An open discussion on what everyone is currently reading. Make recommendations to others, discuss what is new, hot, bestsellers, anything and everything related to books and the authors.
I have just started reading a remarkable book.
"A Confederacy of Dunces," by John Kennedy Toole.
It's full of the most interesting characters--a hugely overweight odd-ball protagonist who lives in New Orleans with his mother.
The author I understand committed suicide and his mother brought his manuscript a number of years later to the novelist, Walker Percy.
Mr. Percy wrote in the Forward that he was not enthused at first. But then he began reading it.
Suffice it to say, it won the 1981 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.
From what I have read already, I can say without any hestitation, that I recommend it to anyone who likes a good read. A bitingly clever novel--brimming with the most amazing characters and storyline.
"That" I am definitely going to have to read..I'll note it to begin on after I finish this latest "fish tale";):) I love anything to do with New Orleans, and I can well believe the characters are outlandish in every way...:) That's one of my favorite things about The French Quarter, you can just sit down(on the curb if you want, it's perfectly permissable) and watch the entertainment flow by....
so true Loretta.
there's no place like that on earth.
I almost moved there but fate took me to England.
btw my w.i.p --half of it takes place in New Orleans!
talk about a collection of characters!
Laughing....delightful....and what a potpourri to choose from, because I saw that it also takes place in NY too??
The one I'm on the last draft of is totally set in New Orleans....so my characters AND situations are as wild as march hares....lottsa "hair "standin' on end stuff too;)
wow! will certainly read that, Loretta.
it's a great place, isn't it?
I felt so badly when I heard about all the hurricane damage--but I think they're getting on their feet again.
many years ago I went for Mardis Gras--was it wild!
but fun.
It was always a favorite place of mine.
And the food! best food in the world.
because I think of all the different and varied influences!
Every once in a while, I like a mystery/crime novel with humor. I found two: When Pigs Fly by Bob Sanches and How To Ruin a Vacation by Becky Bartness.
I'm catching up on the Darkover sci fi novels. After Bradley died her friend Deborah Ross took them over. The Clingfire series is set back during the Ages of Chaos, so of course it lacks the ideals of Darkover during the Federation Protectorate.
TRUE BELIEVERS by Jane Haddam. I am less enamoured of the Haddams in religious settings, like this; but I do love the continuing characters, from Gregor Demarkian on down.
I was reading a lot of J.D. Robb's series for a while, but needed a break from that knife-edged tone. Haddam's people are friends instead of being on display like Robb's.
I normally like John Harvey's police procedurals very much indeed, but the current read, GONE TO GROUND, seems to drag interminably and feels somehow splintered in the way it shifts between POVs and cases.