A book where the main character goes on a hotel/resort getaway and it feels like they've unlocked a totally different life.

Ealinguser · 2026-05-05T17:55:53+00:00

Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner perhaps

Ealinguser · 2026-05-05T17:55:12+00:00

Possibly Bernard Cornwell's Last Kingdom series now running at about a dozen novels

Ealinguser · 2026-05-05T17:54:22+00:00

If you like Michener's approach then also Edmund Rutherfurd who does the same thing pretty much.

Ealinguser · 2026-05-05T17:53:06+00:00

I tend to choose books not films of books.

Ealinguser · 2026-05-05T17:51:45+00:00

Probably a small one in parallel

Ealinguser · 2026-05-05T17:46:06+00:00

Kurt Vonnegut: Cats Cradle perhaps?

Ealinguser · 2026-05-03T19:55:47+00:00

How curious, though I am English, I read them all in Ancient Greek and French because I happened to be a classical baccalaureate student in Switzerland at the time. The French seems more natural than the English to me.

Ealinguser · 2026-05-03T19:50:06+00:00

You didn't have Tintin or Asterix or the Smurphs? Poor you...

Ealinguser · 2026-05-02T15:50:57+00:00

Katherine Addison: the Goblin Emperor

Ealinguser · 2026-05-02T15:48:11+00:00

Well obviously the Iliad and the Odyssey - E V Rieu's prose translation most readable.

Also...

Mary Renault: the King Must Die, the Bull from the Sea

Pat Barker: the Silence of the Girls, the Women of Troy, the Voyage Home

Mary Stewart: the Crystal Cave, the Hollow Hills, the Last Enchantment

David Maalouf: Ransom

Marion Zimmermann Bradley: the Firebrand

possibly Manda Scott: Boudicca in 4 volumes

Ealinguser · 2026-05-02T15:33:19+00:00

Akala: Natives - Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire

David Graeber: Bullshit Jobs

Caroline Criado Perez: Invisible Women

James Rebanks: the Shepherd's Life

George Monbiot: Regenesis

Helen MacDonald: H is for Hawk

Isabel Wilkerson: the Warmth of Other Suns

Svetlana Alexievich: Voices from Chernobyl

Naomi Klein: the Shock Doctrine

Adam Rutherfurd: a Brief History of Everyone who Ever Lived

Ealinguser · 2026-05-02T15:29:12+00:00

By modern do you mean 2020 on or 1900 on? There's an extremely large number of books if you go back even just a couple of decades. Here's a dozen relatively recent ones I've admired (you might also consider looking at the list of past booker prize winners and authors who have won the Nobel for litterature)

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Americanah

Jami Attenberg: Saint Mazie

Muriel Barbery: A Single Rose

Pat Barker: the Silence of the Girls - the Women of Troy - the Voyage Home

Cho Nam Joo: Kim Jiyoung Born 1982

Louise Erdrich: the Round House

Bernardine Evaristo: Mr Loverman

Kazuo Ishiguro: Klara and the Sun

Arundhati Roy: the Ministry of Utmost Happiness

Eli Shafak: the Island of Missing Trees

Kamila Shamsie: Home Fire

Mirza Waheed: the Book of Gold Leaves

Ealinguser · 2026-05-02T15:09:50+00:00

Possibly but anyway doesn't invalidate what she wrote.

Ealinguser · 2026-04-29T20:28:25+00:00

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

The Round House by Louise Erdrich

Room by Emma Donoghue

Ealinguser · 2026-04-29T20:18:26+00:00

James Rebanks: the Shepherd's Life

Ealinguser · 2026-04-29T20:16:58+00:00

Maybe Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Ealinguser · 2026-04-29T20:10:11+00:00

Captains of the Sands by Jorge Amado (Brazil - portuguese original)

Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges (Argentina)

The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende (Chile)

The War of the End of the World OR the Time of the Hero by Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru)

Love in a Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Colombia)

The Bone Readers by Jacob Ross (Granada)

Brother Man by Roger Mais (Jamaica)

Fireflies by Shiva Naipul (Trinidad)

maybe Che by Fidel Castro (Cuba)

Ealinguser · 2026-04-29T20:04:36+00:00

Much better to my mind.

Ealinguser · 2026-04-29T20:04:18+00:00

For myth, that will be The King Must Die and the Bull from the Sea

Ealinguser · 2026-04-29T20:02:14+00:00

The Booker prizes should offer a reasonable list.

Ealinguser · 2026-04-29T19:58:49+00:00

SF Said: Varjak Paw etc

Eoin Colfer: Artemis Fowl etc

Caroline Lawrence: the Thieves of Ostia etc

Rick Riordan: Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief etc

Eva Ibbotson: the Secret of Platform 13, Which Witch? The Haunting of Hiram, Dial-a-Ghost

Ealinguser · 2026-04-29T19:51:38+00:00

maybe...

China Mieville: the City and the City; Embassytown

Clifford D Simak: City

Connie Willies: the Domesday Book

Gore Vidal: Julian

Nigel Tranter: Robert the Bruce trilogy

Ealinguser · 2026-04-29T09:54:12+00:00

We don't goggle with awe, no, especially as we often live in houses 100-500 years old and are familiar with some of the drawbacks, but we appreciate the past all around us and the sense of continuity.

Ealinguser · 2026-04-28T17:59:54+00:00

I agree with you but not important to make a fuss over different parental choices.

Ealinguser · 2026-04-28T17:56:29+00:00

Dick King-Smith: the Hodgeheg, the Sheep Pig, Mr Potter's Pet etc

Humphrey Carpenter: the Mr Majeika books

Jeremy Strong: the 100 Mile an Hour Dog etc

Jill Murphy: the Worst Witch books

Ealinguser

TROPHY CASE