Books like What a Carve Up! — picked by fans

A daring satire on race, politics, and cultural identity in America that somehow manages to be both outrageous and deeply sobering.

Beatty’s voice is like Richard Pryor meets Zora Neale Hurston—sharp, fearless, acerbic, wickedly funny, and incredibly smart.

Notably, although Beatty is an American writer, his book was published in the UK (likely because America prefers to live in denial about race) and went on to win the Booker Prize in 2016.

While I had seen the film adaptation with Meryl Streep and Shirley MacClaine in my teens, I only came to read Carrie Fisher’s extremely funny autobiographical book at the recommendation of the writer Lou Sarabadzic, who rightly thought I’d be amused that the rehab clinic inhabitants are not so focused on not doing drugs as they are on doing not drugs.

Carrie and her friends spend thirty days talking and thinking of such things as quitting, stopping, committing to not doing drugs, not playing an instrument, giving it up, and ‘using up all the Not Cry.’ The whole thing made me re-think how human agency, willpower, and control work.

No living writer rivals Hillary Mantel in terms of sheer accomplishment and talent, so it might be annoying for us mortals to learn that on top of it all, she is also very, very funny. Fludd was a wonderful surprise for me after reading her previous works. A mysterious curate joins the parish of a small, bleak British and Catholic town whose priest has lost his faith and whose parishioners are wallowing in superstition. What could possibly go wrong? Mantel elegantly satirizes the eccentricities and harsh judgments of the religious townsfolk, while giving us a thoroughly pleasurable read about faith and love.    

I was able to be on a couple of panels with Mr. Greer where he discussed this novel and its sequel, Less is Lost. The first book, Less, is a queer novel that won the Pulitzer Prize, a well-deserved accolade for this story about second chances in life—or third or fourth chances, depending upon the situation.

It’s remarkable to see a novel like this win such a major literary prize. Mr. Greer deserves it for his dynamic work.

Fictionalizing her large and extremely eccentric family—shabby members of the British gentry in the 1930s, lacking the wealth of earlier times—Nancy Mitford managed to create a novel that is both hilarious and poignant, with a style uniquely her own. Her characters seem almost too bizarre to be real, yet if you read about the real Mitfords, you discover that, if anything, this novel (published in 1945) softened their edges! She writes brilliantly not only about the fun and tensions among an array of strongminded siblings but also about her domineering father and, later, about the blissful madness of falling in love after an isolated childhood.

Ada is the five-part fictional memoir of Dr. Van Veen — psychologist, professor of philosophy, and student of time — who chronicles his life-long love affair with his half-sister Ada. A deliberately falsified family tree prefaces the book, and the alternative title to Van’s memoir is Ardor: A Family Chronicle. Nabokov is my favorite writer and Ada is my favorite Nabokov: a long, complicated, totally original, and brilliant novel that takes explores the landscapes of Self, imagination, and consciousness, all through the lens of family. It’s not an easy read, but it is one I find infinitely inspiring. 

Kevin Kwan takes a well-educated, confident Chinese-American woman and shows us how different her partner’s culture in Singapore is when she goes home with him and his family doesn’t accept her. I love how she doesn’t give up without a fight. I also enjoyed the side story about Aster and her husband. Nick and Aster were two of my favorite characters because of the humbleness they exude.

Beyond the characters, the clothing, the homes, the cars, the parties—it all blew my mind. I felt like I was Rachel, and all of it was happening to me. As soon as I finished the first book, I devoured the other two in the series. Kevin Kwan gives details that easily pull his readers into the story, causing them to wonder what crazy thing will happen next.

I like the historical setting of Gentil’s books (mainly 1930s Australia, although her characters venture overseas in a couple of the books) and the original newspaper clippings that introduce the chapters, which give you a glimpse of current affairs that form the backdrop to the story. Personally, I also enjoy the fact that her protagonist is an artist, albeit one with a wealthy family behind him. There’s danger, disapproving family, Blackshirts, unrequited love, and above all, staunch friendships; Rowland and his mates are people you wish you could hang out with. Give the Devil His Due is the seventh book in the Rowland Sinclair series.  

I learned a great deal from this book.

Although many people intuitively recognize that inequality is a serious problem, there is widespread doubt that anything can realistically be done about it. Saez and Zucman–perhaps the two most famous tax economists in the world–demolish this pessimism. In a clear, no-nonsense manner, they demonstrate that tax systems can easily fail but they can also be made to work.

The authors describe how rich people and corporations currently avoid tax, how tax havens function, and, most importantly of all, how an evidence-based tax system can be successfully built to prevent evasion and thereby meaningfully reduce inequality. 

If you think Georgette Heyer is all sprigged muslin, firm-jawed heroes, forthright heroines, and cod-Austen visits to Bath, think again. This is a bizarre novel, indeed. 

It’s not even one of her "mysteries" like Footsteps in the Dark—fairly straightforward murder stories where something has to be solved. Instead, Penhallow is a house, a seething breeding ground for horrible people intent on doing awful things to each other. 

Each character is drawn in frighteningly frank detail, so you are left in no doubt of their weaknesses and peccadillos. Penhallow is like some kind of disgusting nest, and the manipulative patriarch Adam Penhallow, disabled in some unspecified way, has dragged all the best antiques into the huge drawing room where he infests a vast Tudor bed and holds court every night.

Nearly everyone hates him but can’t break away. He likes to keep his family, illegitimate and otherwise, under his… show more.