Carter a, I read all Moriarty too, and haven’t found something comparable. I too am open to suggestions.
It’s weird; when I think of Moriarty, I tend to think of her as genre fiction but when I try and identify other books in that genre, none come to mind! For fast reads about contemporary relationships, how about:
Mona Simpson, My Hollywood or Casebook;
David Nicholls, Us
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (sp?), Americanah
Kaui Hart Hemmings, Descendants
Maria Semple, Where Did You Go Bernadette
Any Nick Hornby
Helen Simonson, Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand
For delicious, over-the-top fun (but completely different subject matter):
Any Julian Fellowes novel
I will try to think of others.
Not telling, excellent. I enjoyed …Bernadette & major pelligrew immensely. I look into your other suggestions.
It was really driving me crazy that I couldn’t come up with books more similar to Moriarty than those on the previous list, so I just did a Google search for "If you like Liane Moriarty . . . " and one of the suggestions that came up was Susan Isaacs. That’s actually a pretty close analog. I used to love her books but haven’t read them in a long time; I’m not sure how they would hold up. But I remember their being fun, suspenseful, suburban, marriage-problem-related light mysteries, with that sarcastic wit that Moriarty also has.
Liane Moriarty’s books never go along as expected. I’d be hard-pressed to recommend books like ones of hers that I’ve read - The Hypnotist’s Love Story, The Husband’s Secret, and Big Little Lies. I’ve liked them all.
nottelling: I’ve read three of your suggestions (Americanah, Where’d You Go, Bernadette, and Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand) and liked them all. I plan to look into your other recommendations also.
Thanks for the suggestions so far. I may have a hard time choosing. I also really enjoyed all of Kate Morton’s books so maybe I’ll do an “if you liked” search for her too.
Anyone for poetry?
Map - Collected and Last Poems by Wislawa Szymborska (translated)
(She won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1996.)
This book was on the New Books display at my local library–it caught my eye, I opened it up, not expecting much since poetry is hard to translate. Read one poem and it was so moving-- I had to check out the book.
A variety of short, accessible, interesting, thought-provoking/heart wrenching poems.
“The Ice Twins” by S.K. Tremayne was pretty good - not “one of the best I’ve read in the past 6 months” good, but still worth reading, especially if you like creepy mysteries with a hint of the supernatural.
Thanks for the Barbara Vine recommendation. I’m enjoying A Dark-Adapted Eye.
Almost done with the first Maisie Dobbs’ mystery in the series. Really enjoying it and I expect I will continue reading them.
I am partway through The Perfume Collector and I am enjoying it so far. It’s about a woman who inherits a large sum of money from a complete stranger and is trying to figure out why. It reminds me of Kate Morton’s books in that it is alternating between the perspectives of present day Grace Munroe (the lady who inherited the money), and past Eva D’Orsey (the person who left the money.) Before Kate Morton I hated these kinds of alternating perspective stories because i was always more interested in one than the other and tempted to skip entire passages, but now I really quite enjoy this two-time-periods-colliding type mystery.
I just finished All The Light We Cannot See and I was bored, I enjoyed the style but I started to get frustrated with the pacing about halfway through and things didn’t improve for me from there.
I am working on a YA fiction novel and the last ten or so books I have read were genre related research and were actually pretty terrible. It had been a while since I read a book I thought was truly terrible, until now!
I have a few Moriarty books sitting on my to-read pile and I’m itching to get into them now. I have Kate Atkinson’s A God In Ruins on my list, too, but I read a page and ended up putting it back down for The Perfume Collector instead. I’m skeptical of that one.
It took me quite a while to get into A God in Ruins but I persevered and ended up liking it. I liked Life After Life much more though. I’m looking forward to the new Kate Morton book coming out in October. I will definitely add The Perfume Collector to my list.
If you liked it in the end, I will give it another shot. I am really excited for the new Kate Morton book, too. I’ve enjoyed her books so much I am afraid I am setting myself up to be let down! I think you will like the Perfume Collector based on what I’ve read so far.
I read Case Histories last summer, which I believe is by the same Kate Atkinson, and I liked it well enough that I am considering looking into her other “Jackson Brodie” novels. I never seem to like a male protagonist, but we’ll see… I believe book 2 is called One Good Turn, I’ve loaded it to my kindle.
Fun Home…in case anyone has missed the Duke discussion.
I did not like One Good Turn nearly as much as I did Case Histories but I will still read the others in the series. I am on my second Maisie Dobbs book now. I don’t like the narrator as much for the second book but I’ll get used to her.
I’ve read all the Jackson Brodie mysteries. In a nutshell: I enjoyed “Case Histories,” intensely disliked “One Good Turn” (just seemed more contrived than the first book and not as well-plotted), liked “When Will There be Good News,” and also enjoyed “Started Early, Took my Dog.” Thumbs up for the first and the last, more lukewarm for the other two.
Good to know Scout. I’ve already forgotten what One Good Turn was about so I guess that says something. I just remember being disappointed.
I’ve been immersed in mysteries for the past few weeks. I don’t recall if I’ve mentioned this author here before, forgive me if I have. Canadian writer Louise Penny has written 11 books in the Armand Gamache series and I’m currently at #8, my third in the past couple of weeks. Gamache is the head of homicide for the provincial police in Quebec. They are incredibly well-written, well thought out, entertaining mysteries with great character development and page-turning suspense. I love them. Each book is a self-contained story but there are continuing story threads that weave through all the books so I recommend that you start with the first and read them in order.
I saw Louise Penny on Tuesday night. She is truly one of my favorite authors (and a seemingly wonderful person as well). The sense of place in her novels…phenomenal. My favorite of hers is “The Beautiful Mystery”.
^ I also highly recommend Louise Penny’s books.