I'm a 38yo married father of three. I enjoy "chick flicks" and I regularly find myself browsing "chick lit" books wondering if there might be something in them for me.

Can anyone suggest a good place to start?

I don`t know as I want to admit this, I`m a 45 year old who enjoys his wife`s video collection - Serendipity, Sleepless in Seattle. Oddly, she doesn`t share my love of gangster films and even (shudder) didn`t get anyting out of Altman`s film of The Long Goodbye feat. Elliott Gould or Men of respect with John Turturro.

Worse than that, I read both Bridget Jones` Diary and The Secretary by Serena Mackesy as newspaper columns before they became books !

I am an omniverous reader by nature, as you may have guessed.

Would reccomend the Mackesey book myself.

I`m more worried that I picked up a copy of a Ben Elton book the other day and thought that seemed interesting ! Should I seek treatment ?

Well, my husband isn't a big reader but liked Bridget Jones Diary and Adriana Trigiana's Big Cherry Holler series. Those are the only ones I can think of off the top of my head.

Well I frequently read large chunks of Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum books out loud to my husband and he seems to find them as amusing as I do.
Stephanie is a rather inept bounty hunter from New Jersey and the cast of characters include her crazy Grandma, two boyfriends, a hamster, an ex-hooker, and a whole bunch of crazy fugitives.

I can never hear Evanovich mentioned without wanting to laugh. Years ago I asked a workmate what Evanovich`s books were like as I`d seen her reading them. At the time I think only One for the Money and Two for the show were available over here.

Without a hint of a smile, my friend, who would have her little joke, told me that they were told from the viewpoint of a Private Investigator who was also a serial killer who targeted men, and always chopped off one of the testicles of her victims to keep as a souvenir. This, she explained was how the books got their titles, as each book detailed how she came by another grisly trophy.

Only years later did I actually read one and discover that this was not accurate.

I`ve met some interesting people in my life.

Message edited by its author, Oct 16, 2006, 12:19pm.

thanks for the suggestions - maybe I'll try the first Stephanie Plum book.

I liked the first Bridget Jones movie but the second one felt too much of a rehash and after that I figured I should steer clear of the books.

Maybe you could try Mike Gayle, as a friend of mine says, his books are pretty much chick lit for guys. ;o)

I gather My Legendary Girlfriend is good. It`s set in the area where my wife grew up, should you be interested.

I read Dinner for Two by Mike Gayle and remember thinking that his is like chick lit for guys and I just noticed when I looked it up someone has it tagged blokelit, "bloke lit" and guy lit.

I'm the friend Virgulina mentions ;o)
Yeah, definitly Mike Gayle, I've it tagged as "guy lit". You have the same kind of stories that in chick lit but the main caracter is a guy.
I specially loved the last ones His 'n' Hers and Brand New Friend. My Legendary Girlfriend is, IMO, the least good of them all, so don't start with that one, but try one of the others and tell us what do you think!!

Heh, blokelit's my tag.

If you like Mike Gayle, you might also like: Mark Barrowcliffe, Matt Beaumont, Matt Thorne, Matt Whyman, Mil Millington. I have no idea why an M initial is a requirement for this genre but there it is. ;-)

LOL, BoPeep! ;)
I've had a book by Mil Millington to read for ages...
As for Mark Barrowcliffe, yeah, we can call it blokelit too but he isn't near as good as Mike Gayle, IMO.

Sometimes it's also called Lad Lit. You might find some books for you on this site: http://chicklitbooks.com/sub-genres/lad-...

Although this thread is rather aged, I thought I would revive it.

It seems that recently, the fiction I am reading is almost all by women. I do not know if Joyce Carol Oates would want her books classified as chick lit--or Margaret Drabble.

I just finished Venus envy by Rita Mae Brown

I have been reading Vampire fiction, almost all by women.

Jennifer Crusie

I have read quite a lot of Janet Evanovich

Message edited by its author, Aug 14, 2007, 10:55am.

I am currently reading To Have and To Hold by Jane Green; well-written if unengaging.
It will be the fourth book I'll tag "chick lit" along with two copies of Pride and Prejudice and Anna Karenina.

I blame my current reading on allowing www.random.org select.

OTOH, more things to talk about with the wife.

OTTH, the wife won't read Robert E. Howard.

BTW, for acting, scenery and story, a great rental date movie is "The Whole Wide World", Rene Zellweger playing Novalyne Price, the school teacher dating Robert E. "Bob" Howard. Vincent D'Onofrio has never been better.

The movie is based on:
One Who Walked Alone: Robert E. Howard the Final Years by Novalyne Price Ellis.

Message edited by its author, Aug 14, 2007, 12:34pm.

Wanted to revive this thread! :) I would recommend anything by Jonathan Tropper. As I was reading his books Everything Changes and The Book of Joe, I even remember thinking, "This is like chick lit for boys." Nick Hornby, in some ways, makes me think of "lad lit" as well.

I would recommend The Book of Joe for sure -- very good read.

Nick Hornby is definitely "lad lit", High Fidelity is one of my all time favourites, for instance. Probably Tony Parsons can be listed here, too (I definitely loved One for My Baby by him.)

I enjoyed Tony Parson's Man and Boy, but I'm reading the sequel Man and Wife at the moment and liking it not so much now that his hero has become a self-centered git. I do have One For My Baby buried somewhere in my bottomless-pit-of-unread-books - hopefully it'll be more to my taste when I get to it.

I don't know if you like vampires and the like ,but one series I highly recommend is J.R. Ward's BLACKDAGGER BROTHERHOOD SERIES it is wonderful the brothers are strong and the OTHERS are as evil as can be. They lure their victims with the scent of baby powder!

My first Parsons was One For My Baby, then I read Man and Boy and found them quite similar, so I stopped reading Parsons' later. I guessed that Man and Wife must be better because there is a wife. In the other two books the hero starts as a widower pining for the past, so I hoped if there is a living wife given, Parsons must come up with some new ideas, but a self-centered hero isnt the best idea, really. :) I quite like Parsons' humor, though.

Paranormal chick lit can be fun, too. I'm reading the Queen Betsy series by Mary Janice Davidson and finished Undead and Unwed and Undead and Unemployed so far, both are absolutely hilarious - it seems my basic requirement for this genre is humor. I can't help it.:)