calling all lit nerds!
I suck at classic literature. I hated (HATED) The Invisible Man, and I got bored with Jane Austen and never finished anything I started by her, and I couldn't get into stuff like Uncle Tom's Cabin (who's that by, Harriet Beecher Stowe?). But everybody seems to have an author or a book that they've LOVED, or that changed their life, or something, ( Read more... )
Anyway, book recs. Me and V have totally been into Ian McEwan's 'Atonement' (she can't quite believe I haven't finished it yet).
If you're into WWI, then 'All Quiet on the Western Front' is AMAZING and for WWII please please please try and get your hands on a copy of 'Goodnight Mister Tom'. It was my favourite favourite book when I was a kid and is still my #2 now. It's just the best ever. 'Birdsong' by Sebastian Faulks is great too.
Now...GAY! You simply MUST MUST MUST read 'Maurice' by E. M. Forster. My favourite book ever. It's absolutely beautiful and gah it was written in 19...14, I think, and not published until the 70s. Yeah it's just incredible. 'Brideshead Revisited' is less obviously gay but still good. Just trying to think of some other things I've read that haven't been history textbooks or books on language theory and stuff that'll bore you shitless, haha.
Oh! Plays. Alan Bennett, obviously - 'The History Boys' (duh) and 'Talking Heads is dead good as well. There's one that I haven't read yet that looks wonderful - 'Mean Tears' by Peter Gill. It had Bill Nighy starring as one of the main gay characters (yay Bill Nighy!!) and it's all about repression and violence and scrapping with your boyfriend AND WHY HAVEN'T I GOT ANY MONEY TO BUY OBSCURE GAY LITERATURE WITH?!
Right, finally, if you're into poetry, read Robert Frost omg we've done him for English this year and he is, quite frankly, the don. Also, Simon Armitage is a badman, he's a contemporary Northern poet from over here and I love him. I've been lucky enough to hear him speak as well and he's great on stage. I know you're a bit of an Anglophile so his stuff will give you a different perspective on England other than Stephen Fry's.
OOH STEPHEN FRY - 'Moab is my Washpot'. Hilarious.
Anyway, back to poetry. It's the new rock 'n' roll, you know. :D The modernists are my favourite - T. S. Eliot's great and Auden (MORE GAY!) is even better. I read one of his poems out in assembly, which was cool.
Adding more for you:
Allen Ginsberg. Well, omf. I spent £17 on an anthology of his collected poems and it as WORTH EVERY PENNY. He's a gay beat poet and some of his stuff is very explicit and so hot, ngh. I was reading it in the library and my English teacher walked in and saw who it was and his eyebrows shot up, haha.
George Orwell - '1984' is great. Try and read that.
'Everything is Illuminated' and 'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close' by Jonathan Safran Foer are FANTASTIC. They're amazingly well crafted and I just love them. He needs to write more omf.
'The Perks of Being a Wallflower' by Stephen Chbosky is also fantastic. I couldn't put it down but I couldn't put my finger on WHY, so it must be great.
Oh oh and 'Trainspotting' and 'Porno' by Irvine Welsh. Brilliance.
Poets you should look into: Simon Armitage, Rupert Brooke, W.H. Auden, Dylan Thomas, Robert Frost, Walt Whitman, Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Lord Byron, T.S. Eliot, E. A. Mackintosh, D. H. Lawrence, e e cummings, Allen Ginsberg, Pablo Neruda.
Haha. Bet you wish you hadn't asked. :D
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I started a sample of Atonement (it's only the first chapter, I think) and so far I really like it, so I'm probably gonna end up buying that.
For the poetry, should I just look for like, collected works and books like that? (and omg, definitely checking out Allen Ginsberg; I've heard good things... :P)
Haha, I knew you'd have some good recs for me. :D
My mom was talking about Salman Rushdie last night; she hasn't read any of his books, but she's heard they're really fantastic. Have you read any?
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Hmm, I think with Salman Rushdie it's more about the hype because he's got a jihad on him or he's banned from his country or something. I don't know though, I've never read anything. Definitely check him out, I can't really be the judge! :D
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I think his stuff is supposed to be really descriptive (like, to the extreme), so I'll check it out and let you know. :D
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W. H. Auden: the guy's the don. You want to read 'Funeral Blues,' 'Lay your sleeping head, my love,' 'Christmas Oratory,' 'Musee des Beaux Arts,' and 'Johnny'. http://www.audensociety.org/poems.html
Allen Ginsberg: 'The Green Automobile' (I'm currently turning it into a play script), 'Sweet Boy, Gimme Yr Ass' and, well, anything, really.
Rupert Brooke: Ah, Rupert. My first poetical love. And fuck, he was PRETTY. 'The Great Lover,' 'Day That I Have Loved,' and 'The Funeral of Youth' are all brilliant.
Robert Frost: 'Putting in the Seed,' 'The Most of It,' 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening' and 'After Apple Picking'.
T. S. Eliot - 'Prufrock,' 'The Waste Land'. Get 'The Waste Land and Other Poems', it's only small. And everything in there's great.
They're only a few to get you started, I'll look up more Ginsberg stuff for you to read if you like. Oh, and Simon Armitage stuff is really hard to get hold of on the net/in the US, but SO AMAZING.
A man strolls past the town hall
wearing a sandwich-board for a coat,
and it ain't for the next closing-down sale,
or the time of the next coach,
and it ain't for the price of a fake tan
or bringing the government down,
or happy hour, or two-for-one,
or the circus coming to town,
or a secret truth that God knows,
or the end of the world being nigh,
it says NO NEWS IS GOOD NEWS
but it don't say why.
I mean. Gah.
http://www.simonarmitage.com/
Hope you find all of this fun/useful, sweetpea! <3
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