My name is Red by Orhan Pamuk

The Hunchback of Notre Dome by Victor Hugo

Antigone by Sophocles

The Scaffold by Chinghiz Aitmatov

Perfume by Patrick Suskind

Humiliated and Insulted by Fyodor Dostoevsky (and everything else by him)

The Divine Comedy by Dante

Many more, but not sure if there is English translation online.

The Xenogenesis Trilogy by Octavia Butler (starts with Dawn)

The baroque cycle series by Neil Stephenson

“One” by David Karp is a little known classic. A bit like 1984 only more soul crushing.

“Mrs Dalloway” by Virginia Woolf and “The Hours” by Michael Cunningham compliment each other beautifully. I’m teaching them in the Spring.

Check out Bookbub. I have acquired some wonderful reading from them either drastically discounted or free. It’s a nice perk of having an ereader.

“Lineman Thiel”.
It is about a man who is sexually enslaved by his second wife.

Edit: I used “compliment” instead of “complement” but both work actually.

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon

Alt history, the post World War II Jewish homeland is Alaska, not Israel.

Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith

I love this because it’s hard-boiled detective fiction in an alien (to most of us) setting, the Soviet Union.

@Seek I am guessing you already know Neil Gaiman, but in case not, I am certain you would like Neverwhere

Focussing on stuff you could like, one of my favorite hidden gems is a Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. Perhaps the funniest book ever written in English.

A Woman in Berlin (anonymous) is a marvellous book, trully gripping but not miserabilist, on a very dark episode of WW2: the rape of Berlin by the red army. It’s a journal kept by a true woman at the time, unedited. Beats any war fiction i ever read.

Along the same lines, Suite Française by Irene Nimerovsky, her last and best book. Totally heart breaking though.

In Praise of Older Women by Vizinczey, in a lighter genre.

Anything by Romain Gary, eg the Promises at Dawn or the Talent Scout.

Among contemporary writters:

Vernon Subutex by Virginie Despentes

You and Me by Niccolo Ammaniti (don’t let your son read this)

Brazzaville Beach by William Boyd.

Forgot to mention – every classic book you can imagine is free when you escape Kindlestan and get access to all the free epubs from Project Gutenberg and Google books.

How to Read EPUB on Kindle

I’m a big fan of Project Gutenberg.

If you are interested in occult knowledge I would suggest “Autobiography of a Yogi” by Paramhansa Yogananda who lived in USA for quite some time.

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell – great book that should be right up your alley. Magicians, time travel and wonders and great writing!

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. I loved this book, and it came highly recommended before I read it.

Sacajawea. Seabiscuit.

“A Mathematician’s Lament” by Paul Lockhart talks about some pretty interesting views on how math is taught in schools and math education in general.

God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater by K Vonnegut is one of his more underrated works

Non-fiction -

The Worst Hard Time, by Timothy Egan. Recollections of the Dust Bowl told by people who lived through it.

Two Years Before the Mast, by Richard Henry Dana. The memoir of a law student who dropped out of Harvard for a time to become a sailor on a merchant ship. First published in 1840, Dana had wrote it intending to bring attention to the poor conditions sailors labored and lived under during his time. The book is, however, extremely well-written and stands on its own when read as an enjoyable sea adventure.

Fiction -

Move Under Ground, by Nick Mamatas. An oddly inspired mash-up of the beat poets (Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, ect) and the Cthulhu Mythos. Succeeds brilliantly despite its somewhat absurd premise.

Love Is the Law, also by Nick Mamatas. Late 1980s suburban Long Island, punk rock, communism, small town conspiracy and Thelema. As odd and brilliant as Mamatas’ above-mentioned work.

@zenvelo good lord, that book is 771 pages long.

@AnonymousAccount8, at least 150 pages could have been cut from it without significant loss. It was a good book, but inflated by what I regard as unchecked authorial self-indulgence.

I didn’t care for The Goldfinch much at all. Too long and such an unpleasant protagonist.

@Jeruba I think I felt the same way about War and Peace.

Broken For You

I read it in a book club and it was very hard for me to get through parts of it, because I was upset about them smashing up artifacts that were stolen during the holocaust, but most people in my group liked the book. I linked some reviews.

Be happy to help out..
1. Murder at the Old Ashe Building by Diane Bobal…This is a paranormal mystery that is funny and has enough plot twists to keep you going. The author has an exquisite knowledge of knitting, fountain pens and Manhattan that she weaves into a storyline than spans 100 years—and the story arc is based on a bit of real history of 19th into 20th century New York City. (I’ve heard she is working on a sequel.)

2.Norbert Davis wrote about a private eye in the 1940s named Doane who won a champion Great Dane named Carstairs. Kindle has two of the books…Try the Essential Works of Norbert Davis. The stories just rock. The dog is just cool…

3. Robert Pobi has three books available-Bloodman, American Woman and Mannheim Rex. Each one is very different and if I had to suggest one to try out first it would be Mannheim Rex. Then American Woman. Then Bloodman…

Have fun. I got my Kindle back in the e-reader days. I’ve now got a Gen-4. They are like dachshunds…can’t have just one.

Let me know when you need more thoughts…

Bill

I recently read Flowers in the Attic, which was disturbing, but still a good book.

I’ve not read it myself yet but “The Three Body Problem” by Liu Cixin sounds brilliant and is available on Kindle.

I have been enjoying reading books by Irish author Marian Keyes

Her stories, so far, have been contemporary tales about women around your age, who are on the brink of a relationship breakdown, and then she tells rhe whole story of how rhe main character ended up in that situation.

Even though there are great accounts of gross marital infidelity, and there are some parts that a lot of us can relate to regarding finding out ugly secrets about the people you thought you knew, it’s also somewhat comical, in a cringe-worthy manner.

The lead characters always remind me of us (Jellies with worknand relationship woes). I like her narrative style. So far I’ve read Watermelon, Sushi for Beginners, and I’m half way through Angels. I always feel like the main female character is one of my good pals and Infeel badly on her behalf when I’m not laughing at her hideous, but oh so common problems. Watermelon was very sad at the beginning, more so than the other 2. Sushi would be better to start with, but know that Watermelon is similar in that it’s about a young woman with man and job troubles, similar to some of our experiences here on Fluther. Funny, but excruciating.