Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Adrianne Sandoval on December 14, 2009 at 1:57pm

OMG where do I begin. Okay heres my list of books that I think you guys might like.

1. The Morganville Series by Rachel Caine.
2. The Breed Series by Lara Adrian
3. Hush Hush by Becca Fritzpartick
4. The Immortal Series by Alyson Noel
5. The Mortal Instruments Series by Cassandra Clare

Permalink Reply by Thaisa Frank on February 4, 2010 at 2:45am

Adrienne--thanks! And, Sandyha--

I have just discovered--grace of a wonderful writer--a Czech writer named Bohumil Hrabal--wildly imaginative, yet with a consciiousness that procedes with the inexorable logic of dreams. I'm reading Too Loud a Solitude and just ordered I Served the King of England. He also wrote Closely Watched Trains. Kundera called him "the most important writer working today." He lived from the early part of the 20th century and died just three years before the end of the 20th. Too Loud a Solitude was named a New York Times Notable Book of the year.

It breaks loose of so many literary conventions. It carves out a territory of its own. As imaginative as the best of childrens' books--those books we read our kids or our friends' kids--that are over the top and engross us and delight us and keep every sense alive. I think that this is some of the ore that surrealism and magic realism mines--the rich imagination of childhood woven into a world of adults.

Permalink Reply by Miriam R Ben-Yaacov on February 4, 2010 at 11:19am

thank you so much for all the wonderful suggestions...

Permalink Reply by Jane Baskin on October 6, 2010 at 10:12am

This sounds wonderful, thanks for the info! I am going to order Too Loud a Solitude now.

Permalink Reply by Shelley Schanfield on April 8, 2010 at 6:29pm

Try China Mieville's Perdido Street Station, Scar, and an entertaining mystery called The City and the City. My husband's reading Iron Council and enjoying it. Mieville tells epic, twisted, intelligent, compulsively readable stories.

Permalink Reply by Ilie Ruby on April 15, 2010 at 8:49am

For magic realism, anything by Alice Hoffman. I'd start with Turtle Moon.

Ilie

Permalink Reply by Karen Simpson on April 16, 2010 at 4:21am

From African American authors try

Mama Day by Gloria Naylor
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Middle Passage by Charles Johnson

Permalink Reply by Jane Baskin on October 6, 2010 at 10:10am

Have you read Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon? It is wonderful. Though it's not really surreal, it has a flavor in it like Marquez.

Permalink Reply by Catherine Stine on December 3, 2010 at 10:13pm

For adult spec: Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi, and for YA, Nancy Werlin's last two books, Impossible and Extraordinary

Permalink Reply by Fi Phillips on February 13, 2011 at 6:16am

Most novels by Robert Rankin but especially The Da Da De Da Da Code. Equally anything by Douglas Adams. Although Clive Barker is generally thought of as a horror writer, his novel Weaveworld leans more towards fantasy. The Word and the Void trilogy by Terry Brooks is also excellent.

Permalink Reply by Rosalie Morales Kearns on July 3, 2011 at 7:01am

There are some really great anthologies, though not so “contemporary”: Black Water, ed. Alberto Manguel; The Literary Ghost, ed. Larry Dark; What Did Miss Darrington See?: An Anthology of Feminist Supernatural Fiction, ed. Jessica Amanda Salmonson. 

Permalink Reply by Zoe Brooks on June 8, 2012 at 1:53pm

Fludd and by Hilary Mantell. She's now famous for Wolf Hall but this early book of hers is just wonderful. Also Into Black by the same author

The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break by Steven Sherill

Good Omens by Pratchett and Gaimon

Totally with you on Too Loud A Solitude - I spend a lot of my time in the Czech Republic and they love the surreal. Of course there is always Kafka

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