell us what you thought once finished, r136

I like Highsmith's The Blunderer

Finished "The Eustace DIamonds", on to "Phineas Redux".

I adored Mark Merlis' AMERICAN STUDIES! Thanks to all who mentioned and recommended it upthread. Can't wait to read more of him.

Just starting Amy Bloom's new novel I'll Be Right Here which looks very promising. I've been amazed at the complex historical/generational stories she's able to tell in such short novels. This one is 254 pages.

Telephone Calls from the dead

Just began [bold]Lake on the Mountain[/bold] by Jeffrey Round, which won the 2013 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Mystery.

Just started LACE as I currently have a craving for trashy "shopping and fucking" novels. Also, I'm an eldergay who never found out which one of those bitches was her mother.

‘Haywire,’ Brooke Hayward’s memoir

Read Haywire due to a DL recommendation. It is a great distraction. A good story, good writing, a little juicy - but also a real sense of personalities. And recent history. A good read.

I just got the new Dan Brown book!!

Can’t wait to get into it. 🤗

Enjoy your Dan Brown r151 😊

For those of you with an Audible subscription, I've started [italic]Vanishing Fleece[/italic] by Clara Parkes, where I'm very impressed with her narrating her own work; she's upfront about being in a same-sex relationship. A great book for other nonfiction people to consider!

Speaking of Audible, started [italic]The Wheel Spins[/italic] which is also working out well. Since so many here are film buffs, Hitchcock made his film "The Lady Vanishes" from this story; I have not seen it ... yet.

I sense sarcasm from you, R152.

But I don’t care.

I WILL enjoy reading this book.

I want you to enjoy it r154. I read the Da Vinci Code along with everyone else, but couldn’t get into the other one of his books I attempted.

I loved the film of Angels And Demons, though, it was perfect Hollywood trash and far better than the Conclave movie.

Do we think Robert Langdon is well-hung? I do. Girthy.

Possibly.

I can only shudder when thinking of Tom Hanks’ blowout.

He has a girlfriend this time around!!

At least in the first three chapters I’ve read so far.

I like how Harlan Coben and Dan Brown trade blurbs as fraternity brothers. I went to university with two writers who became fairly noteworthy, a poet and a novelist. They loathe each other.

The news about the forthcoming adaptation of [italic]The Forsyte Saga[/italic] has had me reading it again. It's such a superb read.

It's fascinating to me how much the family are all in one another's lives--I've got a group of wealthy cousins (seven kids in all, all adults with kids and some grandkids) who all live in the Bay Area who lead lives very much like the Forsytes. They see each other multiple times every month, which would drive me crazy--but that's how some families lead their lives.

Has anyone read the new Jess Walters' novel SO FAR GONE? Just snagged it at my library and eager to get into it. If it's good, I'll report back. His BEAUTIFUL RUINS was a fave of mine a while back.

r161, I loved the satirical THE FINANCIAL LIVES OF THE POET, but haven't kept up with him. Maybe I will give this new one a try if you like it.

BUCKEYE. Delicious, absorbing, touching.

The Leopard.

"On The Road And Off The Record with Leonard Bernstein", by Charlie Harmon. A riveting up-close detailed portrait of the charms and horrors of the monster-genius. Insanely busy international life amid the A-list. Classical maestro as rock-star. Bristling with DL-worthy gossip. Somehow the author just about emerged with his sanity, and won LB's respect. An amazing read.

Tell us more about BUCKEYE, r163!

BUCKEYE follows two families in small-town Ohio from pre-WWII to the 60s. History and human foibles intertwine in both dramatic and touching ways. The two couples at the center are remarkably written, with loving detail and psychological accuracy. Lots of cliches of a kind that often haunt these sagas are sidestepped by the writer's amazing skill at precise details. To be fair, I'm 2/3 into the book, and I guess it might not stick the landing, but from professional reviews I've seen I doubt it. It's the first book in a while I'm eager to return to every day. (If it matters, I'm doing the audiobook version; the narrator is excellent.)

Thanks so much for the extra details, r167. Adding to my TBR list now.

I recently read Animal Farm for the first time. It’s completely relevant for today’s times. Napoleon the pig IS Trump.

Just finished Gilead. It won the Pulitzer. For some reason.

R170. I actually think the second book in her series, “Home,” is a much better book. I found “Gilead” rather dry going.

I thought all four books in the series were beautiful. I love Marilynne Robinson.

I'm reading "The Fixer: Moguls, Mobsters, Movie Stars, and Marilyn " by Josh Young and Manfred Westphal.

Truly a scandalous, juicy book. I can only hope something like this is written about today's stars.

Reporting back. Had to give up on Jess Walters' new novel SO FAR GONE. I gave up after about 50 pages. It all seemed rather stale and made for TV movie-ish to me. The liberal politics expressed are dear to my heart but it's not what I'm looking for in contemporary fiction, not as expressed in those cliched and predictable characters.

So, now I'm on to Susan Choi's award-winning novel of a few years ago, TRUST EXERCISE which begins in 1982 with a teenaged couple at their advanced and liberal fine arts high school in the South. 30 pages in and intrigued.

I'm going to finish [italic]The Wheel Spins[/italic], but halfway though it's proving an unexpected slog.

[QUOTE] So, now I'm on to Susan Choi's award-winning novel of a few years ago, TRUST EXERCISE which begins in 1982 with a teenaged couple at their advanced and liberal fine arts high school in the South. 30 pages in and intrigued.

I read TRUST EXERCISE recently after an addictive, feverish reading of the excellent FOX by Joyce Carol Oates. I think the first section of TRUST EXERCISE is strong and very interesting. It felt like a very specific world and I thought there were some really fresh insights as well as turns of phrase. The writing was great.

When the novel takes its big swing, I was initially very intrigued about how everything would ultimately connect. Unfortunately, I don’t think it fulfills that connection for me in the end. But I have to admire the originality of the experiment of what she came up with there.

Timely.

r176, as another fan of FOX I'm also finding myself comparing Choi's book.

It also reminds me of one of my favorite recent reads IDLEWILD by James Frankie Thomas which is also set in a fine arts high school, this one in Manhattan. I posted about it way upthread (or maybe even in a former book thread) - a truly remarkable debut novel!

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich would go down well with Gibbons' The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

Both so timely in understanding where we are in America today.

I just finished Animal Farm, which also, sadly, is timely.

TRUST EXERCISE tries to pull off an ATONEMENT twist but it doesn’t work.

R177, you should try the Richard Evan trilogy, The Ascension of the Third Reich, the Third Reich in Power and The Third Reich at War. Illuminating reads (also somehow depressing in not only the parallels but the level of destruction everywhere). Ended it in August and liked it s lot. Very good writer.

^ Richard EvanS

I’m halfway through SO FAR GONE, and I think it would be a great buddy movie for, say, Harrison Ford and Tom Hanks.

Peter Mann’s “World Pacific” is a brilliantly executed satirical thriller that defies easy categorization.

I finally decided to read Blood Meridian. I’m about 130 pages in. I refuse to give up, but I’m really struggling here!

R186 Have you read anything else by McCarthy? I advise people to try an easier book of his, like "No Country for Old Men," to get familiar with his style before tackling "Blood Meridian."

The History of Sound is a $1.99 Kindle Deal today.

Like Don Delillo - I keep trying but they are a slog. Underworld, White Noise, Zero K. Unable to finish any of them. I respect his writing - but was left uninterested in the story and level of detail. I stopped trying to read some of these “great” modern writers - life is too short and difficult to make reading (my joy) turn into work too.

They tell a story and you want to stay with them to the end. Here are a dozen sweet reads, comfortable stories that entertain and make quiet reading a pleasure: Gatsby Dracula Frankenstein One with the Wind To Kill A Mockingbird The Once and Future King The Fountainhead The Group The World According to Garp Mrs. Dalloway Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil The Confederacy of Dunces

Read Andrei Makine instead R189. You'll like him, although they are better in French than in transation.

As I posted in the "Are there any novels you've read multiple times?" thread: "I'm nearly finished reading Paul Scott's The Raj Quartet for probably the sixth time since the '80s. I get more out of it and am more astounded by the novels' architecture every time I read them. Next, of course, I'll watch the TV adaptation, The Jewel in the Crown, a master class in how to adapt literature to the screen."

I'm always sad when I finish the quartet, as I look forward to the couple of hours a day I can sit down with it and forget about everything else. It's that engrossing (to me).

^ When I was at uni I read Salman Rushdie’s extremely bitchy piece on The Jewel In The Crown.

I loved the miniseries. It didn’t turn me against the books but I confess that I never finished them.

Has anyone read Staying On?

I had tried to read the first in Scott's series THE JEWEL IN THE CROWN, really got into it at first, but then sadly felt like I was missing a lot Scott was saying because of my lack of Indian history and politics, and then gave up after about 100 (or maybe more) pages.

A few years later, probably because STAYING ON was relatively short, I gave it a try and loved it. It's the simply told story of an impoverished elderly white couple who for decades have lived a privileged life in India, coming to terms with their final years after most of their friends have died or returned to England.

Someday soon I hope to give TJITC another go. Thanks for reminding me of THE RAJ QUARTET. I'd love to think I could read all of it in my elder years...

I’m reading a Lisa Scottoline. Italian lawyer in Philadelphia with a crazy Italian family.

Just finished Blood Meridian. It was charming.

Just finished TRUST EXERCISE which I mentioned upthread. After a rather slow start it really picked up in its second part and I couldn't put it down. Not sure I "got it" all but what a wild ride! Highly recommend it to all serious fiction readers. Particularly good for book clubs because there's just so much to discuss.

I’m enjoying reading Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte. DataLounge is mentioned on page 110!

Your Booker Prize Shortlist:

Audition by Katie Kitamura, USA

Flashlight by Susan Choi, USA

Flesh by David Szalay, Hungary/Britain

The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller, UK

The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai, India

The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovits, USA

Your Booker Prize judges: Chris Power (critic) , Sarah Jessica Parker (owner of imprint SJP Lit), Roddy Doyle (writer), Ayobami Adebayo (writer) and Kiley Reid (writer).

The complaints:

[quote] Booker prize jury chair has bemoaned the quality of many entrants for the annual literary award, saying judges had often wondered “why we had been asked to read” some of the submitted novels.

[quote] Roddy Doyle, the first former Booker prizewinner to subsequently chair the jury, said he and the other four jurors had discarded all but 31 books from the original 153 to discuss before deciding which should be on their longlist.

[quote] He said many had not warranted discussion later, adding that he began to feel low when reading two bad books in a row because he had “signed up” to be a judge in order to read good books.

[quote] Doyle said the number of books they all had to read was “daunting”. He said that such were his reading responsibilities, one day he recorded only 17 steps on his pedometer “and it took eight steps to the kettle from where I was sitting”.

[quote] He said that before a longlisting meeting with the other judges — the fellow writers Ayobami Adebayo and Kiley Reid, the critic Chris Power and the actress Sarah Jessica Parker — they had “decided 31 books were worth discussing”. Although they had talked about each of the 153 submitted novels, he said: “We didn’t say much about some of them and a very few we wondered why we had been asked to read them.” Power said the bad books did have the benefit of highlighting the good ones. “If you read a few bad books in a row, which you could easily do in this process or [at least] not great books and then you read something quite good you suddenly got excited about it,” he said.

[quote] Doyle, who won the Booker in 1993 for Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, said that it was often a blessing when he encountered a bad book within the 153.

[quote] “Now and again I would feel a bit of relief when I realised, to my mind, that it wasn’t a good book and I would stop reading,” the Irish author said. “But [then it would] happen twice in a row and I started to feel a bit low because this is not what I have signed up for. I want to read good books.”

I started The Templars by Michael Haag. So far it’s good, well written, and a lot of history that is easy to digest.

It's a crime that Joyce Carol Oates' FOX has not been shortlisted for the Booker!

I laugh at the idea that SJP is some sort of literary icon. Yes, she's had a couple of imprints that produced decent books, but the fact that she perpetrated such unmitigated garbage (as producer and lead) as And Just Like That on the universe. I was disappointed in the Booker people for such an obvious publicity grab.

Agreed, R201. FOX is the best book I’ve read this year and it honestly makes me not think very highly of the “Booker.”

I hope JCO wins the Pulitzer. It would be very well deserved.

The Booker requests books for nominations for the prize, doesn't choose the contenders. It's possible Oates' publishers didn't submit FOX.

[quote] I laugh at the idea that SJP is some sort of literary icon.

In fairness, they often have a minor celebrity judge who is not in the book trade. Robert Webb, Natascha McElhone, Imogen Stubbs and Dan Stevens are actors chosen in the past. Nitin Sawhney did it last year.

I don’t know about her taste levels but she’s sufficiently earnest that I can imagine Sarah Jessica Parker taking it seriously.

Do you guys like Pynchon? Is it a bit of slog like DeLillo?

I'm also making my way through TRAMPS LIKE US, and it's surprisingly beautiful in places.

Just finished [italic]The Wheel Spins[/italic], basis for the Hitchcock film "The Lady Vanishes". Honestly, not a fan. Whiny main character, didn't really understand the whole conspiracy at all. Probably made a better movie.

But were any of these "minor celebrities" guilty of anything as foul as Parker?

Hitchcock made HUGE improvements on his sources for Strangers on a Train and Family Plot so it wouldn't surprise me if he did the same for The Lady Vanishes. He was a genius.

[quote] I laugh at the idea that SJP is some sort of literary icon.

Just finished Atmosphere by TJR-sappy lesbian romance, not enough spacey stuff

Started Fall and Rise: the story of 9/11 by Mitchell Zuckoff - a week ago- gripping sruff and very well written

For our Inverts book club, just finished Milo Todd's new book THE LILAC PEOPLE about trans men (born women) in Germany at the start of the Nazi's rise in the early 30s and then just post-WWII, when the occupying American allies were trying to jail them.

Sounds cringey, perhaps, but it was a wonderfully engaging and poignant novel. Perfect for a book club.

[quote]Do you guys like Pynchon?

I read The Crying Lot Of 49 at university. My lecturer warned that it’s not a book for depressed people, and warned any students that’s way inclined that it could tip them over the edge. Then she chuckled. What a bitch. But for a South African, that’s mild.

I did like the book, and yes, it made me quite despondent.

I ordered Harlem Rhapsody and Hungerstone from the local library

To me DeLillo is a fun and easy summer beach read compared to Pynchon. The Crying of Lot 49 and V were readable... and everything after is a very, very hard slog.

Here’s what I read In September:

Brontë-Jane Eyre-Great, but not as great as Wuthering Heights…Trying to finally read some of the books everyone else read in high school.

McNally-I Regret Almost Everything-Delicious! Couldn’t put it down.

Butler-The Way Of All Flesh-Once it settles down, quite wonderfully cynical. Anti-religion, always a plus.

Orwell-Animal Farm-Sadly relevant to today.

Dickens-Hard Times-Wonderful! The shortest novel by Dickens, I was expecting another 200 pages after I finished.

Gary Indiana-Rent Boy-Hilarious, a must read for gays

Williamson-Gilead-09-14-25-Too pious for me.

McCarthy-Blood Meridian-A tough read…I think it’s more comprehensible on a reread. Nightmare fuel.

Tulathimutte-Rejection-Terrific, and DataLounge is mentioned on page 110!

Austen-Pride And Prejudice-Embarrassed it took me so long to get to this. I need to read more Austen.

McEwan-What We Can Know-One of his very best, 2nd only to Atonement.

I just finished the second Charlie Bradshaw novel by Stephen Dobyns. These are very unusual detective novels.

First of all, they’re set in Saratoga Springs, of all places.

Second, Dobyns started writing them in the ‘70s and wrote them up until 2018 I think it was. How the world changed for Charlie over all those decades.

Most importantly, Charlie himself is a very unusual detective. He’s smart and level headed, but a small, rather passive man, and full of self-doubt. He's as far from a hardboiled PI as they get. In fact, as of the end of the second novel, he’s not even formally a detective at all yet, but I understand he becomes one later in the series.

I first encountered Dobyn’s work when I attended a live performance of “selected shorts” at symphony space and Dobyn’s story “Part of the Story” was brilliantly read by Isiah Sheffer, who sadly has since died. It was absolutely hilarious and oddly touching as well.

The Charlie Bradshaw novels are the same — full of wit and the absurdity of life.

I’m looking forward to reading them all. There are eleven!

[quote]Charlie Bradshaw

Sounds way too much like Carrie Bradshaw.

Hens Teeth And Horses Toes by Stephen Jay Gould.

r216, thanks for the McEwan recommendation. I've only read a bit of him over the years as I find him very uneven. Loved LESSONS which I believe was his last book.

Thursday Murder Club ALERT: Richard Osman's latest entry THE IMPOSSIBLE FORTUNE hit stores yesterday!

Can't wait to read it and get that hideous film out of my mind.

'The Portable Atheist' - anthology by Christopher Hitchens of articles and extracts from his favourite fellow unbelievers across the centuries. (Including, as he's just been mentioned, a lecture by his friend Ian McEwan.)

Good going, R216!

Thanks once again to all those who recommended Mark Merlis here. After loving AMERICAN STUDIES I wanted more and bought JD which I just finished today. Brilliant book, incredible prose, with difficult characters and situations but....boy, this one will stick with me for the rest of my life.

I look forward to reading the remaining 2 novels but will probably take a little Merlis break. Tonight I'm starting FLORENZER by Brit author Phil Melanson, historical fiction about Leonrdo da Vinci. Great online reviews. Was it recommended upthread? Is that where I first heard of it? Lucky to find it in my library today.

Great thread. Keep the recs coming, please. Winter is soon upon us!

Does FLORENZER deal frankly with his gayness?

Only 30 pages in and Leonardo is only 12 but can already say, yes, very much so., r225.

Finished [italic]A Queer Case[/italic] today as a library book. Selby seemed a bit taken with himself at times, but would read a sequel. Was British society that obsessed with sexuality for what I saw as a gratuitous level of homophobia? Felt the gender-fluid character seemed very 21st Century approach to the story, but ended up liking her for a sequel appearance. Glad I read it.

Reading “Demon Copperhead” right now and loving it. Somehow I hadn’t realized that it is a retelling of “David Copperfield,” which is one of my favorite books ever.

^^^ ?????!

How could you possibly have not realized that, r228?

I’m reading two on CA: Slow Days Fast Company by Eve Babitz and Waiting For The Sun by Barney Hoskyns.

The Garden of the Finzi-Contonis

R230 I knew it was inspired by “David Copperfield” but thought it was simply a first-person story of a kid who becomes orphaned… I didn’t expect that it would follow all the beats of the Dickens novel with updated versions of the characters.

Which is why I abandoned Demon Copperhead early on. I love the Dickens book so much that part of my mind was distracted by comparing the two..Kingsolver always came up short.

Pynchon’s Shadow Ticket arrived 30 minutes ago. That moves straight to the top of the reading pile.

Anyone else going to give Shadow Ticket a go?

I’m starting Lincoln In The Bardo

When one of my cousins died in 2023, I became really depressed and I couldn’t read my normal diet of crime fiction at night. Anything with madness or despair was too dark for me.

So I started rereading Gone With The Wind for the first time since my early teens. I got about halfway through it before life took over and I am about to pick it up again from the beginning.

What I admired was the strong characterisation and surprised me was Melanie. She wasn’t much like the beatific Olivia de Havilland at all. She was a very young-seeming, kind of ditzy girl, who believed in the Cause with her full chest in a way that the other three main characters didn’t - Rhett thought it was folly, Scarlett didn’t care and Ashley tended his misgivings into hypocrisy.

She was like May Welland from The Age Of Innocence and was not made to be a survivor of changing times.

Lincoln in the Bardo is a masterpiece, IMHO. You're in for a treat. If you get frustrated by the format, consider the audiobook. read by a large cast that includes Megan Mullaly, David Sedaris, etc. I did both.

A quarter of the way through the new biography of Baldwin (inspired to read it by OP's link pic), I'm finding it pretty soppy ("A Love Story"). But certainly readable, though not especially rigorous.

I'm enjoying it too, but does it need to be quite so long?

Alec Baldwin?

Unreasonable Hospitality. Full disclosure - it's for a book club meeting.

Prophet Song by Paul Lynch and In search of Perfumes by Dominique Roques