Rumer Godden, In This House of Brede. A sucessful businesswoman becomes a cloistered nun. It has really, really sad parts, but it's a beautiful novel, very readable and with some great characters.
Robertson Davies' Salterton Trilogy: Tempest-Tost, Leaven of Malice, and A Mixture of Frailties. (Frailties in particular is a good travel book - it's the story of a young Canadian woman who goes to London to study voice.) Actually, anything by Robertson Davies is like literary crack to me. Just can't put it down.
Do you like mysteries? Pretty much anything by Laurie R. King is good, though often scary. A Grave Talent is her brilliant first book. It's totally engrossing, but it is a serial-murderer story.
Connie Willis' short stories (the collections are called Fire Watch and Impossible Things.) Also look for Bellweather, which is a short comic novel about fads. I really liked Doomsday Book (that's where I get my journal-name) but the sort-of sequel To Say Nothing of the Dog is more fun.
Have you read Sayers' Murder Must Advertise? I think it's the best of the non-Harriet books. Thrones, Dominations (which was completed by Jill Paton Walsh from Sayers' notes) is worth a read, though I've some quibbles with the mystery plot. The other Peter&Harriet book Walsh wrote is not worth reading.
I really like Elizabeth Moon's Familias Regnant books, about women starship commanders and their dealings with the elite ruling class of a far-future interstellar society. That makes it sound really highfalutin - really it's just good ol' space opera. The books, in order, are: Hunting Party Sporting Chance Winning Colors (these three have, I think, been collected into a single volume titled Heris Serrano) Once A Hero (after this they start to run together for me, but for completeness...) Rules of Engagement Change of Command Against the Odds
Elizabeth George's Inspector Lynley mysteries are better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, though they do tend to the depressing.
Did you read any Edward Eager or E. Nesbit as a kid? Both classics of the kids-discover-magic-object-and-have-adventures genre. Eager is totally the literary descendant of Nesbit; if you've read one you must read the other.
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Robertson Davies' Salterton Trilogy: Tempest-Tost, Leaven of Malice, and A Mixture of Frailties. (Frailties in particular is a good travel book - it's the story of a young Canadian woman who goes to London to study voice.) Actually, anything by Robertson Davies is like literary crack to me. Just can't put it down.
Do you like mysteries? Pretty much anything by Laurie R. King is good, though often scary. A Grave Talent is her brilliant first book. It's totally engrossing, but it is a serial-murderer story.
Connie Willis' short stories (the collections are called Fire Watch and Impossible Things.) Also look for Bellweather, which is a short comic novel about fads. I really liked Doomsday Book (that's where I get my journal-name) but the sort-of sequel To Say Nothing of the Dog is more fun.
Have you read Sayers' Murder Must Advertise? I think it's the best of the non-Harriet books. Thrones, Dominations (which was completed by Jill Paton Walsh from Sayers' notes) is worth a read, though I've some quibbles with the mystery plot. The other Peter&Harriet book Walsh wrote is not worth reading.
I really like Elizabeth Moon's Familias Regnant books, about women starship commanders and their dealings with the elite ruling class of a far-future interstellar society. That makes it sound really highfalutin - really it's just good ol' space opera. The books, in order, are:
Hunting Party
Sporting Chance
Winning Colors (these three have, I think, been collected into a single volume titled Heris Serrano)
Once A Hero
(after this they start to run together for me, but for completeness...)
Rules of Engagement
Change of Command
Against the Odds
Elizabeth George's Inspector Lynley mysteries are better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, though they do tend to the depressing.
Did you read any Edward Eager or E. Nesbit as a kid? Both classics of the kids-discover-magic-object-and-have-adventures genre. Eager is totally the literary descendant of Nesbit; if you've read one you must read the other.
That's probably enough to be getting on with. :)