Recommended reading . . .

Hello, Lifelong!

Don't know whether there are any novels that are "essential" to read. It is important to read in your genre, and also read outside of it. Read good books to see what works and bad books to see what doesn't. In short, read!

(I've read one of Stein's books, but I'm probably one of the last writers on Earth who's yet to seek out On Writing. I love the King and all, just haven't gotten around to that one yet...)

So... what's your genre? And personally I have found these novels enthralling:

Odd Thomas, Dean Koontz
Rising Sun, Michael Crichton
Pale Immortal, Anne Frasier

Mystic River by Dennis Lehane has been recommended to me more than once, and also A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving.

Happy hunting!

Just throwing one out . . .

The Stranger, Camus.

Indeed, it depends on what you write -- 'straight' fiction, literary, genre.....

One book that rather blew me away (as they say) when I first read it at the tender age of 23 was Jeanette Winterson's "Sexing the Cherry". I hadnt realised anyone could write like that - until then, the books I'd read had had a beginning, a middle and an end, not several stories all jumbled together like that, with magic realism and bits of fairy tale thrown in. It's not as shining new now as it once was, but it's still one of my favourite books of all time, so I would recommend that.

A recent discovery is "The Emperor's Babe" by Bernardine Evaristo, a novel in blank verse set in Roman London, and a thorouhgly fabulous read. I highly recommend that one as well.

Read some Agatha Christie for plotting, even if you dont write crime fiction. I think she was the best plotter there was. Start with "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd". And don't let anybody tell you whodunnit.

For historical fiction (with a literary edge), I would recommend Amin Maalouf's Leo the African or Balthazar's Odyssey. And also The Beacon at Alexandria by Gillian Bradshaw. Both are wonderful storytellers, and Maalouf is a great writer to boot.

And I think everybody shoudl read some poerty every now and again, simply because even if you dont write it yourself, it teaches you so much about the joys of playing with language, and of stripping down everything to the essential number of words. Read Gwyneth Lewis and / or Nina Cassian.

I think I'll stop now.

Penguin Queen said:

Read some Agatha Christie for plotting, even if you dont write crime fiction. I think she was the best plotter there was. Start with "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd". And don't let anybody tell you whodunnit.

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I heartily concur on this recommendation. When my grandmother was ill and I would stay at her house all during summer vacation to watch over her while my aunt was at work, I read every Agatha Christie book I could find (pretty much her entire collection). I would read at least one, sometimes two books in a 24 hour period and I absolutely adored them. I still do. The one referenced above is one I still speak of with enthusiasm.

A few fine displays of character and plot:

Heart of Darkness
American Psycho
Les Miserables
Of Mice and Men
Bartleby the Scrivener (short)
The Dead (short)

For style:

Ulysses
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
The Figure in the Carpet (short)
Atlas Shrugged (not a good character example though)
Wind in the Willows

Lifelongdagger said:

I wondered if those widely read amongst you could recommended five or six fiction books considered, perhaps, essential for the aspiring writer to have read . . .

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Ask a hundred writers, you'll get five to six hundred different answers. No one will agree on what is essential. Many will say read the classics, many will say read what's popular in your genre.

So here are five books that were essential to my development as a writer:

Watership Down, by Richard Adams - My first long adventure novel. I learned so much about world-building and characterization from this book, I can't recommend it enough.

The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair - I love the first half the most, though parts are hard to read. Sinclair's descriptions of life at the turn of the century are amazing, vivid, and sensory.

A Summer to Die, by Lois Lowry - I think I read this one when I was ten or eleven, and for the first time, I realized that novels had the power to make me cry. No other book had ever produced such a keen emotional response from me.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain - Voice, voice, voice.

The Outsiders, by SE Hinton - I started writing my very first story after reading this book. I was in middle school at the time, it was a blatant rip-off, but it started me writing. I haven't looked back since.

I write SF, so most of what I read is in that genre as well (though I occasionally read a classic or two). If you're into hardcore SF, the Nebula Awards are a good place to start. I still haven't read everything on the list, but I'm almost there.

If SF isn't really your thing, I can still recommend a couple books from my genre that seem to appeal to just about everyone.

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes is an excellent example of how an author can generate sympathy for his main character.

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, my personal pick for best SF novel ever written. Even my 11th grade English teacher who refused to acknowledge science fiction as a genre liked this book.

As far as other reading goes, I really enjoyed Rae Yang's Spider Eaters, a memoir of the Cultural Revolution in China. It's beautifully written, and there's real substance to the stories.

Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart was pretty good. I wouldn't recommend No Longer At Ease, though.

Ancient World stuff ... Journey to the West (the version I read was called Monkey), Greek myths (as many of these as you can find. There are translations that are pretty easy to read, and they're really entertaining), Beowulf, the story of Samson and Delilah, The Book of Job ... most of the Old Testament, actually (excluding the long X begot Y begot X segments).

My favorite nonfiction dramatization is The Hot Zone, I forget the author's name at the moment.

I don't have a lot of experience yet with poetry, but I'm working on that deficiency. I've heard Keats, Muir, Yeats, and Blake are good. I've read the first book of The Faerie Queene ... that was pretty entertaining, but a bit lighter than most medieval literature.

You mentioned Stephen King. If you're writing with supernatural elements, reading his stuff is a good starting point. My favorite is his first collaboration with Peter Straub, The Talisman.

Reading YA books can be good, too. I liked The Thief of Always and Watership Down, as well as Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy.

Try...

'The New Confessions' - William Boyd

'Catch 22' - Joseph Heller

'Vile Bodies' - Evelyn Waugh

I love 'em, anyway...

Because I'm a huge Hemingway fan I have to recommend A Farewell To Arms...though a lot of people don't care for it. And my second recommendation...Catcher In The Rye just for the voice.

But there are about a million books that come to mind...I think anything you read helps. Whether it's a classic or on the bestseller list or somewhere in between because you see what works and what doesn't, what you like and what you don't.

Lifelongdagger said:

Hello all,


I wondered if those widely read amongst you could recommended five or six fiction books considered, perhaps, essential for the aspiring writer to have read . . .

Many thanks

Lifelong

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Honestly, I'm not sure it works this way. You have to read darned near anything and everything you can get your hands on. You have to love reading so much you'd rather stop breathing than stop reading. You have to read hundreds of novels.

Just pick a genre that sounds right, and start reading. But five or six isn't even a start. Five or six hundred, maybe, but not five or six.

Penguin Queen said:

Indeed, it depends on what you write -- 'straight' fiction, literary, genre.....

One book that rather blew me away (as they say) when I first read it at the tender age of 23 was Jeanette Winterson's "Sexing the Cherry". I hadnt realised anyone could write like that - until then, the books I'd read had had a beginning, a middle and an end, not several stories all jumbled together like that, with magic realism and bits of fairy tale thrown in. It's not as shining new now as it once was, but it's still one of my favourite books of all time, so I would recommend that.

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I love that book. I read it just after I graduated from highschool. I ended up stealing it from the free libarary. I actully named my daughter Fortunata. It's a great book.

Penguin Queen said:

One book that rather blew me away (as they say) when I first read it at the tender age of 23 was Jeanette Winterson's "Sexing the Cherry". I hadnt realised anyone could write like that - until then, the books I'd read had had a beginning, a middle and an end, not several stories all jumbled together like that, with magic realism and bits of fairy tale thrown in. It's not as shining new now as it once was, but it's still one of my favourite books of all time, so I would recommend that.

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She's an amazing writer - I too was blown away by her stuff. But consider this, from an interview:

"When Jeanette Winterson was asked (so the story goes) by a British newspaper questionnaire distributed among the nation's writers, whom she considered to be the greatest living prose stylist in English, her answer was unequivocal: Jeanette Winterson."

She is apparently quite an...interesting person.