Other authors you might recommend to Atwood fans...

ConversesAtwoodians

Afegeix-te a LibraryThing per participar.

Other authors you might recommend to Atwood fans...

Aquest tema està marcat com "inactiu": L'últim missatge és de fa més de 90 dies. Podeu revifar-lo enviant una resposta.

1avaland
nov. 21, 2006, 11:52 am

In your reading have you come across other authors who you think might be of interest to readers of Margaret Atwood, for one reason or another?

The author who comes first to my mind is Helen Dunmore. Her novels are very different but I think it's something about her female characters that leads me to suggest her. I think she elevates the lives of women and what would be considered by some a domestic story. She doesn't shy away from the political but chooses to see it with a different, perhaps more female, eye. Like Atwood, she is also a poet and she has also, like Atwood, written children's books.

2SeriousGrace
nov. 22, 2006, 8:47 am

I adore Barbara Kingsolver, fiction and nonfiction. She has a voice like Atwood (especially in Handmaid's Tale) and women play a strong, important part in her novels.

3bookishbunny
nov. 29, 2006, 8:48 am

Yukio Mishima is one of my favorites. His novel After the Banquet is a wonderful woman-themed story.

4sqdancer
nov. 30, 2006, 1:51 pm

I heard someone suggest Margaret Drabble once. I haven't read any of her books yet, although I do have a couple on my to-be-read shelf.

5dylanwolf
des. 6, 2006, 3:56 pm

Rose Tremain is a tremendous female author but if I was looking for something attwoody written by a man I'd try John Banville and Andrew Miller.

6dylanwolf
Editat: des. 6, 2006, 5:19 pm

Oh yes and read Primo Levi because everybody should!

7dylanwolf
Editat: des. 6, 2006, 5:22 pm

Not read Margaret Drabble yet either but I have picked up The Radiant Way from a charity shop. I'll let you know how I get on when I get round to reading it.

8avaland
des. 6, 2006, 9:39 pm

Yes, I'd second Rose Tremain also. Seems there are more than a few of us who have to get around to reading our Drabbles!

One must assume that if one recommends an authors they can also recommend a title or two....please?

For Helen Dunmore, I think my favorite thus far is The Siege; it's pretty bleak stuff (Seige of Leningrad) but sometimes the most human stories are told in the harshest of settings...

9dylanwolf
Editat: des. 7, 2006, 3:50 pm

The Siege by Helen Dunmore is indeed a fine novel. Rose Tremain's best is surely Music & Silence. For Andrew Miller I'd try Oxygen for a contemporary setting or Ingenious Pain for an historical one. Another super book is Andrea Levy's Small Island about immigration from Jamaica to England in the 1940s.

10CarolineWalters
feb. 7, 2007, 10:08 am

Margaret Laurence. A fellow Canadian woman writer. I'd particularly recommend her novel 'The Diviners', which makes an interesting use of an inter-woven narrative to show how memory penetrates into present day life.

11tripleblessings
feb. 9, 2007, 6:24 pm

I love The Diviners by Laurence, and have read most of her other novels as well. Diviners is probably her most complex novel, so most like Atwood's writing. The others are compelling, with wonderful women characters - not so much satire as Atwood uses.

For those who like Atwood's short stories, you've got to try Alice Munro who has won many a Governor General's award for her short story collections. They always feature women and girls as the main protagonists. Her earlier collections are perhaps more accessible, straight-forward narratives. The later ones are a bit more difficult to understand. She often leaves me wanting more, which is good, I guess, but sometimes frustrating.

12avaland
feb. 10, 2007, 6:25 am

Coincidently, I've just started Munro's The View from Castle Rock on audio.

13amandameale
març 14, 2007, 9:14 am

I have read one Drabble: The Red Queen and would say that this one was similar to Atwood's style. A friend who I completely trust for recommendations is a big fan of Margaret Drabble.

I also recommend Rose Tremain.

14avaland
març 14, 2007, 10:09 am

For those who like The Blind Assassin, especially the story within a story within a story aspect, you might like John Crowley's Lord Byron's Novel: The Evening Land. At it's core is a wonderfully fabricated, gothic Byron novel, which is annotated after his death by his estranged daughter Ada Lovelace in the second layer story. A mysterious page, part of a possible Byron novel, is discovered in the contemporary story. The Byron novel is entertaining in itself.

15writestuff
maig 14, 2007, 10:26 am

David Mitchell, in my opinion, writes novels along the same line as Atwood - especially Cloud Atlas which was just brilliant on so many level.s

16100experiments
ag. 1, 2007, 11:14 am

I think Iris Murdoch is worth a mention. I think Atwood and Murdoch create true, psychologically complex characters brilliantly.

17avaland
ag. 1, 2007, 6:57 pm

Welcome 100experiments, which Murdoch's would you recommend to start with?

18charbutton
ag. 14, 2007, 2:53 pm

I'd recommend Margaret Elphinstone, who I think is Canadian. I've read Hy Brasil, The Sea Road: a novel and Voyageurs: a novel and enjoyed all of them.

19inkdrinker
ag. 14, 2007, 3:18 pm

It's been a long time since I read one of his books, but I thought at the time that Robertson Davies' books felt quite a bit like Atwood.

20avaland
ag. 14, 2007, 8:36 pm

charbutton, I have Elphinstone's latest...I forget the title at the moment but Lighthouse is it. I did start it briefly but set it aside and haven't picked it up again (no fault of the author's). It is interesting, then, to hear about her other books.

I'm going away for a few days later this week and am taking Jane
Urquhart's Away with me. Perhaps I will finally tap into my collection of unread Urquhart novels! Then again, I'm taking at least 7 books with me:-)

21Caroline_McElwee
nov. 19, 2007, 9:54 am

I agree with the recommendation of Helen Dunmore's The Siege, IMO it is probably her best, although I liked all her early novels.

Another Canadian novelist whose work I enjoy Jane Urquhart and I still think Whirlpool is one of her best.

22avaland
gen. 9, 2008, 1:49 pm

Yes, I think I would agree that The Siege is Dunmore's best to date. I think I've read four of her novels. . .

I think I would also recommend another Canadian (of Indian descent), Anita Rau Badami, who has three books out now. I think they have not received as much attention here in the states as they deserve, although that would be difficult for this last book, Can You Hear the Nightbird Call?, which hasn't been published here at all. While not necessarily like Atwood, she is a worthy writer that I think Atwood fans would enjoy (also if you like Lahiri, Suri...etc., then you may like. . .).

23avaland
juny 24, 2008, 4:27 pm

just pulling this thread out of the dormant abyss. . .

24Nickelini
juny 24, 2008, 6:52 pm

Well, I think anyone who liked Alias Grace might also like The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles.

25kaelirenee
juny 25, 2008, 11:23 am

I love Anita Diamant's The Red Tent, and it's very similar in style and ability to Atwood's writing. Sometimes, reading one of Atwood's books makes me want to read other folks more-because of all the art in Cat's Eye, I always want to read Nick Bantock, especially The Museum at Purgatory. Oryx and Crake has me hankering for Brave New World and Jennifer Government. The only other (contemporary) author I've ever come across that I think even romotely comes close to matching Atwood's skill at character development is Gregory Maguire.

26kaelirenee
juny 25, 2008, 11:23 am

Aquest missatge ha estat suprimit pel seu autor.

27avaland
juny 25, 2008, 11:59 am

You're serious about the Gregory Maguire comment? I've read nearly all his books and hers and he is definitely not an author who comes to mind immediately (or at all) when I think of any aspect of M.A.. However, to each his/her own, I guess:-)

(Personally, I think Greg needs to do something new and different.)

28kaelirenee
juny 25, 2008, 2:45 pm

Yup-serious about the Greg comment-at least compared to things like Penelopiad and Alias Grace. But then, this is why I read so little fiction. :)

Now, for a non-fiction writer I think Atwood fans would like, I'd suggest Marilyn Yalom, especially A History of the Wife and A History of the Breast.

29rachbxl
jul. 1, 2008, 4:16 pm

Several years ago I bought Doris Lessing's The Grass is Singing because it was displayed in the bookshop with a sign saying "if you like Atwood, you'll like this' - and I did. I'd also recommend her The Fifth Child, and just yesterday I started a book of short stories by Lessing, The Story of a Non-Marrying Man; I think she and Atwood share an ability to zoom in on something that you hadn't considered from that angle before.

30Such_A_Kassandra
jul. 25, 2008, 9:46 am

I can think of two authors to recommend: Barbara Gowdy and Timothy Findley. Like Atwood, they both are able to lovingly and beautifully portray the pain and horror of being human.

My favs are Not Wanted on the Voyage and Headhunter by Findley and a group of short stories called We So Seldom Look On Love by Gowdy.