Haven't read most of these, but Robertson is a great stylist, and Munro, along with Mary Gaitskill and Tobias Woolf, is probably the best short story writer in the world. Interesting that Mistry and Ondaatje bring such a global perspective to Canadian lit.

Or stuff that makes them feel like it's good to feel bad--the good cry type of book.

Just read "The Art of Racing in the Rain". Definitely recommend it. Especially to any dog lovers out there.

Munro's short stories are awesome. Haven't read any Atwood yet but have heard very good things about her.

Yes, Munro is astonishing, especially the stories from the second half of her career, which are like tiny novels. (But the early stories are excellent as well.)

Canada has produced a number of extraordinary short story writers. (There are some interesting theories as to why.) Mavis Gallant is often compared to Munro in excellence. And, as well as producing some terrific novels, Atwood has a number of great stories.

And I would strongly recommend Alistair McLeod, whose short fiction (including one short novel), set mostly in the small Celtic enclaves on Cape Breton, touch me deeply.

Care to share? :-)

EDIT: Just saw that I have to read The Handmaid's Tale (Atwood) for a seminar. Should be interesting.

just started "gang leader for a day" by sudir venkatesh. its about the economics/sociology of a chicago gang from a sociologist who lived side by side the gang for years. the part re: crack economics was featured in one of the freakanomics books (can't remember which one aorn)

but so far its very good

I just finished Joe Abercrombie's newest novel, The Heroes. I think it is his best work yet. He is a master of developing realistic characters that you can commiserate with.

I recommend starting with The Blade Itself. Glokta is one of my all-time favorite characters.

So I just finished a course and can now resume guilt free reading on the train, since I won't be thinking how I should be reading a textbook. Now I just need some suggestions. Plus I'm going on vacation soon and planning on bringing some books with me. I already reserved a few classic dystopian novels that I haven't read (lord of the flies, fahrenheit 451 and some others). What else should I be checking out?

The Handmaid's Tale is the most often taught of all of Atwood's novel. (I think it is, in fact, the most taught novel in Canadian high schools.)

If by "care to share," you mean did I have specific recommendations for Alistair MacLeod's short fiction, then I'd suggest getting Island, which collects the complete short fiction in a single volume. I particularly liked the title story, which is a novella, but a good place to start is with "As Birds Bring Forth the Sun," which is his most often anthologized story. Or "The Closing Down of Summer," about a team of international miners waiting for the beginning of another season underground.

Take a look at the reviews on Amazon.com to see the kind of enthusiasm MacLeod's writing generates.

Sorry I just noticed that you bolded part of my post and that that's what you were asking about.

It's been suggested that Canada produced so many good short story writers during a time when the US and UK were producing relatively few was that short story collections have never sold as well as novels. Indeed in the US, it has been quite hard to find a publisher for a short story collection. Successful short story writers such as Ann Beattie were pressured to write novels by their publishers, not always with happy results.

But in Canada there has been (especially historically) less at stake. Canadian writers such as Munro, Gallant, and MacLeod and their publishers never expected big sales, and successful short story writers were therefore not asked by their agents and publishers to write novels instead.

(The greater success of Canadian fiction in the last decade or so may be changing that.)

I'll assume you know of 1984 and Brave New World. This Perfect Day by Ira Levin, We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, and A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess are some of the best.

I read 1984 and Brave New World, I read them last year. I haven't read the others but will check them out.

I just started Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, we'll see how it goes.

I heard Metallica's One the other day and did some wiki'ing on it, traced it back to the book Johnny Got His Gun... sounds like the most depressing book of all time.

Has anyone read it?

yes...it's very good....the movie is not bad, either - in the Metallica music video, there are clips of it.

+1 the book is very good.

I have ventured out of Hemingway's short stories and am almost finished with The Garden of Eden, his final novel, published posthumously. The story: While on their honeymoon, a husband and wife fall in love with the same woman. So far it is quite good. It is full of the idiosyncrasies I love about Hemingway as well as the idiosyncrasies I hate about Hemingway.

One great line comes when a waitress sees the husband with the wife and talks to him about her. The waitress says the girl is quite pretty. The husband replies, "Yes she is not too ugly."

My main harumph about the book is that this girl they fall in love with does not enter the story until almost halfway through the book.

This manuscript was, as I understand it, quarried by an editor from a large mass of unpublished material and constructed in a way that he felt gave it some artful shape. It's nice to have but shouldn't be considered as necessarily representing Hemingway's intention.

But I did consider it well worth reading.

Does anyone know why my version of Under the Dome is 870 pages, when it's listed as 1074 pages on wikipedia? Is it because it's the paperback version?

Hello,first post here and i was wondering if someone could give me (18 years old kid) some books/authors suggestions?I was thinking about buying some new books and I really don't have a lot of ideas.Just so you can make and idea I must say that two of the writers I enjoy a lot are Hemingway and Bukowski and that I'm not really into S.F./Fantasy but i might enjoy some biographies/autobiographies.Any suggestions are very appreciated.Thanks.

On the Road by Jack Kerouac and to a lesser extent Less than zero by Bret Easton Ellis seems like pretty good fits.

McCarthy? Pynchon?

I really liked the first law, but thought that Best Served Cold was a bit of a let down (though still a fun read). Looking forward to Heroes (although I completely missed that it was already out).

I was thinking about reading On the Road in a while.I think i might just do that.Thanks.
I've read The Road and enjoyed it so i might try something else by McCarthy,but isn't Pynchon a bit too hard to read?That's what I've heard anyway.I haven't read anything by him yet.

Maybe King finally realized he needed the services of an editor?

baddabaddabing

I'm a huge fan of King for over 30 years now, but ever since he sobered up and got all maudlin & political, he's been badly in need of a flinty-eyed, unsentimental, non-starstruck, chainsaw weilder.

There was a lot of great stuff in Dome and I understand exactly what he was trying (at times very clumsily) to say with it, but the hardcover could've let 300 pages slip to the floor bloodlessly.

Crying of Lot 49 is straightforward to read and imo very good. No harm at all in starting with that before deciding whether to get into the harder stuff.