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Recommendations Please

Libre

Member
I know this is short notice, but, I'm off to Boarders to replenish my TBR pile. Any suggestions? I'm leaving in about an hour, so, if you can come up with something fast, I'd appreciate it.
From reading the threads lately, I know I'm going to buy The Time Traveller's Wife. I am also going to pick up 1 or 2 works by Nelson Demille. I like fantasy, mysteries, anything hokey, pulpy, sensational, thought provoking, or off-beat. I turn up my nose at anyting too SERIOUS and stuffy.
Recently read and enjoyed:
The Dark Tower series (well, the 1st four); Freakonomics; some Richard Leyman books; some Jack Ketchum books; The Day of the Triffids; The Night of the Triffids; Endurance by Alfred Lansing

Any recommendations appreciated.
Thanks!
 
The Crimson Petal & The White, Michel Faber?

amazon.com said:
Although it's billed as "the first great 19th-century novel of the 21st century," The Crimson Petal and the White is anything but Victorian. The story of a well-read London prostitute named Sugar, who spends her free hours composing a violent, pornographic screed against men, Michel Faber's dazzling second novel dares to go where George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss and the works of Charles Dickens could not. We learn about the positions and orifices that Sugar and her clients favor, about her lingering skin condition, and about the suspect ingredients of her prophylactic douches. Still, Sugar believes she can make a better life for herself. When she is taken up by a wealthy man, the perfumer William Rackham, her wings are clipped, and she must balance financial security against the obvious servitude of her position. The physical risks and hardships of Sugar's life (and the even harder "honest" life she would have led as a factory worker) contrast--yet not entirely--with the medical mistreatment of her benefactor's wife, Agnes, and beautifully underscore Faber's emphasis on class and sexual politics. In theme and treatment, this is a novel that Virginia Woolf might have written, had she been born 70 years later. The language, however, is Faber's own--brisk and elastic--and, after an awkward opening, the plethora of detail he offers (costume, food, manners, cheap stage performances, the London streets) slides effortlessly into his forward-moving sentences. When Agnes goes mad, for instance, "she sings on and on, while the house is discreetly dusted all around her and, in the concealed and subterranean kitchen, a naked duck, limp and faintly steaming, spreads its pimpled legs on a draining board." Despite its 800-plus pages, The Crimson Petal and the White turns out to be a quick read, since it is truly impossible to put down.
 
Thanks Stew. Have you read this yourself? I'll take a look when I get to the store, and let you know if I bought it.
Anyone else?
 
The Crimson Petal & The White, Michel Faber?
Ooh good book. It actually is very readable Libre.

EDIT: The Fourth Hand - John Irving, the backcover reads:
While reporting a story from India, New York journalist Patrick Wallingford inadvertently becomes his own headline when his left hand is eaten by a lion. In Boston a renowned surgeon eagerly awaits the opportunity to perform the nations first hand transplant. But what if the Donor's widow demands visitaton rights with the hand?
 
John Irving? Last I read of his was Garp. That was certainly noteworthy.
I've added it to my Check It Out list.
Thanks.
 
Libre said:
Thanks Stew. Have you read this yourself? I'll take a look when I get to the store, and let you know if I bought it.
Anyone else?

I have read it. It must have been two years ago and, like Gem and the review states, it is immensely readable. The description is fantastic and the characters well drawn out. And the plot? It's a rollercoaster.
 
OK- you've won me over. Sounds good. It's on my list.
Thanks - I'm off to the store now (got a 10% off coupon).
 
I'm back!
Here's my new TBR pile:
The Crimson Petal and the White;
The Fourth Hand;
Life of Pi;
Longitude - The true story of a Lone Genius who solved the greatest scientific problem of his time;
Nelson DeMille: Plum Island;
Nelson DeMille: The Gold Coast;
The Time Traveller's Wife;
Snakes on a Plane (just for laughs)
Disgrace - J.M.Coetzee (lost it and it turned up again, stacking my new TBR pile);

That should keep me busy for awhile!
 
Libre said:
Longitude - The true story of a Lone Genius who solved the greatest scientific problem of his time;

After that, keep Umberto Eco's The Island of the Day Before in mind for a reading.
 
Libre said:
I know this is short notice, but, I'm off to Boarders to replenish my TBR pile. Any suggestions? I'm leaving in about an hour, so, if you can come up with something fast, I'd appreciate it.
From reading the threads lately, I know I'm going to buy The Time Traveller's Wife. I am also going to pick up 1 or 2 works by Nelson Demille. I like fantasy, mysteries, anything hokey, pulpy, sensational, thought provoking, or off-beat. I turn up my nose at anyting too SERIOUS and stuffy.
Recently read and enjoyed:
The Dark Tower series (well, the 1st four); Freakonomics; some Richard Leyman books; some Jack Ketchum books; The Day of the Triffids; The Night of the Triffids; Endurance by Alfred Lansing

Any recommendations appreciated.
Thanks!

Bit late, but 'The Crimson Petal & The White' really great book..enjoy :)
 
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