I love old books. I love the technical writing, imagining the authors life as they wrote it, noticing the similarities in life regardless of in which point in history you name it… but I also wish I dabbled a bit more in modern stuff.. outside of my very occasional Carl Hiaassen read (I’m a sucker for fucked up Florida characters) I don’t read anything remotely new at all. What books and or authors do you think translate to lovers of classics?
by Optimal-Dentist5310
15 Comments
Anne Tyler? Ann Patchett?
Donna Tartt. She is a master of prose.
Her first published book, The Secret History, is probably her best. Her other two books (The Goldfinch, and The Little Friend) are also incredible and each one is a completely unique masterpiece.
If you like the classics you will be blown away by her work.
Amor Towles. Just a delightful, old feeling read.
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
It’s somehow a debut novel, it’s only 300 pages and gets so much done.
Nk Jemisins writing is outlandishly good! The fifth season is prolly her most prolific work
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
The Great Fire (Hazard)
The House of Doors (Tan Twan Eng)
I would definitely recommend some Umberto Eco, either The Name of the Rose or The Island of the Day Before would be great places to start
Theo of Golden. I am reading it in now, and I am obsessed with the gorgeous prose.
Patrick O’Brian’s Master & Commander series. Imagine Jane Austen had written a Regency era mismatched navy buddies swashbuckler and you start to get close. 20 books of dry humor, eccentric characters, birdwatching, heavy drinking, furious battles, primitive surgery, drawing room banter, violin & cello duets, espionage, and scenic global travel from Halifax to Batavia. Plus so many artery destroying meals that a couple of superfans created a cookbook accompaniment to the series.
Try Elena Ferrante, Hilary Mantel, Marilynne Robinson.
Conclave
Two very different possibilities: “The 100-year-Old-Man-who-climbed out the Window” and “Glorious Exploits.”
The 100 year old man is fun. Glorious Exploits, is, IMO, true craftsmanship.
John Irving is a great contemporary author who is mostly influenced by Dickens and 19th-century literature.
Like Dickens, he writes a lot of densely-plotted bildungsromans about poor orphans growing up and setting out to find their way in the world.
Alan Furst has done evocative spy stories.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ general in his labyrinth is a book that blew me away.