Contemporary books

[Corpsey]

I became very conscious last night of how distinctly antiquated my collection of books is: for example, lately I've been reading Wordsworth, Matthew Arnold, William Hazlitt, Ernest Hemingway... Nothing wrong with this IMO but I do feel a bit like I've got my head in a pile of 19th century dust

This may be a passing phase but I'm wondering what literature (and otherwise) books are out there—and which are worth reading—that cover contemporary life. I'm totally ignorant as to modern literature. The most contemporary novel I remember reading was "The Line of Beauty", which is set in the 1980s.

And even if this is just a passing phase and I end up reading none of it, it might be a good thread for everyone to discuss new fiction/poetry/whatever.

I tend to have avoided reading modern stuff cos I feel like I 'should' have read the canon first. I have a pile of guilty to-reads – again, stuff like Beckett, Joyce, Burroughs...

 

[shakahislop]

I had the same feeling at some point. I've generally found the issue with reading stuff that's coming out now is that it's a bit harder to filter. Lower hit rate for me and feels like there's more bullshit to wade through, marketing pushes and so on. It's also pretty annoying how much contemporary literature, or at least the stuff that I end up reading, is written by quite a narrow band of pretty elite people, so many upper-class perspectives, so many university lecturers as protagonists.

I personally got a lot out of the Rachel Cusk outline trilogy. I hated it and her at first, and was only really when I came back to the second book in the series that it clicked. There's a kind of denuded quality to the writing I think. Kind of cold and empty but also trying quite hard to explain (boring) reality. She's by far the best of the autofiction trend thing that I've read.

The other thing that I read which was contemporary and class was Exit West by Mohsin Hamid, coz it deals with migration.

 

[woops]

Good bit of experimentalism from Australia and most interesting new book I've come across in the last few years

 

[IdleRich]

Good bit of experimentalism from Australia and most interesting new book I've come across in the last few years

Seems to be a problem with that link, it has reproduced the text with a load of mistakes in that lots of the words have been somehow broken in two eg

"What do you think hap pened to the money."

And

"It all seemed worth less to me but you know you can’t tell with old stuff."

It's really weird in fact, it's happened a lot throughout that extract for some reason.

 

[Corpsey]

so many university lecturers as protagonists.

Ian McEwan

Also that JM coetzee book I read and didn't like

 

[sufi]

I read Patricia Lockwood's Novel - the first half is her standard stream of extremely internet musing and muttering - a narrative emerges in the second half and perhaps reveals a weakness in her staccato style when it comes to storytellng
did you read it @Corpsey ?

instead i would very much recommend:

Edmund Davie - Lights https://www.lulu.com/shop/edmund-davie/lights/paperback/product-wnv7dd.html?page=1&pageSize=4 get it NOW!

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[Corpsey]

I dunno what to make of her

I really love some of what shes written for the LRB but at the same time in the same breath I find it nauseatingly snarky

 

[sufi]

I dunno what to make of her

I really love some of what shes written for the LRB but at the same time in the same breath I find it nauseatingly snarky

Yeah me too, interesting to see her carving out a space for that type of (excessively internetty) style off-screen (though i downloaded a pirate copy and read it on a tablet)

 

[sufi]

instead i would very much recommend:

Edmund Davie - Lights https://www.lulu.com/shop/edmund-davie/lights/paperback/product-wnv7dd.html?page=1&pageSize=4 get it NOW!

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"most interesting new book I've come across in the last few years"

 

[wild greens]

Recent books i've read that i thought were decent

Chris Power- Lonely Man
Tom McCarthy- Remainder
Nico Walker- Cherry

Percival Everett is good- theres a Web thread in this subforum a while back.

 

[jenks]

Some good stuff here

 

[jenks]

And here

 

[woops]

Extensive discussion of Tom MCC on here too somewhere in the @IdleRich salon

 

[jenks]

And here

 

[woops]

Some good stuff here

I really like that Madame realism book a lot

 

[jenks]

Basically - head to the margins and look for translations.

 

[woops]

Come off it @jenks what bookshop did you take those in

 

[jenks]

That’s just the top shelf stuff. The curse of lockdown is that my wife has been home and has seen how many books arrive in the house. She’s not impressed.

 

[Clinamenic]

I just got a brand new book of poems by one Luke Davis

 

[Clinamenic]

It’s called POEMS