Recommended reading?

[i q plant]

Hi Everyone.

This is my first post (of many I hope) and I was really just hoping that someone could recommend a few good books for me to read. I read a lot in my teenage years and early twenties but had, for a while, fallen out of love with the whole process of picking up a new book and getting into it. There were a number of reasons for this. Reasons which I won't bore you with at this time.

Through strange circumstance I was recently compelled to read a couple of books: 'Ham on Rye' by Charles Bukowski and 'A Confederacy of Dunces' by John Kennedy Toole. And, to my surprise and delight, I found I loved them both very much. The books had a lot of differences but were, in a lot of ways, also very similar. I found a great affinity with the protagonists of both novels (messrs Chinaski and Reilly) and really got a lot more than I thought I would from reading both books.

Am currently reading 'Factotum' also by Bukowski and was hoping you good people could recommend some books that were similar in theme to those two (achingly funny at times yet somehow also very sad)

thanks a lot

Michael

[mono]

Hello, iq plant, welcome to the forum. ;)
If you enjoyed those books, and such styles as Bukowski and Toole, I think you would really like some of the literature by Jack Kerouac, J.D. Salinger, Ursula le Guin, and perhaps Flannery O'Connor.
All of them have reminded me of having a very raw, straight-forward style that, to tell honestly, most people either love or hate. I, personally, choose the former affinity, and hopefully you will feel the same. :)

[shortysweetp]

i would also suggest that you finish all of Bukowski's work. My husband absolutely loves all of his books. He also like Kurt Vonnegut.

[loe]

I would suggest you the great Henry Miller - his philosophy of life is absolutely phantastic!. My favorits are "Big Sur" and "Sexus" but I love all of his books.

[miss_gaskell]

"Ham on Rye" is one of my favourites as well. If you are looking for the dark humour that you find in Bukowski's work, you should check out Don Delillo's "White Noise" or Pynchon's "Crying of Lot 49." They aren't Coming-of-Age books in the "Ham on Rye" vein, but they pack the literary punch and the are black comedy to the core. If you want the provocative language of Bukowski, try Hunter S. Thompson. You may also enjoy Jerzy Kosinski: "The Painted Bird" and "Steps" are his best works.

[EAP]

Check out John Kennedy Toole's 'The Neon Bible'.

I think you might also like Salman Rushdie's 'Midnight Children'; that is if you haven't already read it.

Others in the same vein are Flan O'Brian (The Third Policeman), Mark Helprin (The Winter's Tale) and Roddy Doyle (The Barrytown Trilogy, your description of achingly funny but exceedingly sad fits it to the T).

Actually, now that I think about it, Hubert Selby (Songs of the Silent Snow, Requiem for a Dream) might not be a bad choice.

Isn't 'Big Sur' by Jack Keurock?

Someone mentioned Vonnegut (Junior) and Le Guin: have a care with the books you decide to read by them(if any). Le Guin is a masterful writer, but she has a tendency to get overtly introspective and preachy, often at the expense of the plot. So if you read for fun and a quick, light, fix some of her books (The Dispossesed, Left Hand of Darkness) might be a bit heavy.

Vonnegut, on the other hand alternates between excellent and crap. 'The Player Piano' was one of the worst books I have read by an author I enjoyed previously; at the same time there are very few books which contain the wit and emotional punch of Slaughterhouse-Five.

[loe]

Isn't 'Big Sur' by Jack Keurock?

There is a book "Big Sur" by Jack Kerouack. And the complete title of Henry Miller's book is "Big Sur and the Oranges of Hiernoymus Bosch".
Both are absolute great.

greetings