Yeah, like that.
SO. Today's question is thusly: "What work of literature would you recommend to someone who doesn't like literature?"
(Jeff at The Reading Ape calls these "Swiss Army Recommendations," or books that work for pretty much anyone. BookRiot has also done a few posts about this here et here.)
I find that when people say they don't like literature they mean they don't want something boring, long or diffcult. Which, hey. THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID. And also, I'm picking up what they're putting down. I actually discussed this a bit with The Husband because he is sort of new to the literary fiction world, having spent most of his time in Westernville and (nonliterary) SciFi Universe. His suggestions were (un)surprisingly masculine:
The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
White Fang by Jack London
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
Didn't all these people drink themselves to death, essentially? Interesting, Husband. Interesting.
My recommendations:
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (I didn't super-love this one, but I can see why tons of other people did, and everyone I've recommended it to has loved it)
The Guernsay Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Annie Barrows. For serious- this is my star. It has romance, history, it's in epistolary form so it's got that novelty, and it's funny. It isn't Literary capital L, but it's a crowd pleaser.
So yeah. I've never had a person read any of those books and not loved them, which means they trust me when I shove Bleak House into their hands and desperately implore them to read it. What are your go-to recommendations for people who aren't really into literary fiction?
I'd add Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott and The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas to the mix.
ReplyDeleteFor something less "dead white guy" I'd add The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon as you did and Cutting For Stone by Abraham Verghese.
http://www.ManOfLaBook.com
Gatsby would probably be my top pick too. Not sure if you'd count it as capital "L" Literature, but I'd also include At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely loved The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. It is like a warm blanket to me.
ReplyDeleteI'd echo Zohar's recommendation for Cutting for Stone.
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood might be a good novel to transition from sci-fi type stuff into good literary work.
The Guernsay Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is a lovely read! I read it not long ago and reviewed it on my blog.
ReplyDeleteAmong the authors you mentioned, I also read Hemingway (A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, several short stories) but I really can't forgive him his vision of the woman. No heroines, just "amoebae". Only there to make the hero more interesting.
I'm in the blog hop too. Great posts!
I'd recommend something short, most likely by Virginia Woolf. Great Gatsby's a good choice, too. And maybe Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway would work. Or a children's classic. Little Women.
ReplyDeleteReally it depends on who is asking and what kind of mood I'm in. If I'm in a spiteful mood and I don't like the person, I'd recommend Finnegans Wake, "I mean, everyone's read it, it's really so good, you'll love it!" ;)
(I wouldn't really do that. Well, I'm unlikely to do that. Depends on who asks.)
I went for Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. Accessible but still kind of experimental.
ReplyDeleteOh, and The Magicians by Lev Grossman for the folks that like genre fiction
Slaughterhouse-Five, or really anything of Vonnegut's. He's a great "gateway" author.
ReplyDeleteCheever's short stories would have the same effect maybe...
We read "The Things They Carried" in my 10th grade English class and I didn't really like it. But then I read it a few years later and liked it a lot better. So I think a lot of people don't like literature because they read most literature in school, but reading literature for fun is a different experience.
ReplyDeleteEasy answer would be pretty much anything in the YA world starting with Harry Potter in the unlikely event said person hadn't read them, and then hitting all the well-regarded members of the group. The stories are usually vital and fast-paced and, despite not really being "literary," generally well-written.
ReplyDeleteMy go-to lit recommendation -- which I usually interpret as something-I-ought-to-read-were-I-not-so-bitter-about-highschool-lit-classes -- is Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd which I just read this year and died and swooned over. It was so good -- dramatic and lurid and 'classic' but readable -- and not too many long forays into religion or philosophy, which always makes me get glazed-eyed.
ReplyDeleteThe Things They Carried is one of mine. I also recommend Atonement a lot. My young male students always seem to enjoy Hemingway and Fitzgerald, which I do too, but I also enjoy Virgina Woolf and Theodore Dreiser, and they might not...
ReplyDeleteGatsby didn't occur to me but I think that's a great choice. Mine were more along the lines of an Atwood or a couple of Australian authors I love.
ReplyDeleteIf they actually meant they just didn't like reading, I'd just leave them alone though.
I tend to recommend literary dystopians, like The Handmaid's Tale and 1984. I can see why The Great Gatsby might be recommended, it's intersted and not long, but I think discussion helps that book. Sorry to say that, while I have read Hemingway, I haven't read either of those recommendations.
ReplyDeleteI've been wanting to read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society since forever but haven't yet. I hear so many good things about it. Good picks.
ReplyDeleteHaving read this post, and then searched the interwebs trying to figure out what "literary fiction" means, I'm still confused. The definition seems to be "books that a certain group of people have deemed to be "better" than non-literary books". Is there some other definition? Like, when you say "(nonliterary) SciFi", how does that differ from sci-fi in general? Is it just "good sci-fi"? I'm just curious.
ReplyDeleteThe Poisonwood Bible or The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver- both really excellent literary historical fiction. Both captivating and very beautifully (often lyrically) written. After finishing them, I realized that I had learned a lot about their respective time periods and social/political history without even realizing it!
ReplyDeleteGreat suggestions, everyone! I forgot to mention The Handmaid's Tale, which I've also recommended to sci-fi folk as a gateway drug.
ReplyDeleteLianneLavoie- It's a pretty loose term, but in general literary fiction differs from genre fiction in that there's more of an emphasis on skilled writing in addition to just an nice plot. For example, The Handmaid's Tale or (in my opinion) the first Dune would be literary sci-fi, as opposed to the dime store paperback scifi that's just about killing aliens and isn't trying to be well written. But your definition pretty much nails it, heh.
I've recommended The History of Love on several occasions and it always seems to be a win. It's so beautiful while exploring deep emotions and inducing laughter. I also love Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (to totally send a shout out to my favorite literary couple). Both titles that make my favorites list & reads that most people can relate to or just seem to enjoy.
ReplyDeleteThink I'm going with your husbands choices, but then I'm partial to the odd glass of malt whisky.
ReplyDeleteI've read all of your recommendations except The Night Circus and I love them! Such great literary recommendations.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I loved Guernsey and Night Circus, too. And I really, really respect Tim O'Brien. Great choices, and, I think, good intros to literature for the trepid reader.
ReplyDeleteOoh, yes to the Handmaid's Tale! I couldn't put that one down and it's still stuck in my brain, creeping me out and making me think.
ReplyDeleteI haven't read much sci-fi, but I really enjoyed the gateway drug... what should I shoot up I mean read now that I'm ready for something a little harder?