Something easy on the brains, Please

[bips]

I have just finished my university exams.... and i am very tiiiiiiirrrrrrrrrred... right now i have east of eden and the alexandria quartet lying on my bookshelf, but i just don't feel like picking them up....

Can any one recommend any novel which is light and frothy, romantic or humourous or fantasy or even a mystery... somewhat of a feel-good book..... anything that is not as emotionally charging as the above two or taxes the brain too much :) ...

[nps_marina]

The Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett? I think it's a great book but not really a hard book, you actually just devour it through.
Harry Potter...
I don't know if you're gal or guy, but you could take up the average chick lit book... one I've read that's worth it would have to be Bridget Jones...
Neil Gaiman is cool- Anansi Boys. Its fantasy.

Can you guess I'm scanning through my shelf for these?
Anyway, I think that's good for now. Discard some (or all) and we can narrow (or change completely) our suggestions.

[Demona]

Timbuktu by Paul Auster :D

[quasimodo1]

anything by Ian Flemming quasimodo1

[bips]

The Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett? I think it's a great book but not really a hard book, you actually just devour it through.
Harry Potter...
I don't know if you're gal or guy, but you could take up the average chick lit book... one I've read that's worth it would have to be Bridget Jones...
Neil Gaiman is cool- Anansi Boys. Its fantasy.

Can you guess I'm scanning through my shelf for these?
Anyway, I think that's good for now. Discard some (or all) and we can narrow (or change completely) our suggestions.


Thank You.... I'll pick up Anansi boys... The rest i have read... btw I'm a female..... Harry potter? .... its strange, i love to pick up fault with that series... the language is wrong here, the plot is weak there blah blah blah.. but i'm as excited as my little niece abt the seventh book...
Thank You and please any more suggestions ?.... i have a terribly long and free summer ahead...

[kratsayra]

I just read The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets, by Eva Rice, and it provided the perfect distraction from reality for me. It's a first novel, so it's got some flaws, but it's wholly entertaining and not intellectually trying at all.

[bips]

I just read The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets, by Eva Rice, and it provided the perfect distraction from reality for me. It's a first novel, so it's got some flaws, but it's wholly entertaining and not intellectually trying at all.

"intellectually trying"..... yes exactly what i was looking for... Thank you.....
quasimodo1 - sorry, not a huge flemming fan.... and demona, thanks for that rec, i'll definitely check out timbuktu, interesting name :)

[bazarov]

Maybe Don Quixote??? It's very very funny to me, and maybe too long...

[nps_marina]

I don't know where you're from, Bips (I feel like I am dragging all this a/s/l information out of you in undercover ways, pretending to help you with your summer book pile... LOL...). I'm from Spain, and a few years back this book came out, called (in English) The Shadow of the Wind. It's by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, it was a big blast, and it has been translated to many languages. I know for certain it exists in English. I have no idea how the translation worked out, but the original was really good, and light. I read it overnight (I was freaked out about losing an early train, so I stayed awake all night, reading this book. I dodn't find it hard, it was so interesting).

You could also give a try to The Remains of the Day, by Kazuo Ishiguro, which is a really poetic read, and his best, I think. I really love that book, and it's quite short.

Also, John Grisham's The Farmor Goldman's Memoirs of a Geisha are light read that, in my opinion, don't insult the reader's intelligence.

Concerning Potter... I was a junkie up to the fourth book (my favorite is the Third, Prisoner of Azkaban). Then the 5th and 6th were rather disappointing, they are so full of plot mistakes! But naturally, I want to read the 7th book, and that will mean that any day now I will pick them up again, for freshening. I really disliked 5th and 6th so much, I barely remember them... but I remember I was so lost with the 6th book because I barely remembered the 5th, I don't want that to happen again.

Swerving back to the topic at hand, currently, I am reading John Steinbeck. He might not be the lightest of reads, but I think he is not really hard (Kundera is hard for me, for example. Slightly pedantic. Or Mann's Magic Mountain), and the man writes beautifully.

[Bii]

Light and fluffy and easy to read? Can only be Bridget Jones's Diary - it's got romance, humour (in abundance), and is seriously easy to read. And I defy you to read it and not think like Bridget for the next week.

Think Pride & Prejudice but with lots of wine, fags, and trips to the scales :)

[Nasser]

Has anyone read The Bard?
somebody say something!

[kratsayra]

Also, John Grisham's The Farmor Goldman's Memoirs of a Geisha are light read that, in my opinion, don't insult the reader's intelligence.

Yes, I would definitely say Memoirs of Geisha too. It's fun, and you get to immerse yourself in an entirely different culture (assuming you're not in Japan, that is ;))

[Scheherazade]

How about Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich? Adventures of a female bounty hunter; Evanovich writes with ease and lots of humour. Ideal pool-side/beach books!

(Just discovered the 13th book of the series is out as well! :D)

[grace86]

I couldn't second The Shadow of the Wind more! I love that book. It is easy, entertaining, and to steal someone else's catch phrase, it will not insult your intelligence.

The Life of Pi by Yann Martel was a pretty good one too. I've been meaning to read The Dante Club, it is a murder mystery surrounding Dante's Inferno.

Unlike you, I am reading heavy this summer. I am kind of sticking with the classics, save for when the seventh Harry Potter book comes out. Bazarov's suggestion of Don Quixote is pretty good too. I am currently reading it, it is long, but it really is one of those books that makes you laugh out loud.

Henry Rider Haggard might interest you too. He is a classic author, but his stories are adventures in Africa and lost tribes and treasure and aren't too pressing on the brain...try King Soloman's Mines, Allen Quatermain, She...

Hope I gave you some ideas. Good luck and wishing you happy reading.

[bips]

Thank you.. thank you... thank you :)

nps_marina : lol! ... I'm from india... and translation will not be a problem, bec english is like the second national language.... anything else you want to ask ? ..... book 3, i loved! .... it was the best of the lot... and book 6, i would just like to erase from my memory... this is the biggest problem with "series".... even if the subsequent books are not all that great, you still end up reading them bec you just want to know what happens in the end

Bii – I have read bridget jones… P&P with fags ? …. Jane austen just turned in her grave ….. but yes, I liked it…. Complete chick-lit to pass time

Kratsayra – I think I’m going to search around on this forum for a discussion thread on geisha … I never liked that book …. And I never understood what was exotic about it (and that is one adjective that everyone uses when describing this book)… somehow, it disturbed me on so many levels… thanks anyway

Grace86 – Ah! So many recommendations… and I have not read anyone of those yet J … definitely picking up “pi” … I’ve heard all good things about it… and “Haggard” sounds interesting… “Africa and lost tribes and treasures” …. It seems like something I would have drooled over as a child… and I’m still getting excited a decade later….

Bazarov – “long” is good and so is “funny”…. Don Quixote it is then…. But which translation ? … its been translated some 20 odd times in English…

Scheherazade - I have never heard abt this series… will definitely give it a shot… and if I like it, there are 13 books to read…. Yippee!!

Thank You :)

[kratsayra]

Kratsayra – I think I’m going to search around on this forum for a discussion thread on geisha … I never liked that book …. And I never understood what was exotic about it (and that is one adjective that everyone uses when describing this book)… somehow, it disturbed me on so many levels… thanks anyway


I wouldn't say "exotic," so I just wanted to make sure you didn't think I meant that, even if that's what other people have said. I would only use the word "exotic" very carefully, and I don't usually like exoticism as such. The book just creates its own world and the reader can get sucked into that world - with its rules and morals and ideas. I read it while I was studying abroad in Cameroon, so I was already in a totally different culture from my own (which is the US). So reading a book that was set in yet another culture was refreshing. It gave me relief from the culture shock that I was experiencing on a daily basis. I just wanted to clarify what I meant. And also to add that I have no idea about the cultural accuracy of the novel, so who knows if the world the book creates is really what Japan of that era was like or not.

[Stieg]

This recommendation goes for BrckBrin's Recommendation thread too.

I can be abit of a harpy, but I'd highly recommend We Have Always Lived In The Castle by Shirley Jackson. Where you will be introduced to a special girl named Mary Katherine Blackwood ("Merricat" for short) whose older sister Constance cares for both her and handicapped Uncle Julian, often dreams about living on the moon, and believes her cat Jonas tells her bedtime stories.

In this book which ranks as one Jackson's best ever, you will discover how powerfully evocative, imaginative, and psychological a writer's literary world can achieve. A work foreshadowing Tim Burton by 20-30 years.

This is the kind of book that should be toted in the purses of Goth girls the world around. :D

Here is the opening paragraph of the novel:

My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both hands are the same length, but I have had to become content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cup mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead.

[Mrs. Dalloway]

I'm reading now Never let me go by Kazuo Ishiguro. It's easy and very interesting so maybe you'll like it. I like Ishiguro's writing :)

[kathycf]

How about Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich? Adventures of a female bounty hunter; Evanovich writes with ease and lots of humour. Ideal pool-side/beach books!

(Just discovered the 13th book of the series is out as well! :D)

I second that, the Plum books are very funny. I am more partial to the earlier ones, but very good reading.

I also like Sarah Shankman, she writes mysteries too, with a lighter touch.

http://hycyber.com/MYST/shankman_sarah.html

[Fen]

I would suggest Pride and Prejudice or Persuasion by Austen for romance
Any Jeeves and Wooster by P.G Wodehouse, Hitchhikers guide by Adams or a Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett for gentle humour and The Three Musketeers for escapism admittedly it is not cheery but somehow it always makes me feel refreshed you get so immersed in Dumas world. Also try Tales of terror and mystery by Conan Doyle.

[linz]

'The Stranger' by Albert Camus (It is thoughtful, yet easy and soothing)

[grace86]

I am reading Don Quixote translated by J.M. Cohen (an old translation I think). It is a pretty easy translation that still keeps the beauty of the novel. I think there was a new translation recently.

[*Classic*Charm*]

The Eyre Affair by Foorde I think. I can't even describe it. Look it up. A qucik read and hillarious, but the allusions keep you on your toes.

[bips]

Thank You all for such a great response

*classic*charm* - I checked out eyre affair on amazon. stealing literary figures ? what a cool idea :) I'm definitely going to pick this one up

grace86 - the new(est) translation is by Grossman. I've heard pretty good stuff abt his work . but putnam some say did a better job. hmmm... i think i'll ask at the bookstore which one to go with

linz - Thanks, i'll check it out. Though it doesn't exactly seem like the light hearted stuff i was looking for, but i'm intrigued

Fen - Sorry, have already read all of them. nobody tires of wodehouse, do they :)

Kathycf - any particular rec ? I haven't read Sarah Shankman at all. The only one that i have heard abt is "I Still Miss My Man ..."

Stieg- I seem to go through these phases when some particular genre or author just appeals to me. Right now, its the "fantasy" phase. Anything with a hint of magic and i lap it up. but the problem with this genre is, that it is so easy to get it wrong. Far from pulling the reader into a new world, the book makes the reader go "uh???" They can get absolutely bizzare. i recently read Artemis Fowl, children's book but since it was best seller, i thought why not. Rubbish, plain rubbish! ... so this rec, is truely appreciated :) ... It sounds very interesting.

Mrs. Dalloway - Even i like his writing alot. i've read "never let me go", but maybe another book by him. Any idea on how "remains of the day" is ?

kratsayra - probably that was the biggest problem I had with book. It just did not move me. I wasn't transported into another world or culture. guess each book affects different ppl, differently. Maybe it was the first person perspective that put me off. Usually i like first person narration but in this case, it was of a child. So things that horrify me - say a father selling his daughters to a brothel, a little girl actually wanting to be a geisha etc etc - they were written with such clinical detachment, just stated as a matter of fact. I ended up with no emotional connection with the characters except felling uneasy throughout the whole book. No idea abt the cultural accuracy either :)

[Mrs. Dalloway]

Thank You all for such a great response

Mrs. Dalloway - Even i like his writing alot. i've read "never let me go", but maybe another book by him. Any idea on how "remains of the day" is ?



Well, some people said that Remains of the Day is Ishiguro's best novel! and of course better than Never Let Me Go. I don't know because I haven't read it yet! I've read some short-stories of him and now I'm reading Never Let Me Go. I also heard that When We Were Orphans is great! I'll read them when I finish the one I'm reading, so I can tell you then hehe Anyway, just try to read them and give your opinion :)

[applepie]

If you are into fantasy, give these a try. Elvenbane, Elvenblood, and Elvenboorn. They are by Andre Norton and Mercedes Lackey. They are not too difficult to read, but at least Elvenbane is a little long. I still love the books and I've read them many times over. There is a little of several generas as you learn about the fantasy world and everyones role in it.

[Monica]

How about "The Monk" by Matthew Gregory Lewis? A lot of action, twists and intricate plot. You just want to go on reading... Or Sue's "Mysteries of Paris", which has pretty similar characterisitics.

[byquist]

When I was Puerto Rican -- Esmeralda Santiago

[lavendar1]

If you like non-fiction and you like humor, try David Sedaris: Naked, Me Talk Pretty One Day, to name a few of his books.

[applepie]

I just thought of another light on the brain book. It is Obsidian Butterfly by Laurell K Hamilton. This is almost right in the middle of her Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series and it is easily my favorite. It is a nice mystery/fantasy/horror sort of book minus all of the romantic and vampire political intrigue of some of the other novels. It is an easy read that happens to be the book that introduced me to this series. I recieved it as a gift, and have since read all the others just to read more.

[AC_fan]

You could read Pride and Prejudice from Jane Austen. It's a very light reading. It's a small book, it's funny but also very romantic.