I need a good book

I am looking for something from which I will be a bit smarter, a bit wiser upon reading (only I know how smart I will be upon starting ); I want the can't-put-it-down factor; I am thinking fiction but it doesn't have to be.
I loved Anna Karenina, Middlesex, anything Chabon. Can't stand chick lit. Prefer Pulitzer winners to Booker winners, but am totally open to anything from around the world.

Please help. Thanks.

From a Pulitzer perspective, try Junot Diaz "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" and for wiser I suggest Plato "Republic" and "Ishmael" by Daniel Quinn.

Junot Diaz is an amazing writer, I have been a huge fan since his early days of stories in the New Yorker. Ishmael is a trilogy, so if you like the 1st one there's more.

Subject: Re: I need a good book

Ruska B wrote: I am looking for something from which I will be a bit smarter, a bit wiser upon reading (only I know how smart I will be upon starting ); I want the can't-put-it-down factor; I am thinking fiction but it doesn't have to be.
I loved Anna Karenina, Middlesex, anything Chabon. Can't stand chick lit. Prefer Pulitzer winners to Booker winners, but am totally open to anything from around the world.

Please help. Thanks.

I just read a pretty good book called The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson.
I never read the books you mentioned but this definitely had the "can't put down factor" for me.

"All Fall Down", by James Leo Herlihy (published in 1960)

Try "The Elementary Particles" or "The Possibility of an Island" by Michel Houellebecq.

if you like middlesex, i'd recommend rushdie's "midnight's children". i find the narrative voices similar, in that tristram shandy kind of way. "midnight's children" is one of my favorite books, but i'm not always a rushdie fan, so i recommend this one even if you've disliked other things he's written. it also won not only the booker prize but also the "booker of bookers", meaning it was voted the best book among the first ~25 years worth of booker winners.

Underworld by Don DeLillo, East of Eden by Steinbeck, One Hundred Years of Solitude by Marquez

For the can't-put-down variety: I highly recommend "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" by Jonathan Safran Foer. I read it in 2 days. It is beautiful, emotional, and uplifting.

Mudbound
newish fiction, a page-turning mini-epic of multiple voices, and I did indeed feel like I learned something in that Middlesexy way
http://www.hillaryjordan.com/books.php

darla wrote: From a Pulitzer perspective, try Junot Diaz "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" .

Brooklyn Based wrote: Newly knighted MIT professor and 2008 Pulitzer Prize-winner Junot Diaz reads from his astonishing, idiosyncratic debut novel “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” at the Brooklyn Public Library at 4pm, Saturday followed by a discussion with WNYC’s Leonard Lopate. Knowing the Brooklyn literati, it will be mobbed, so arrive early. site>>

I'm reading Ken Follett "World Without End". Digging it.

pitu wrote: [quote=darla]From a Pulitzer perspective, try Junot Diaz "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" .

Brooklyn Based wrote: Newly knighted MIT professor and 2008 Pulitzer Prize-winner Junot Diaz reads from his astonishing, idiosyncratic debut novel “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” at the Brooklyn Public Library at 4pm, Saturday followed by a discussion with WNYC’s Leonard Lopate. Knowing the Brooklyn literati, it will be mobbed, so arrive early. site>>

Thanks pitu! I'm debating about attending since it probably will be packed and I have seen him read and speak at many events already.

this has been a great list--thanks everyone! I love people who love books!

The Feast of Love by Charles Baxter. I've always loved his short stories (I'm more of a short stories fiend) but this book killed me. I loved all the different voices and the the way the story built...just classic story-telling, and really beautiful and funny and thought-provoking.

I wound up going with The Ministry for Special Cases by Nathan Englander.
Completely sucked me in and I am learning about Argentina in the 1970s. Thanks everyone!

Pick up a copy of "1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die." Not all of the suggestions will be to your taste, but even if only half of them are, that's still rather a lot of reading.