Start Here, Volume 2: Read Your Way Into 25 Amazing Authors

by Jeff O'Neal (Editor), Rebecca Joines Schinsky (Editor)

There are so many fantastic authors and great books out there that sometimes it’s hard to know where to begin. Start Here solves that problem; it tells you how to read your way into 25 amazing authors from a wide range of genres--from classics to contemporary fiction to comics. Start Here Vol. 2 helps by showing you how to read your way into 25 amazing authors from a wide range of genres--from classics to contemporary fiction to comics.

Each chapter presents an author, explains why you might want to try them, and lays out a 3- or 4-book reading sequence designed to help you experience fully what they have to offer. It’s a fun, accessible, informative way to enrich your reading life.

Each chapter is written with expertise and passion to help you get started reading authors you’ve always wanted to try.

Includes chapters on reading your way

Alan Moore
Anne Carson
Charles Portis
China Mieville
Colum McCann
Daniel Woodrell
Dave Eggers
David Mitchell
Dorothy Parker
Douglas Coupland
Flannery O'Connor
George Orwell
Isaac Asimov
James Salter
Jennifer Egan
John Green
John Steinbeck
Octavia Butler
Philip Roth
Roald Dahl
Salman Rushdie
Toni Morrison
Ursula K. LeGuin
Virginia Woolf
William Faulkner

Genres: Nonfiction, Reference, Books About Books, Essays

200 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 1, 2013

Reviews

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Book 2!! I love how each contributor had a unique way of writing up each author.

[Colleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

More of the same as was in volume 1 - so very useful in getting started with an author

[C-shaw · Rating 3 out of 5]

More short essays about famous authors, suggesting reading order and discussing style of each. This volume includes: Isaac Asimov, Octavia Butler, Anne Carson, Douglas Coupland, Roald Dahl, Jennifer Egan, Dave Eggers, William Faulkner, John Green, Ursula K. LeGuin, Colum McCann, China Mieville, David Mitchell, Alan Moore, Toni Morrison, Flannery O'Connor, George Orwell, Dorothy Parker, Charles Portis, Philip Roth, Salman Rushdie, James Salter, John Steinbeck, Daniel Woodrell, and Virginia Woolf. I have a long list of books I want to read, plus determined that some of these authors just aren't for me. This is a worthwhile little book.

[Brent Ecenbarger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Essentially this book is a few pages about 25 different authors with recommendations for the first through third thing you should read by each author. Well, I've been at this awhile and finally finished up. After Book Riot came out with the two volumes of this, I thought it would be fun to read the first recommendation for all fifty authors.

The best thing about these books was the diversity among the authors chosen; I didn't realize how many of the authors I read were white males until I underwent this project. The worst thing is that none of the sections were terrible in depth, and some of the recommendations were a bit on the weird side (which I'll get into separately). Also, a few of the authors haven't really published much work. For example, I enjoyed the Flannery O'Connor book but I probably would have picked an author with more titles as being worthy of inclusion here.

Here's how I'd break up the first twenty five:

Excellent recommendation, Can't wait to read more by the Author:
Isaac Asimov - "The Caves of Steel"
Octavia Butler - "Speech Sounds"
Dave Eggers - Zeitoun
Ursula K. Leguin - "The Wizard of Earth Sea"
Alan Moore - "Supreme: Story of the Year" (This is cheating though; this is my favorite comic writer of all time and I'd already all of the recommendations. This is a great place to start though.)
George Orwell - "Animal Farm"
Charles Portis - "True Grit"
Philip Roth - "Goodbye, Columbus"
James Salter - "The Hunters" (My single favorite new book I found when doing this challenge.)
John Steinbeck - "Cannery Row" (Like Alan Moore, this is cheating too. I'd real all of Steinbeck's books listed, and he's never written a bad one. There is no wrong place to start with Steinbeck. Except for maybe 'The Pearl.')

Glad I read it, Not Sure if I'd Read More:
Douglas Coupland - "Hey Nostradamus"
Roald Dahl - "Someone Like You"
Jennifer Egan - "Look at Me"
John Green - "The Fault in Our Stars"
Collum McCann - "Dancer"
China Mieville - "Perdido Street Station"
David Mitchell - "Black Swan Green"
Toni Morrison - "The Bluest Eye"
Dorothy Parker - "Enough Rope"

Poor recommendation for first book:
Flannery O'Connor - "Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose" (I actually enjoyed this book, but even within it the author talks about just reading an authors work is the best way to get into an author, not to know anything about the person ahead of time. That said, I'll check out more of her writing anyways.)
Salman Rushdie - "Haroun and the Sea of Stories" (This book felt like it was written for children to read, but then padded out so long that no kid would want to read it. I think something geared more towards adults would have been a better first recommendation.)
Virginia Woolf - "A Room of One's Own" (Yet another not very entertaining essay instead of something that I hopefully would have enjoyed more.)

Didn't like, probably wouldn't read more
Anne Carson - "Eros the Bittersweet"
William Faulkner - "The Bear"
Daniel Woodrell - "Under the Bright Lights"

Overall, I had more fun with the idea of this book than actually reading it. That being said, I'm glad I got it for the book recommendations, and would buy more in the series if they made them. Many of these have more in depth reviews on my Goodreads page. This book had two of my favorite authors (Moore and Steinbeck) and introduced me to the best of all the new books I read in James Salter, so it gets one more star than the first volume.

[Elizabeth Naranjo · Rating 4 out of 5]

So you're at a party, and across the room is someone you've heard is really brilliant and interesting, and you'd like to get to know this person but you're kind of shy, so how do you start? You have a friend introduce you, of course, to break the ice. Here, the contributors at Book Riot help break the ice between you and some authors you may be too intimidated to approach. In my case that would be Salman Rushdie and William Faulkner. For you, it may be Jennifer Egan or George Orwell.

The way Start Here, Volume 2 is set up is that each of 25 authors—including the four above—is briefly introduced by a Book Riot contributor. Then the author's body of work is distilled into three of four titles—usually starting light and then powering up to the heavy hitters.

Sometimes the choices are surprising—you can tell the contributor loves the author's work and really wants you to look past the obvious and discover hidden gems. For example, Benjamin Anders' suggestions for reading John Steinbeck forgo The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men. Instead, Anders recommends a few lesser-known works, and one that is more common, but his favorite. And his description of why it's his favorite is just lovely.

Thanks to Jenn Northington's introduction to Salman Rushdie, I think I can handle The Ground Beneath Her Feet. Mythology, a parallel universe, and rock and roll? I actually can't believe I haven't read it yet. Sometimes an author just seems too BIG, and that's where Start Here, Volume 2 comes in. It's comforting to know you're not alone feeling timid about novels like, say, The Sound and the Fury. Says Book Riot editor Jeff O'Neal: “do not think that because you are lost that you aren't getting it.”

That should help when the time comes.

[Margaret · Rating 5 out of 5]

Book Riot's Start Here series is fun to read both because of the promise of book recommendations (because having more books to read is always a positive thing) as well as figuring out whether or not some of the Rioter's recommendations match with yours for a particular author (because if they cover your favorite author the reviewer better agree with you as to what books are the best!).

The reading pathways vary greatly between which blogger is writing the chapter, from straight up reading sequences to ones with branches depending on the reader's preferences. The variety with which the chapters are written keep this from being too formulaic over 25 whole authors, and between his volume and the previous, my reading list has grown tremendously. These are authors that I've heard of but haven't had the push I needed to go ahead and read them at last, so congrats to Book Riot for providing me a way into these diverse authors' bodies of work.

The first volume contains reading recommendations for:

Alan Moore
Anne Carson
Charles Portis
China Mieville
Colum McCann
Daniel Woodrell
Dave Eggers
David Mitchell
Dorothy Parker
Douglas Coupland
Flannery O’Connor
George Orwell
Isaac Asimov
James Salter
Jennifer Egan
John Green
John Steinbeck
Octavia Butler
Philip Roth
Roald Dahl
Salman Rushdie
Toni Morrison
Ursula K. LeGuin
Virginia Woolf
William Faulkner

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a kickstarter backer, I was thrilled to receive my ebook of Start Here Volume 2 over the holiday break. Just like the first volume, this book suggests reading pathways through the work of some of the most well-known authors. This volume had more authors I hadn't heard of than the first, which I appreciated. Some were a but obvious - Read Animal Farm and 1984 if you're interested in George Orwell! - but others, like Jennifer Egan and Toni Morrison, were more nuanced, thoughtful, and interesting. The full list of authors covered is: Isaac Asimov, Octavia Butler, Anne Carson, Douglas Coupland, Roald Dahl, Jennifer Egan, Dave Eggers, William Faulkner, John Green, Ursula K. Le Guin, Colum McCann, China Mieville, David Mitchell, Alan Moore, Toni Morrison, Flannery O'Connor, George Orwell, Dorothy Parker, Charles Portis, Philip Roth, Salman Rushdie, James Salter, John Steinbeck, Daniel Woodrall, and Virginia Woolf.

The book itself is a quick read cover-to-cover, but you're sure to return again and again as you decide what to read next. Read it with Goodreads open so you can add to your "want to read" shelf easily.

[Phillip Keeling · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picking up where the first tome left off, Start Here strives to essentially talk you into reading one author or another. 25 have been chosen, and several Book Riot contributors offer up an explanation of the writer’s greatness, including a list of books to start with. And in a world where there are just too many amazing novels, it’s a pretty great idea to have a reference to help get you through one prolific author and into the next. The first volume covered such greats as David Foster Wallace, Stephen King, Arthur Miller, and Charles Dickens, so you can imagine my excitement when I saw other such luminaries on Volume 2′s list: William Faulkner, George Orwell–even Roald Dahl.

Read the full review here: http://conquistadork.net/2014/01/15/n...

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book only took about 4 hours to read, including breaks for food, youtube, and chatting with family. Most of the authors featured in this book I was already familiar with and had added selections to my tbr. I did add several more books, and it was just interesting to read about authors and their work, and to observe the different ways people recommend moving through any author's work. There is a very wide range of authors featured, and several of them I doubt I'll ever read. But it's such a great idea for a book that I recommend Vol. 1 and 2 for anyone who loves reading and wants to learn even more.

[jenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

"This is the kind of thing that may help to steer me from my 'trying to read every new book when it comes out' bad habit" she said, reaching for The Luminaries.

[Jennifer Ochoa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like the first book, it offers a solid list of great writers to dig into. I keep this book and the first book on my Kindle as a "reference" book, a list of books I need to make sure I read at some point!

[Sandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

So many books to read! I seriously love Book Riot and hope they continue to make these books ^_^

[Liz De Coster · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another 3.5, though I give it a little more credit since I found the choices more intriguing.

[Lauri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly recommended for anyone looking to expand their literary catalog.

[Stéphanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

See previous review.

[Vicki Gibson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not as good as Volume 1, in my opinion, but only because I was less familiar with some of the authors.