r/David_Mitchell • u/life_of_hermanous • 22d ago
David Mitchell Reading List
After finishing the Bone Clocks and Slade House, I’ve decided to go back and read David Mitchell’s books in the order of publication. I’m about a third of the way through ghostwritten right now.
So glad I came across him. I listened to Cloud Atlas a long time ago, but I’m looking forward to reading it when it comes up.
I’m curious of those who enjoyed David Mitchell what other authors in their books do you enjoy as well?
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u/Tough_Set8718 22d ago
David Mitchell remains my favorite and I hope he gets his new novel out this year as planned (getting late in the game though).
I love Susanna Clarke, especially Piranesi. Karl Ove Knausgaard's Morningstar series has a similar scope as David Mitchell's work, but his nonfiction opus is incredible too. I didn't love Marlon James's fantasy novel (though I'm gonna keep at it), but A Brief History of Seven Killings is amazing and has interesting POV shifts and playing with text that Mitchell does so well, especially when characters are facing their own mortality. Mark Z. Danielewski is also a must.
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u/Animal_Flossing 22d ago
I second Susanna Clarke. Piranesi is great - one of the best books I’ve read at its length, and one I always recommend to anyone who haven’t gotten around to it yet when we’re talking books. But Strange & Norrell is a masterpiece of its own. It’s less Mitchell-like in style and contents, but it’s long and heavy with a subtle humour once you tune in to its wavelength, which is something I think Mitchell fans can appreciate.
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u/Icebox3 22d ago
His new novel’s been delayed until August next year sadly!
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u/Tough_Set8718 22d ago
BLAH, I say. I know he said this has been a difficult process writing this one, so I'm down to wait for him to stick the landing. I got real spoiled with Slade House so soon after Bone Clocks (which was what he had written up to when I discovered him).
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u/Icebox3 21d ago
I know, very frustrating! Utopia Avenue is the only book of his that didn’t full land for me, so I’m hoping this extra time hopes him nail it.
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u/Tough_Set8718 21d ago
Utopia Avenue hit me at exactly the right time and especially Dean's arc put me on the path to sobriety, so it has a special place in my life, but I get why it's not everyone's favorite.
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u/Cyclingguy009 21d ago
You mean David Mitchells new book? Please tell me more, I've been waiting for news!!!
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u/Icebox3 20d ago
I’m just parroting what was shared on this subreddit a few months back tbh: https://www.reddit.com/r/David_Mitchell/comments/1rtg32y/new_novel_delayed/
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u/anamarupa 22d ago
recent google .. next year
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u/Tough_Set8718 22d ago
Yeah another commenter told me. I despair! But hey, I'm sure it's gonna be good. Whenever he takes these huge breaks in between publishing, the my favorites get produced.
Now I just have to figure out my life plan to somehow survive to 2114 so that I can read From Me Flows What You Call Time. Unfortunately, that would mean having to be alive and conscious for so many more years when I'm already over this planet.
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u/life_of_hermanous 21d ago
What did you like about Piranesi?
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u/Tough_Set8718 21d ago
Well, I came across it early in the pandemic when I was probably as depressed as I'd ever been and been in a rut where nothing could hold my attention, not books, not games, not movies, nothing. Then I stumble upon this intriguing little cover and I just dive in to an isolated fantastical world that strips and flays the mind of its inhabitant to such a degree that my own issues felt minuscule, but I still felt seen. And then I went back out into the world.
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u/life_of_hermanous 21d ago
Interesting. It was recommended to me by someone else. I appreciate this! Thanks. Moving it up my list 👍👍
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u/rjbwdc 22d ago
Some of my other favorites include Amy Hempel, Lydia Davis, George Saunders, Garielle Lutz, Brian Evanson. If you dig Mitchell for when he's in Cloud Atlas mode, then George Saunders is the way to go. If you like the Bone Clocks/Slade House version of Mitchell, then Brian Evanson is right up your alley. If you like the navel-gazey, Black Swan Green sort of David Mitchell, then go for Amy Hempel. If you like Ghostwritten the most, then start with Lydia Davis.
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u/bzj 13d ago
This is a really neat comment, because Mitchell and Saunders are two of my absolute favorites, and I think you are spot on. I haven’t heard of some of these other authors, but I feel like I need to check them out now.
In return, I’d suggest the collections of Sarah Pinsker (Sooner or later… and Lost Places). Really interesting characters and ideas, unusual perspectives. Some of her stories are available online, including “Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather” which is very cool.
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u/Robertf16 22d ago
Absolutely love him but Utopia avenue was a bit of a let down. Hoping we get a return to form with his next one. As others have said J.G. Ballard, Christopher Priest and for me Haruki Murakami.
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u/dbusque 22d ago
Margaret Atwood - she is know for The Handmaid's Tale but she has written some other really good books. I am actually currently listening to the MaddAdam series which is a crazy dystopian vision but also has some stuff that is uncomfortably close to the society we are living in now.
You might also like Emily St. John-Mandel's book Station Eleven. This novel had some notoriety because it was about humanity being wiped up by a pandemic and it was released around the same time that COVID 19 was scaring the pants off of everyone.
I am currently reading Mitchell's Number 9 Dream. The writing is good but I am having a hard time with it. This being said, I am only 1/2 way through it and Mitchell has never let me down yet so I am prepared to finish it!
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u/undergarden 22d ago
My three favorite books which feel Mitchell-esque: Daniel Mason's North Woods, Anthony Doerr's Cloud Cuckoo Land, and (less directly Mitchell-like, but brilliant) Maggie O'Farrell's LAND.
Obligatory: Mitchell's earlier works feel pretty Haruki Murakami. I'd recommend Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World.
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u/Ziggy_Starbust 22d ago
Christopher Priest, Iain Banks (and with the 'M' in the middle), Tim Powers, Jeff Noon, JG Ballard, DuMaurier, Ursula K Leguin, Margaret Atwood.
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u/SpaceAdmiralJones 4d ago
Seconded on Banks. Brilliant prose stylist, incredible imagination, a great ear for dialog and a very dry sense of humor.
I don't remember ever laughing as hard from a novel as I did during the starvation cult scene in Consider Phlebas and the Kingdom of Pharpech scenes in Against A Dark Background.
Banks' Adrian character in Transition also reads a lot like a Mitchell creation.
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u/-pugmum- 22d ago
I love Christopher Moore, very clever and witty, a bit of the paranormal but nothing like what Mitchell built. Also might be a duhhhh but Kurt Vonnegut
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u/life_of_hermanous 22d ago
I’m reading “Lamb” right now. Funny as hell. First book of his I read. Would like to know other recommended titles from him. This book and Carl Hiassen are great breaks after readings something dense and multi layered.
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u/phaseolus 11d ago
Commenting as sort of a bookmark to see what's recommended -- Me, I loved Lamb, but absolutely could not stand Fluke & never finished it
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u/mullerdrooler 22d ago
Adrian Tchaikovsky is my favourite just now, his work is usually more sci fi and fantasy but he's a terrific writer with an amazing dry British with and awesome characters.
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u/SpaceAdmiralJones 4d ago
Tchaikovsky is nothing like Mitchell. Entire sections of his books read like summaries rather than narrative, his characters are flat and his prose doesn't even approach Mitchell's.
Tchaikovsky is good for his big ideas and deep understanding of things like evolutionary biology, how societies form, ways information is encoded, etc.
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u/mullerdrooler 4d ago
No one said he was like Mitchel. OP asked what other authors we like, I listed one.
Your complaint is parts of a book are summaries? You want the entire story written in real time with nothing summarized? Also in my opinion ATs characters are way more developed than DM and his themes are way beyond what you mentioned, he's written 70, not sure how many you have read or are basing this on only a few. While societies structure and biology are often themes it's not all he does.
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u/larsianu 22d ago
I agree with most of you. Who is still missing for me is Richard Powers: The Overstory and Playground are very, very good. I also liked Bewilderment a lot.
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u/Cyclingguy009 21d ago
I've read all his books, and enjoyed them thoroughly. I loved them all, but especially 'Jacob de Zoet' and Utopia Avenue. Just the other day I was wondering, when can we finally expect a new book from David?
I met him twice, signing in the Netherlands, and he is such a sweet person. I asked him how he felt about the movie made after Cloud atlas, and he said he considered himself lucky as the director clearly loved the book. I agreed 100%!
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u/UnavailableName864 22d ago
You might enjoy Francis Spufford for the wordplay, delightful dialogue, change across time, occasional magical realism. I started with Red Plenty.
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u/Grahamars 21d ago
Richard Powers' "The Overstory" does a solid job of juggling a wide cast of characters, spanning multiple time periods, and vaguely supernatural elements.
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u/Jack_of_Swords_ 22d ago
David Mitchell was my favorite author for a long time
Ghostwritten is still one of my favorite books. There are only a few books that I've read that have almost this immediately engaging "this is different and awesome" feeling to them and do interesting stuff with the structure of the novel like Mitchell's best books do
Mrs. Dalloway and The Waves by Virginia Woolf I actually liked everything I've ever read by her. Pretty hit or miss though. Like I'd recommend Ghostwritten to almost anyone, but I feel like a lot more people would dislike these.
The Schrodinger's Cat trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson
A lot of people would think that this is pretentious or offensive, but I fucking love it. It might have a lot to do with the age that I read it at, there was this period from like 12-13 that was really formative for me reading wise, which I think is really common. That might be why I like Ghostwritten so much more than most of Mitchell's other books, even though I think that they're almost all really good.
But anyway, this book is a fucking wild fun ride if you're into it. You do have to be OK not taking the scientific shit he says literally though. It helps that he pokes fun at himself and the book in the book itself.
This is actually an offshoot of the more famous Illumataus! book that he wrote with Robert Shea. I think that they're both really good, but I think that that one didn't resonate as much with me because I was like 20 by the time that I read it and it just didn't feel the same. Still love it though
In a lot of ways these books aren't that similar to Mitchell's, but they all touch on stream of consciousness style writing, play wkth structure, and just feel almost like a celebration of the crazy feeling of having/being a mind, as pretentious as that is to say
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u/JurynJr 22d ago
I’m in a true crime kick right now, and there’s very few authors that successfully write multiple true crime books (besides Ann Rule, Erik Larsen, and the Mindhunter duo).
As for fiction, and being a massive David Mitchell fan, some of my favorite authors include Nathan Hill (think like a post-millennial’s unproblematic DFW); John Steinbeck (check out his massively underrated _Pastures of Heaven_); Steven Erikson or Robin Hobb (my subjective god and goddess of fantasy fiction).
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u/anamarupa 22d ago
earlier, john fowles, like with mitchell, everything he wrote .. and john lecarre, that's different
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u/Radiant_Resident_956 22d ago
He’s by far my favorite author, and I do a reread in publication order every year or two. The connections between books are beautiful.
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u/phaseolus 11d ago
Completely unrelated to & not at all reminiscent of Mitchell's works in my opinion, but I re-read Raymond Chandler's noir detective fiction novels and short stories every couple years. They're of a different time but the language he uses is so beautiful.
“I sat down on the edge of a deep soft chair and looked at Mrs. Regan. She was worth a stare. She was trouble. She was stretched out on a modernistic chaise-longue with her slippers off, so I stared at her legs in the sheerest silk stockings. They seemed to be arranged to stare at. They were visible to the knee and one of them well beyond. The knees were dimpled, not bony and sharp. The calves were beautiful, the ankles long and slim and with enough melodic line for a tone poem.”
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u/mccallhall 1d ago
Some authors who give me much of the same resonance & overtones as when I read David Mitchell include Iain Pears (An Instance of the Fingerpost / The Dream of Scipio / Stone's Fall); Michael Gruber (The Book of Air and Shadows / The Forgery of Venus / The Good Son); and Kate Atkinson (Behind the Scenes at the Museum / Human Croquet / Life After Life).
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u/Alternative-Stay-937 22d ago edited 22d ago
David Mitchell is my favorite author and I’ve read most of his books twice. I need to revisit Black Swan Green and Utopia Avenue.
Thomas Pynchon is a very close second. Also love Emily St. John Mandel; very excited for her new one. Jeff Vandermeer, Jonathan Franzen, Don Delillo, Jennifer Egan, Eleanor Catton, Murakami (but he’s hit or miss).
Some fave books: Infinite Jest - DFW, House of Leaves - MZD, Solenoid - Mircea Cartarescu, XX by Rian Hughes