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Lord of the Rings just about saved my life in high school. Possession by A.S. Byatt. Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, though I’ve yet to read the sequels. Atonement by Ian McEwan. Just about anything by Geoff Ryman, Ali Smith, José Saramago, or Sheri Holman.
Your taste seems like exactly the sort of thing I’d enjoy, do you have any specific suggestions for someone who absolutely loves Eco’s metafictional novels in particular and metafiction in general? (Aside from Possession, which I’ve never heard of but is going directly on my to-read list)
I recently read How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu, which I really liked. It is science fictional, though, but maybe not…maybe more surreal. Jorge Luis Borges, Italo Calvino, David Markson. I started Dictionary of the Khazars by Milorad Pavić many years ago, got interrupted, and haven’t got back to it, but I definitely need to because it was so intriguing in form.
A chain of voices - Andre Brink
Cosmos - Carl Sagan
The name of the rose - Umberto Eco (so much better than the movie)
A prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
I used to read a lot when I was younger. Now I’m down to max two books per year. I miss it.
Recently:
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The Three Body Problem series by Cixin Liu is devestatingly good. It’s a vast, prescient science fiction series that’ll make you feel existential dread toward physics. It’s great.
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The Children of Time series by Adrian Tchaikovsky is another fantastic science fiction series. The most compelling first person view into truly alien minds I’ve read.
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Everything Terry Pratchett ever wrote is worth reading.
I am currently reading the Three Body Problem series and I can only agree. I finished the first book in two days, it is an extremely creative and well-crafted story.
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Off the top of my head:
- Enigma Variations Andre Aciman
- Ulysses James Joyce
- The Little Prince Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
- Catch-22 Joseph Heller
- The Giver Lois Lowry
- Kafka on the Shore Haruki Murakami
- A Walk in the Woods Bill Bryson
I’ve been using The Little Prince in my language studies, because it’s a great book but simple, and I know it well. I can get through it no problem in French, but it’s still a little over my head in Vietnamese.
Yeah, I’ve had a lot of fun trying to read it in several different languages. The best is definitely French.
My french is not quite up to serious lit, but almost. The only thing I’ve read in french that was actually not available in english is some sci-fi by Stefan Wul. He wrote a bunch of books, but only a couple have been translated.
