Armchair BEA – Day 3 – Literary Fiction

Armchair BEA – Day 3 – Literary Fiction

Hmm… literary fiction – how do you even define that?

What’s literary fiction for me could be utter crap to you and vice versa. Heck, I bet half of us (myself included) can’t even define literary fiction – which is why I Goggled it to find a good definition so I could at least write a post without looking like a complete idiot (part idiot is fine, I do it on a daily base).

I’ve visited several sites, all by established authors, publishers and editors (and Wikipedia) and no-one seems to agree on what literary fiction actually is. However, the one common theme to all is that literary fiction is character driven rather than plot driven and is “elegantly written, lyrical, and … layered” – something so abstract and general that you’d be hard pressed to find two people who agree on what that means.

So here is the problem, if someone asked me to read a character driven, lyrical book I’d probably pass on it. That being said, I read these types of books before and some I actually loved.

So the questions still remain: what is my favorite literary fiction book I read this year and which ones would I recommend?

Well, here they are (not in order) – I just hope they fit the genre:

How to Get Filthy Rich in Ris­ing Asia by Mohsin Hamid is a fic­tional book in guise of a self-help book (but with a story).

The Krautzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy is a novella writ­ten in 1889. At times this novella seemed like a rant that goes on page after page, but taken as a whole I can cer­tainly see the genius behind it.

Maya’s Notebook by Isabel Allende is a fic­tional novel and a com­ing of age story. Ms. Allende is an award win­ning, inter­na­tion­ally famous, Chilean writer.

And the Moun­tains Echoed by Khaled Hos­seini is the long awaited novel by this best­selling author. Mr. Hoseini’s pre­vi­ous nov­els, The Kite Run­ner and A Thou­sand Splen­did Suns, sold more than 38 mil­lion books.

My Ánto­nia by Willa Cather was writ­ten in 1918 and is con­sid­ered the last in the “Prairie Tril­ogy” fol­low­ing O Pio­neers! (review) And The Song of the Lark. This book is con­sid­ered one of the great­est nov­els writ­ten by an American.

Zohar – Man of la Book