Book suggestions

[undyingking]

It's time for our book group to draw up a new list, and once more I'm turning to you guys for some good ideas. The ones we ended up with last time are listed here, to give an idea of the sorts of things that people go for.

All I've got so far is William Hope Hodgson's The Casebook of Carnacki the Ghost Finder, which I've been meaning to read for ages so this seems a good excuse. I have to suggest five titles, and it'd be good to have a couple of non-fiction and a couple of modern / recent ones.

The criteria, as last time, are:

• can be new or old;
• can be fiction, non, play, or anything else really;
• should be something I'm likely to find interesting;
• and so are the rest of the group, who are quite a mix of types, ages, etc;
• shouldn't be deep-genre, ie. relying on existing knowledge of genre for enjoyment -- but fringe-genre is fine;
• must be readily available in paperback in the UK;
• not too long, people get antsy over about 400 pages;
• in English (although can be a translation of course);
• probably some other things I haven't thought of.

Any recommendations?

Comments

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Black Ajax could be a good one, I don't think we've ever done Fraser. I've read all the others, but interesting to see a good overlap between your likes and mine across such diverse books!

[mr-malk.livejournal.com]

That is quite interesting; I deliberately went for diversity in that selection! It's a shame (in this context) that you have already read "As Used...", as it hit quite a few of the points you specified in your criteria. Still, I'm sure Naomi Klein will serve you well in that capacity!

Black Ajax is a good read; compiled from various documents and supposedly first hand accounts, lots of Regency slang provides flavour. Fraser does somewhat tip his hand on the extent to which it is fictionalised by including Harry Flashman's father in the narrative!