Book Recommendations

[vanillabeantree]

Hello dear book lovers! I was wondering if I could ask for some book recommendations on a few topics :) Please!
They are...

1. The 'Lost World' genre. Like Heart of Darkness and King Solomon's Mines. Those wonderful classics that explore Africa and all it's mysteries :)

2. Must-Read Agatha Christie! ...Other than Murder on the Orient Express and And

Comments

[scornedsaint]

I can help with 2 and 3!

For Christie, I would definitely recommend her books that take place in the Middle East. She spent a lot of time out there with her husband on archeological digs and you can really tell she knows what she's talking about. And you really have to read The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. It is AMAZING.

If you're into Christie, I would recommend Dorothy Sayers' mysteries as well. They're sort of Jeeves and Wooster-esque on the surface, but there's a lot of interesting social commentary on the nobility, PTSD, and women's roles along with good mysteries. The ones with Harriet Vane are especially good (starting with Strong Poison), but I loved Murder Must Advertise a lot, which just has Peter Wimsey.

Continuing with the mystery theme for classics, Wilkie Collin's The Moonstone is a good, early mystery and has a lot of great characters.

I'm not sure if it counts as a classic yet, but if you want to annoy all your friends with "The book was sooo much better" comparisons, I would recommend John Le Carre's Tinker Tailor

[vanillabeantree]

Oh! Thank you very much!
I had no idea she went to the Middle East at all! I'll definitely have to check out those books then and the other authors too :)

And John Le Carre's sounds interesting too. I've never read a cold war story before but it's a subject I am interested in :)

[daisers]

For #4, I love the Herman Wouk books _Winds of War_ and _War and Remembrance_. They're very much American POV, BUT in (I think) the first one, there are interspersed chapters that were (fictionally) written by a German war leader. Very interesting.

[vanillabeantree]

Oh! Thank you! I just looked him up online and the two you listed seem very interesting :)

[ramen_rules]

The Tin Drum is an excellent choice for 4. It's more about a german civilian living during WWII but it still reflects an interesting aura of the time period.

As for 3, I would recommend anything by Thomas Hardy (Tess of D'Ubervilles and Jude the Obscure are my favorites) and Elizabeth Gaskell (Mary Barton, North and South).

[vanillabeantree]

Ohhh thank you! The Tin Drum sounds great :)
And I'll be sure to check those authors out.

[vanillabeantree]

Okay, I'll try that :) Thank you!

[yenniemonster]

For #3 and in response to your exclusion of Emily Bronte, I just finished reading Anne Bronte's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, which is a much more feminist text than Emily and Charlotte's books. It doesn't look terribly kindly on the sort of guys Anne's sisters turned into romantic leads, and it's possible that she was spoofing Wuthering Heights a bit with the use of names. It gets a little preachy at times, but it's otherwise quite good.

A friend of mine who's a big fan of Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie is also a big fan of The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith. Here's her review of it for the HBC.

[vanillabeantree]

Oh Anne Bronte! I will DEFINITELY look into that book! *can't help but think of the Kate Beaton comic*

And checking out that review right now! Thank you!

[yenniemonster]

I had no idea what you were talking about with the Kate Beaton comic, but I looked it up, and it's fantastic. :D