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Thanks! I'm going to read that one.
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Sep 29, 2022 04:43
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My book club will be looking for a detective novel soon and, being scandinavian, the market is pretty saturated in nordic noir which I am not too interested in. I've read and enjoyed some Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle, but besides that I remember Kiln People, A Study in Emerald, the Watch books by Pratchett, and recently The Wolf and the Watchman. Any recommendations for detective novels with more unusual premises, settings, or genres than the mainstream stuff (or really interesting mainstream stuff!)?
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Oct 12, 2022 10:36
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ovenboy posted:My book club will be looking for a detective novel soon and, being scandinavian, the market is pretty saturated in nordic noir which I am not too interested in. I've read and enjoyed some Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle, but besides that I remember Kiln People, A Study in Emerald, the Watch books by Pratchett, and recently The Wolf and the Watchman. My parents read a lot of detective stuff, the "Unusual Premise" ones I remember were Ellis Peters' Brother Cadfael books - medieval monk as detective.
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Oct 12, 2022 11:02
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yaffle posted:My parents read a lot of detective stuff, the "Unusual Premise" ones I remember were Ellis Peters' Brother Cadfael books - medieval monk as detective. Oh that’s funny, the Hangman’s Daughter books are a medieval German executioner and his family solving mysteries. I thought that was pretty unique when I read the first few years ago.
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Oct 12, 2022 12:22
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ovenboy posted:My book club will be looking for a detective novel soon and, being scandinavian, the market is pretty saturated in nordic noir which I am not too interested in. I've read and enjoyed some Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle, but besides that I remember Kiln People, A Study in Emerald, the Watch books by Pratchett, and recently The Wolf and the Watchman. Paul Tremblay's The Little Sleep is about a private investigator with severe narcolepsy (including hypnogogic hallucinations and false memories). The premise sounds comedic, but it's taken seriously, and Tremblay's mostly a horror author, so it has a darker tone.
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Oct 12, 2022 12:52
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Can anyone recommend something similar to Engine Summer? Kind of a constrained post-apocalyptic Tolkien-esque adventure I think.
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Oct 12, 2022 12:56
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ovenboy posted:My book club will be looking for a detective novel soon and, being scandinavian, the market is pretty saturated in nordic noir which I am not too interested in. I've read and enjoyed some Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle, but besides that I remember Kiln People, A Study in Emerald, the Watch books by Pratchett, and recently The Wolf and the Watchman. I also really enjoyed both of Stuart Turton's novels, The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle (classical murder mystery with shifting perspectives) and Devil and the Dark Water, which is a mystery/thriller set on a 17th century merchant ship. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 13:11 on Oct 12, 2022 |
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Oct 12, 2022 13:08
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ovenboy posted:My book club will be looking for a detective novel soon and, being scandinavian, the market is pretty saturated in nordic noir which I am not too interested in. I've read and enjoyed some Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle, but besides that I remember Kiln People, A Study in Emerald, the Watch books by Pratchett, and recently The Wolf and the Watchman. Peter Dickinson specialised in these. Hindsight and Sleep and His Brother are the ones most recommended. Avram Davidson's The Adventures of Doctor Eszterhazy is unlike anything else.
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Oct 12, 2022 14:54
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You really can't go wrong reading The Maltese Falcon it still holds up today. There's all the urban fantasy detective stories, Rivers of London etc. The Alienist by Caleb Carr is great quote:The Alienist is a crime novel by Caleb Carr first published in 1994 and is the first book in the Kreizler series. It takes place in New York City in 1896, and includes appearances by many famous figures of New York society in that era, including Theodore Roosevelt and J. P. Morgan. The sequel to the novel is The Angel of Darkness.[1] The story follows Roosevelt, then New York City police commissioner, and Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, as their investigative team attempts to solve gruesome murders through new methods including fingerprinting and psychology. The first murder victim investigated is a 13-year-old immigrant who has had his eyes removed, his genitals removed and stuffed in his mouth, and other injuries. The investigators deal with various interest groups that wish to maintain the status quo regarding the poor immigrant population in New York City.
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Oct 12, 2022 14:59
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I recently enjoyed Jonathan Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn, which involves a detective with Tourette's. There's a whole subgenre of "defective detective" stories featuring detectives with various disabilities, like Ernest Bramah's Max Carrados stories (blind detective), George C. Chesbro's Mongo the Magnificent books (dwarf detective), or George Dawes Green's The Caveman's Valentine (paranoid schizophrenic detective -- the movie with Samuel L. Jackson is darned good too), and so on. I also like Troy Soos's Mickey Rawlings books, where the detective is also a professional baseball player, but I'm not sure how they'd fly with a Scandinavian audience that presumably doesn't have much nostalgia for the golden age of baseball.
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Oct 12, 2022 17:24
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ovenboy posted:My book club will be looking for a detective novel soon and, being scandinavian, the market is pretty saturated in nordic noir which I am not too interested in. I've read and enjoyed some Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle, but besides that I remember Kiln People, A Study in Emerald, the Watch books by Pratchett, and recently The Wolf and the Watchman. For a more actiony story, try Jim Butcher's Dresden Files starting with... Dead Beat. Dead Beat is intended as a good entry point for new readers and skips over the early works when the writer was still improving. Dresden is a wizard who is also a private investigator. He goes around solving minor and major crimes. The novels focus on the major magic crimes he solves, but he also solves a lot of little mundane crimes in the background. He's a detective of the "keep-annoying-them-until-they-try-to-kill-me/let-something-slip" school. He also uses magic tracking spells which mostly only get him in more or less the right area and magic sidekicks liberally. For a more noirish story, try Glen Cook's Garrett P.I. Files starting with Sweet Silver Blues or Bitter Gold Hearts. Bitter Gold Hearts is technically the second in the series, but Sweet Silver Blues, the first book, has some significant differences from the rest of the series. They're written so you can jump in just about anywhere. A lot of Urban Fantasy work can trace it's roots back to this series.
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Oct 12, 2022 18:27
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The Rivers of London series is also an excellent urban magic series in that same vein, but a police division instead of a PI
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Oct 12, 2022 18:34
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Thank you all for the detective recommendations! I want to read a bunch of these even if the book club doesn't pick them.
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Oct 13, 2022 09:27
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what are some good books on liberation theology?
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Oct 13, 2022 18:40
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Any interesting books on William Sherman? Does he live up to the hype of a force of war? "The Memoirs of William T. Sherman-Excerpts" are crazy dull and just plan spoken account of details with no interesting insights a few hours into it Upsidads fucked around with this message at 05:31 on Oct 16, 2022 |
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Oct 16, 2022 05:12
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Ok Sherman and Hood writing snarky letters at each other during the seige of Atlanta is a treat of Hood being an enormous racist Karen.
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Oct 16, 2022 14:42
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What are some good collections of microfiction, flash fiction or short-short stories? I'm not totally clear on the cutoff points for those terms, but I mean like a page maximum in length, maybe only a few sentences. I'm especially interested in fantasy, horror, and weird fiction in this format.
ScienceSeagull fucked around with this message at 19:30 on Oct 19, 2022 |
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Oct 19, 2022 18:43
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ScienceSeagull posted:What are some good collections of microfiction, flash fiction or short-short stories? I'm not totally clear on the cutoff points for those terms, but I mean like a page maximum in length, maybe only a few sentences. I'm especially interested in fantasy, horror, and weird fiction in this format. I remember liking the Two Minute Mysteries books back in the day (that day was sometime about 35 years ago) E: suggested reading age is 8-11 which checks out with when I read them but might eliminate it as a valid option E2: looking through some pages online, they're less stories / mysteries and more riddles regulargonzalez fucked around with this message at 19:45 on Oct 19, 2022 |
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Oct 19, 2022 19:43
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ScienceSeagull posted:What are some good collections of microfiction, flash fiction or short-short stories? I'm not totally clear on the cutoff points for those terms, but I mean like a page maximum in length, maybe only a few sentences. I'm especially interested in fantasy, horror, and weird fiction in this format. Maybe try some back issues of sci fi magazines. There were a few that were all stories, and since it’s magazine format they have to be pretty short
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Oct 19, 2022 19:46
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ScienceSeagull posted:What are some good collections of microfiction, flash fiction or short-short stories? I'm not totally clear on the cutoff points for those terms, but I mean like a page maximum in length, maybe only a few sentences. I'm especially interested in fantasy, horror, and weird fiction in this format. Don't know if they're quite as short as you're looking for, but Bruce Bethke's (of Cyberpunk fame) current project Stupefying Stories is a magazine with short stories and such https://stupefyingstories.blogspot.com/ There does appear to be a few shorts on the main blog atm too
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Oct 19, 2022 21:02
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My town used to have short story vending machines!
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Oct 19, 2022 21:24
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evilpicard posted:My town used to have short story vending machines! Mine too! He sat in the end booth of the VA hospital cafeteria. You gave him a dollar for a slice of pie, he'd give you a handful of wartime anecdotes.
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Oct 19, 2022 21:27
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Azhais posted:Don't know if they're quite as short as you're looking for, but Bruce Bethke's (of Cyberpunk fame) current project Stupefying Stories is a magazine with short stories and such Yeah, I was thinking of even shorter short stories than those, but they look cool, thanks!
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Oct 20, 2022 03:33
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ScienceSeagull posted:What are some good collections of microfiction, flash fiction or short-short stories? I'm not totally clear on the cutoff points for those terms, but I mean like a page maximum in length, maybe only a few sentences. I'm especially interested in fantasy, horror, and weird fiction in this format. Well there obvious answer is Örkény. 
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Oct 20, 2022 08:34
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ScienceSeagull posted:What are some good collections of microfiction, flash fiction or short-short stories? I'm not totally clear on the cutoff points for those terms, but I mean like a page maximum in length, maybe only a few sentences. I'm especially interested in fantasy, horror, and weird fiction in this format. The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis https://www.amazon.com.au/Collected-Stories-Lydia-Davis/dp/0241969131 For sci-fi check out Terry Bisson
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Oct 20, 2022 08:58
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Among the seemingly endless run of anthologies Isaac Asimov edited back in the day were some collections of ultra-short fiction: 100 Great Science Fiction Short Short Stories, 100 Great Fantasy Short Short Stories, and 100 Malicious Little Mysteries.
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Oct 20, 2022 12:50
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Thanks for the recs, everyone! fez_machine posted:
I always liked They're Made of Meat, so I definitely will.
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Oct 20, 2022 15:56
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ScienceSeagull posted:Yeah, I was thinking of even shorter short stories than those, but they look cool, thanks! When I asked for some flash fiction last year someone pointed me to Etgar Keret and both The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be God and The Girl on the Fridge have been excellent. My students from ages 13-18 have loved them and gotten a lot as well.
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Oct 20, 2022 16:41
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I'm in search of books about finding dignity and beauty in life while doing uninteresting minimum wage drudgery. Does Convenience Store Woman fit this description?
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Oct 21, 2022 16:02
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Has anyone read any Chet and Bernie books and are they ok for a 10 year old? My kid picked one out at a book sale here, I took a flip through and it seemed ok but be nice to get an informed opinion
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Oct 22, 2022 01:34
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Opopanax posted:Has anyone read any Chet and Bernie books and are they ok for a 10 year old? My kid picked one out at a book sale here, I took a flip through and it seemed ok but be nice to get an informed opinion A quick google suggests they would be ok, if the kid likes dogs, but I work in a very well funded elementary school library and we don't have them, our book supplier places them in the "adult" (as in for grown ups) reading range.
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Oct 22, 2022 12:22
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FPyat posted:I'm in search of books about finding dignity and beauty in life while doing uninteresting minimum wage drudgery. Does Convenience Store Woman fit this description? I recommend Bukowski.
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Oct 22, 2022 14:05
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ScienceSeagull posted:What are some good collections of microfiction, flash fiction or short-short stories? I'm not totally clear on the cutoff points for those terms, but I mean like a page maximum in length, maybe only a few sentences. I'm especially interested in fantasy, horror, and weird fiction in this format. It's technically a book but Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino is basically just like dozens of stories about cities, each between a paragraph and like...maybe 3 pages. There's technically a narrative to it in between those stories but its just kind of a silly framing device and itself is only like 10 pages long. e: Also it is an extremely good book and comes up constantly as an inspiration for weird art and esp TTRPGs. Evan Dahm in particular I know cites it as a major inspiration for all his Rice Boy stuff.
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Oct 22, 2022 15:53
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Tulip posted:It's technically a book but Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino is basically just like dozens of stories about cities, each between a paragraph and like...maybe 3 pages. There's technically a narrative to it in between those stories but its just kind of a silly framing device and itself is only like 10 pages long.
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Oct 23, 2022 10:20
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I've read Invisible Cities and loved it-- something I should revisit sometime. Thanks for the reminder.
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Oct 23, 2022 15:20
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Can anyone recommend a book series similar to Patricia C. Wrede’s Enchanted Forest series? My daughter loves these, but she’s almost finished with the last book.
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Oct 26, 2022 20:35
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newts posted:Can anyone recommend a book series similar to Patricia C. Wrede’s Enchanted Forest series? My daughter loves these, but she’s almost finished with the last book. We've been talking about Diana Wynne Jones over in the SF thread and she might be a good choice -- maybe her Chrestomanci series (starting with Charmed Life) or single books like Howl's Moving Castle and Archer's Goon. Other possible recommendations: Tamora Pierce's Tortall books (starting with Alanna: The First Adventure) or Diane Duane's Young Wizards (So You Want to Be a Wizard, et al).
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Oct 26, 2022 20:44
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I'd also suggest Robin McKinley, specifically The Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword. Deerskin is set in the same world but I'd say it's too adult/heavy for a young reader, as it features incestual rape and resulting trauma (spoiler for tw).
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Oct 26, 2022 20:54
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Thanks for the recs! I’ll rent a few of these for her and see what she likes. It’s hard to keep her in books, she reads so fast.
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Oct 27, 2022 04:12
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newts posted:Can anyone recommend a book series similar to Patricia C. Wrede’s Enchanted Forest series? My daughter loves these, but she’s almost finished with the last book. Tui Sutherland's "Wings of Fire" Series - Super popular right now, not funny as such. For funny fantasy you could try Terry Pratchett's YA books, although they can get super dark. Robert Asprin's MythAdventures, maybe even Bruce Coville, he churned out hundreds of fantasy books for kids.
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Oct 27, 2022 04:14
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