Chuck Palahniuk Rocks My Socks discussion

Just wondering If anyone knew of any authors out there with a similar style to Chuck? Not sure style is the right word but Douglas Coupland would be one I would suggest. Anyone care to drop a name?

Palahniuk is writing in the minimalist style. He learned it from Tom Spanbauer. Spanbauer is more "existential" than Palahniuk moving through the angst of existence.

If you like CP you'll probably enjoy Bret Easton Ellis (Less than Zero, Rules of Attraction). I would also recommend Larry Brown (Father and Son), Denis Johnson (Jesus' Son), Thom Jones (Cold Snap, The Pugulist at Rest), Joan Didion (Play It As It Lays; Democracy), Stewart O'Nan (A Prayer for the Dying), anything by Hemingway, Katherine Dunn (Geek Love), Joy Williams (Breaking and Entering; Taking Care; Ill Nature), Michel Houellebecq (Platform), Jim Knipfel (Slackjaw), Lucy Ellmann (Dot in the Universe) . . .

I host a Reading Chuck Palahniuk group via Chapters-Indigo. The archives are littered with recommendations. Most of the above have been mentioned by Palahniuk as his favourite books.

http://community.indigo.ca/posts/Read...

wow. wasnt expecting such a comprehensive list. Will look into a few of those, but do you have a personal favorite? thank you muchly.

Sure. Two of Palahniuk's favourites:
Katherine Dunn, Geek Love (novel)
Thom Jones, Cold Snap (short stories)



If you like short stories: Amy Hempel and Mark Richard are foundational for CPs writing, at least in terms of style.

glen duncan - i lucifer

Loved Thom Jones, Cold Snap

I second Bret Easton Ellis. If it's the whole anarchic, nihilist thing you're going for, you might also want to check out Irvine Welsh (one of the leaders in the genre, in my opinion).

Thanks guys for continuing this post, I hope to eventually catch up with the list you have supplied and get back to you. keep em' comming ^^

T. Coraghessan Boyle.

Just finished Geek love, that woman changed my perception on a lot of things, I wish I were still in the midst of reading the thing, thanks for recommending it.

Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh might be a good one as well.

Geek love is an excellent book

Anthony Burgess and B.S. Johnson are some worthy authors.

Burgess: Clockwork Orange, The Doctor is Sick, The Wanting Seed just to name a few pieces)
Johnson: Christy Malry's Own Double Entry, etc

Oliver Sacks, Cormac McCarthy, Upton Sinclair.... there are many voices eagerly waiting to be heard...

The Cult website is the unofficial, official Chuck Palahniuk fansite with a book club, forums, and all kinds of things Chuck.
Definitely a good place to find suggestions and colorful forum posts.
http://chuckpalahniuk.net/forum/1000029
Bret Easton Ellis comes up a lot, as does Amy Hempel. Haruki Murikami is a favorite. I loved Raw Shark Texts personally. But yeah, all kinds of good stuff.

I loved Geek Love too. I think I just need to read more books where people are blase about losing their limbs.

I'm loving House of Leaves so far

I agree with Jean Marie, and I implore you to check out thecult.
Bret Easton Ellis is a must.

How about The Things They Carried by Tim O'brien? I read it and thought they had a simular style and cetain odd truth.

I loved "Eating the Cheshire Cat" by Helen Ellis.

The contortionists handbook by craig clevenger. It was awesome. I would also agree with Burgess (clockwork) and Welsh (trainspotting)

i use palahniuk's official website as a guide for future reading, it has a wide range of suggestions

Jo wrote: "I am reading my first Bret Easton Ellis book at the moment. Its American Psycho and i think its really good! "

read Lunar Moon next,its a cross between fantasy and reality, ghost story and hysteria, it will keep you on your toes

if you like his journalistic style, check out hunter s. thompson. he's probably most famous for fear and loathing, but i really liked the rum diary. he's also really insightful, darkly comic, well-written, and really entertaining.

"The End of Alice" by A. M. Homes - some really sick and twisted shit - but brilliant, electric and alive.

Knockemstiff by Donald Ray Pollock. Seriously this book and it's author were raved about on Chuck's website for a reason!

I like Douglas Coupland stuff and Jesus's Sons a must.

JG Ballard, Selby JR, Irvine Welsh, Phillip K Dick, Amy Hempel, Bret Easton Ellis, Denis Johnson, Williams S. Burroughs. Need any more? Coupland is easy and entertaining. Selby JR is probably my favorite then Ellis. Ballard is the toughest read. Slaughtermatic is an awesome book by Steve Aylett could swap it for sometime good. Everyone should READ American Pyshco a million times better than the movie.

Ivan wrote: ""The End of Alice" by A. M. Homes - some really sick and twisted shit - but brilliant, electric and alive."

I concur.

The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks, is a pretty good one so far. I haven't finished it yet but I like all the other authors and books mentioned so I figure this one belongs on here too.

For any true Palahniuk fan, you HAVE to read Hempel. The minimalistic style has never been more pure. And Chucks praises her to no end:

"WHEN YOU STUDY MINIMALISM IN THE NOVELIST Tom Spanbauer's workshop, the first story you read is Amy Hempel's The Harvest. After that, you're ruined. I'm not kidding. You go there, and almost every other book you ever read will suck. All those thick, third-person, plot-driven books torn from the pages of today's news -- after Amy Hempel, you'll save yourself a lot of time and money.

Or not. Every year on my tax return's itemized C schedule, I deduct more money for new copies of Hempel's three books, Reasons To Live, At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom and Tumble Home. Every year, I want to share these books. What happens is they never come back. Good books never do. This is why my office shelves are crowded with nonfiction too gross for most people, mostly forensic autopsy textbooks, and a ton of novels I hate.

At a bar in New York last year, the literary bar KGB in the East Village, Hempel told me her first book is out of print. The only copy I know of is behind glass in the rare-book room at Powell's Books in Portland, a first-edition hardcover selling for $75 without a signature. I have a rule about meeting the flesh-and-blood version of people whose work I love -- that rule I'm saving for the end.

Unless Hempel's books are reprinted, I may end up spending more or making fewer friends. You cannot not push these books on people, saying, "Read this," saying, "Is it just me, or did it make you cry, too?" I once gave Animal Kingdom to a friend and said, "If you don't love this, we have nothing in common."

Every sentence isn't just crafted, it's tortured over. Every quote and joke, what Hempel tosses out comedian-style, is something funny or profound enough you'll remember it for years. The same way, I sense, Hempel has remembered it, held on to it, saved it for a place where it could really shine. Scary jewelry metaphor, but her stories are studded and set with these compelling bits. Chocolate chip cookies with no bland "cookie" matrix, just nothing but chips and chopped walnuts.

In that way, her experience becomes your experience. Teachers talk about how students need to have an emotional breakthrough, an "ah-hah!" discovery moment in order to retain information. Fran Lebowitz still writes about the moment she first looked at a clock and grasped the concept of telling time. Hempel's work is nothing but these flashes, and every flash makes you ache with recognition.

...The only problem with Hempel's palace of fragments is quoting it. Take any piece out of context, and it loses power. The French philosopher Jacques Derrida likens writing fiction to a software code that operates in the hardware of your mind. Stringing together separate macros that, combined, will create a reaction. No fiction does this as well as Hempel's, but each story is so tight, so boiled to bare facts, that all you can do is lie on the floor, face down, and praise it."

The nice thing is, she's never been an pop icon for the general public--go figure--so you can get her complete works for like $15. It's sad because it's worth a fortune more.

this French author I guess Houellebecq Michel

Hubert Selby Jr is a must! Bret Easton Ellis is good, I particularly liked Rules of Attraction. I think those are 2 authors great to start with.