"Fluff Reading" Recommendations

I just wrapped up my BA in English and am a tad fried mentally, meaning my usual leisure reading of Victorian Sensation fiction a la Wilkie Collins isn't going to cut it. I need something legitimately light and frothy, perhaps even...*gasp*...genre. However, my caveat is that it has to be at least moderately well-written, so consulting the good folks at Literary Snobs seemed wise.

For a reference point, most of my "fluff" books of the recent past have been female-friendly fantasy (Charles De Lint is a favorite, as is Tamora Pierce's YA work) and pseudo-Gothic fiction of the Diane Setterfield/Kate Morton sort. I've also been known to enjoy historical fiction, but it's quite hit-or-miss -- Diana Gabaldon got pitched across the room halfway through Outlander. I enjoy romance, but not when "romance" is synonymous with "lots of vividly detailed sex". I've also found Jasper Fforde to be good fun, if a little too busy spouting literary inside jokes as if to prove his street cred.

Any suggestions for a decently written beach book? My frazzled nerves will thank you. I'm studying for the GRE's and anything more to remind me of course syllabi might prove to be too much.

Georgette Heyer.

I usually defrazzle with P.G. Wodehouse, Dorothy L. Sayers, Barbara Pym, or Angela Thirkell. Maybe a bit old-fashioned for someone who's trying to recover from over-exposure to Victorian novels, though, and they do all have the disadvantage for beach reading that they wrote fairly short novels - if you want something where you don't need to carry a spare to prevent getting an Out of Book Error, you'll need to look at more recent writers.

Raymond Chandler writes wonderfully, and I love his humor. It might be a bit hard to follow if you insist on understanding the plot, which I never do anyway so it doesn't bother me.

Jane Austen would also be a great defrazzling candidate, but maybe a bit too close to Victorian stuff?

Have you read any E.F. Benson? His novels about Mapp and Lucia are fairly light and very entertaining. They're set in an English village in the early part of the last century. Miss Mapp was the queen of the social circle until Lucia moved there, and they battle for social supremacy. Though actually my favorite of the series is Miss Mapp, which takes place before Lucia enters the picture.

It was during my days as a grad student that I discovered Warhammer 40K novels. The Horus Heresy series is good and they regularly put out omnibus editions (3 novels plus some short stories) at an affordable price. That is, if you're into ultraviolent space opera ...

For mysteries, check out the Burke Novels by Andrew Vachss and Bangkok 8 by John Burdett.

Graham Greene has some nice tales like The Heart of the Matter and The Quiet American

And if you like a little snark with your defrazzling, a short book review by Dorothy Parker will hit the brain like a stiff martini.

Also, for REALLY fluffy stuff, you could try the Queen Betsy series, starting with Undead and Unwed. The first few books are hilarious, but it's really totally unsnob reading. There is some sex, but not extremely detailed and not too much of it.

I like silly mysteries by Elizabeth Peters or Sharyn McCrumb. Female friendly and quite funny.

I enjoyed Snookie's novel A Shore Thing.

Good topic! I'm always on the look out for well-written genre stuff. Some genre books that i don't see in your library and i enjoyed are:

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell...hefty but worth it
The Talented Mr Ripley
Let the Right One In
We Have Always Lived in the Castle
Shriek: An Afterword
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
The Behaviour of Moths...more gothic than genre but excellent

>4 FlorenceArt:
Of Austen's novels, Pride and Prejudice would probably be the best choice for defrazzing. Or maybe Sense and Sensibility, or for satire, Northanger Abbey.

Not recommended for defrazzling, Das Kapital, anything by Michel Foucault and the novels of Glenn Beck

9: How was A Shore Thing?

11: I remember laughing to tears the first time I read the first chapter of Pride and Prejudice.

That opening line is especially good. And for good reason!

Congratulations on finishing your BA! I still remember that wonderful feeling of release after finishing my degree.

I like most of the suggestions here (Georgette Heyer! Jane Austen! Graham Greene!), but will also add:

Agatha Christie novels. I'm rediscovering her stuff, and having fun doing it. So frightfully English!

YA Lit - avoid Twilight like the plague, but I've heard excellent things about the Hunger Games trilogy (which I am yet to read); I've enjoyed Leviathan by Scott Westerfield (the second, Behemoth is out, but I haven't got a copy yet); and I found Patrick Ness' Chaos Walking trilogy (start with The Knife of Never Letting Go) unputdownable. The Monster Blood Tattoo trilogy by D.M. Cornish is also excellent, start with Foundling.

I've also been enjoying Susan Hill's ghost tales (The Woman in Black, The Small Hand) but neither are long enough for a proper beach read, and probably need atmosphere such as a firelit room in the middle of a midnight thunderstorm to get full effect. (Personally, I'd prefer to read them at the beach. I value my ability to fall asleep at night without startling at every nighttime noise.)

Thanks for the suggestions, all! I've had Susan Hill on my radar precisely for The Woman in Black -- "beach read" is something of a misnomer for my summer reading, as I'm red of hair and light of skin and therefore not much of a sun-worshipper -- so thanks for the memory jolt. Ditto to Graham Greene -- I loved The End of the Affair. To those who mentioned/are familiar with Georgette Heyer, any favorite titles? I read Cotillion awhile back and found it a little saccharine, though so many people seem to love her and she's got such a large catalogue of work that I'm perfectly willing to give her another go.

15: You know, everyone keeps congratulating me and talking about how relieved I must feel, but given the worth of a liberal arts degree in the current economy I have to keep reminding myself that the congratulations are sincere, not a sick sarcastic joke. ;-)

You know, everyone keeps congratulating me and talking about how relieved I must feel, but given the worth of a liberal arts degree in the current economy I have to keep reminding myself that the congratulations are sincere, not a sick sarcastic joke. ;-)

You're not the only one!

I also had a decompression period after finishing my English BA a few years ago, and mostly read a lot of YA and children's fiction, but also discovered manga. (I'd been reading plenty of YA during my degree, too, but...)

Unfortunately, it's been 2.5 years and I'm only just now getting back onto my feet reading-wise. (Though the 2 semesters of grad school didn't help much.)

Have you tried the new Fforde novel, Shades of Grey? I liked it much better than The Eyre Affair, as it had fewer of those in-jokes you mention. It did have a lot of the same about vision and science and tyrannical governments, but I didn't find it to be as grating.

I'll second the YA suggestion - not all of it is like Twilight. I'd recommend science fiction (especially dystopias) and historical fiction; sci-fi often has a deeper message to it (looking at dystopias here again), while (good) hist fiction teaches you something.

Recent dystopias that were really good are Across the Universe, Memento Nora, and Blood Red Road, though the latter's really just an adventure story. No deeper societal message. :(

I love Steven Saylor's mysteries set in Ancient Rome.

>16 kabrahamson: Ha. As a recent graduate with a Poli Sci and Sociology degree, I am right there with you. If you're not off to law school, it's a fairly useless, albeit truly interesting field. That said, I am proud of myself for abandoning the major I chose to enter college with (business with a focus on marketing, that I chose purely from an economic/career standpoint) for a major I actually loved. I think in this society learning for the sake of (and joy of) learning is all too often forgotten. It sounds like you pursued a degree in the same way, so at least be proud of that.

>15 wookiebender: I read and enjoyed the first in the Hunger Games series, and then laughed when I found out it was on the mandatory summer reading list for my younger sister (entering 9th grade at the time). Definitely a good read though, particularly for the given purpose. King's (as Bachman) The Long Walk is very similar in terms of plot, but I wouldn't recommend it from a "well-written" standpoint certainly. I will say it's the only work of his I ever enjoyed enough to finish though. For me, the premise was interesting enough to ignore the rest.

Has anyone read A Game of Thrones? I'm thinking about taking the plunge...

21: definitely not fluff reading, but good. Don't start it if you NEED to know how it all ends though, this series looks like it may never end. But if you like your stories to have real people in them, I would definitely recommend it. And real life doesn't have a neat ending either... ;-)

I watched part of the first episode of the GAME OF THRONES series. Diverting, definitely. LOTS of sex. But high fantasy isn't really my thing, no matter what guise it's presented in.

In terms of good, smart escapist literature: Jonathan Carroll's LAND OF LAUGHS or SLEEPING IN FLAME; Steve Erickson's DAYS BETWEEN STATIONS (don't confuse him with the fantasy hack of the same name), James Morrow's TOWING JEHOVAH or Wilton Barnhardt's magnificent GOSPEL. Terry Bisson's TALKING MAN also springs to mind...

I'm not into genre but as for what I'd take to the beach:

The Secret History by Donna Tartt is very well written and definitely a page turner, I'd recommend that. I guess you've already read Brave New World - its short, light and easy although obviously thought provoking too. Re recent stuff... On Beauty is easy reading, as is We Had It So Good - both quite successfully 'zeitgeist-y'. Shantaram is another page turner, although you probably have to be into the kind of backpacker lifestyle it depicts to find it engaging. Hope that help!

THE SECRET HISTORY has a smashing great opening line. Fine novel, both Sherron and I liked it. But Ms. Tartt never seemed to go on to write anything to top it--that's the trouble with writing such a terrific debut effort...

No mention of James Crumley? I just downloaded the new, e-only short story Beekeeping for Beginners by Laurie R. King-- I liked The Bee-Keeper's Apprentice at some point this past winter.

Don't get me going on Crumley--y'know I'm crazy about the guy. Possibly my favorite American writer...

The Secret History is a hell of a pageturner. Loved it. (And yes, The Little Friend was a step down - it seemed like an oddly dragging To Kill A Mockingbird with meth.)

The Game of Thrones books are, in my opinion, superior to 95% of fantasy out there. It's smart and cleverly-written, and the story has a tendency to surprise you - which is a big break from the epic fantasy tradition, in my opinion.

chamberk--I totally agree with you on D Tartt's books. LOVED Secret History but Little Friend was way over-long for me.

I just started City of Bones and it's quite good. This is my foray into urban fantasy and it's just what the doctor ordered. I recommend it.

Another great fluffy and hilarious read about writing and publishing a book is How I Became a Famous Novelist. This book is laugh-out-loud funny. Many references to great authors (one about Dickens that is a side-splitter)...a must read.

Do campaign biographies count as fluff? How about The Audacity of Hope or A Charge to Keep? Then again, both those books need their authors (and battalions of ghostwriters) to face imprisonment, preferably in the Hague If you want to stay out of jail, go into politics. Got to hand it to Dave Simon, in "The Wire", he makes the politicians more contemptible and corrupt than the heroin dealers.

Am halfway through The Somnambulist by Jonathan Barnes, and can recommend it highly - wonderful, weird and faintly grotesque. I had to force myself to put it down last night!

Have never read any Graham Greene. Could anyone tell me where to start? What do you consider his 3 best books?

33: I've read 2, both of which I really liked. The Quiet American and The Heart of the Matter, the latter recommended by Anthony Burgess in his collection 99 Novels For an entree into Graham Greene, I would also suggest the film The Third Man, directed by Carol Reed and starring Orson Welles It sets the tone for Greene's tales of moral anguish and international intrigue.

A BURNT OUT CASE...THE END OF THE AFFAIR...

TRAVELS WITH MY AUNT is one of his most accessible offerings--made into a BBC movie, as I recall...

The only book by Graham Greene I've read was Our Man in Havana, and it had me laughing to tears. Come to think of it, I don't know why I never read another book by him, this was years ago.

The Heart of the Matter I thought better than The End of the Affair. His entertainments are, er, entertaining: Ministry of Fear, A Gun for Sale and The Confidential Agent were collected as Three Entertainments.

Thanks for the help. I think I will start with Travels with My Aunt and see where it goes from there.

How about some existentialism? The Stranger - Camus (AKA The Outsider) is short and snappy and you can dig as deep as you like for meaning.

Short stories or essays are good too....How to be Alone- Franzen, Ex-Libris - Fadiman, Small Wonder - Kingsolver are all essays. Or how about fancy sounding DeLillo- Falling Man is an easy read with a posh author!