All About Books discussion

Following up on Alannah's great idea about adding a seasonal author, here's a thread for you to suggest authors you'd be interested in reading. Once we've compiled a list by the end of the month, we'll either randomly or deliberately decide on our 4 authors for the coming year. Rather than focusing on best-selling authors, it might be nice to find the ones that wouldn't (yet) win any global popularity contests but are less read or known, to use this as a way for all of us to discover writers that may have slipped our attention otherwise.

edit: what Gill started and everyone so far has done feels like sound advice: let's stick a maximum of two authors per person.

Anita Brookner
Sebastian Barry

Monica Ali
William Gay

Graham Joyce (especially The Silent Land, The Limits of Enchantment, and Some Kind of Fairy Tale)

Julian Barnes (especially A History of the World in 10½ Chapters, Nothing to Be Frightened Of, and The Sense of an Ending)

Sarah Waters
Elizabeth Gaskell
Anne Brontë

Yukio Mishima
Toni Morrison

Are we seconding these Jenny?

Sorry didn't see the two per person. Strike Anne Bronte off my list as it appears she doesn't have many books to talk about.

James Baldwin
Jhumpa Lahiri

Pink and Dhanaraj, your picks are exciting. I have read a few by James Baldwin and would like to read more. I've read one by Morrison, one by Mishima, and one by Lahiri. All of those I'd like to read more too.

Jean wrote: "Are we seconding these Jenny?"

I'm pretty certain we are just making suggestions, Jean.

OK thanks :)

I had so many suggestions in mind for this, it was actually quite difficult to narrow it down. Lots of good ideas already.

Greg wrote: "Pink and Dhanaraj, your picks are exciting. I have read a few by James Baldwin and would like to read more. I've read one by Morrison, one by Mishima, and one by Lahiri. All of those..."

Initially I thought of James Baldwin and Toni Morrison. Later I changed it to include one each from each corner of the world.

Umberto Eco
Joanne Harris ( too famous to qualify? )

John Banville
Richard Powers

Great names! No point of writing down more!!!

I love this thread. I love hearing of authors that are good but little known. I have now added books by John Banville andYukio Mishima. I don't know until I have tried one whether I would want to read many by the authors!

Here are two authors that I think are excellent:

Colum McCann
Alexandra Fuller

but I have read just about everything by them so I cannot really recommend them for myself.

I personally like discovering authors I don't know. How can I suggest authors if I don't know them well? I enjoy the thread but I haven't known how to respond.

Chrissie, I see the conundrum there but you can go about it two ways: either you pick two authors that you are really curious about but haven't yet managed to tackle, or you choose authors you know well and think they deserve a wider readership.
By the way I love your first choice and will now go look at the second.

@Jean, no seconding required! :)

Jenny wrote: "I see the conundrum there but you can go about it two ways: either you pick two authors that you are really curious about but haven't yet managed to tackle, or you choose authors you know well and think they deserve a wider readership."

I chose the second alternative. Yeah, Colum McCann is great. i don't usually read short stories but with him I have.

Thanks, Jenny :)

I'm in the same boat as you Chrissie! There are authors I really want to read, but since I've never read anything by them maybe I wouldn't like them ... and think how awful if I'd inadvertently made everyone read them and they too hated that author ...

Yet if I suggest one I think is great, then I'll probably already have read most/all of theirs.

Hmm. This needs careful thought. Maybe an author I've just read a couple by...

Haruki Murakami
Jeanette Winterson

Chrissie and Jean, I thought the same thing! I suggested Baldwin because I've only read one book and own one more, but have a list of others I'd like to read by him. I took a risk with Lahiri, as I've read nothing by her, but always hear good things. I'm also glad to get new suggestions of authors I've never heard of....more for the tbr list!

My idea is that I will NOT vote for my own choices. i don't want to read authors I already know I like! Yeah, sure, if they come up with a new book I'll grab it.

I think it is funny that many of us are all confronting the same dilemma.

Pink, I want to read Baldwin, and I think it is disgusting I cannot get my hands on an audiobook.Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies didn't blow ME over, but many others like her.

Thanks to Alannah for suggesting this. I don't know if much thought has been given to how to implement it, but here's an idea.

How about if everyone has not just one vote, but three, say? Then, sure, we can all vote for whoever we've suggested if we still want to, but also someone else. I know Chrissie said she would vote for others, but this might solve one dilemma. It needn't be mandatory either - if someone hasn't voted at all then it could be "up to 3". Then all the votes could just be totted up to see who got most.

My suggestions:

H.G. Wells

Comic novels, startlingly prescient Sci Fi, scientific, political, feminist writings ... Sadly neglected now, except for bowdlerised versions sometimes.

D.H. Lawrence

Again neglected. I read lots of his novels and short stories when I was younger and remember being very impressed - would like to give him a go again.

Jean wrote: "My suggestions:

H G Wells

Comic novels, startlingly prescient Sci Fi, scientific, political, feminist writings ... Sadly neglected now, except for bowdlerised versions sometimes...."

Jean, do you mean H.G. Wells and D.H. Lawrence?

Of course, dely! I linked to the only ones the "add author" link here allowed. Bad cataloguing and link facilities, I'm afraid. Feel free, any librarian, to merge these mistakes...

I always have a good giggle at the "MR JAMES" entry for M.R. James. (Oh rats! I shouldn't have said anything - someone will probably correct that now!!) :D

Jean wrote: "Of course, dely! I linked to the only ones the "add author" link here allowed. Bad cataloguing and link facilities, I'm afraid. Feel free, any librarian, to merge these mistakes...

I always have a..."

This is what I've done but one hour ago I was too tired to formulate a meaningful sentence in English to explain it :D

OK, I'll nominate a couple authors I've only read one book by but really liked and want to read more of.

Yasunari Kawabata

I like the tone and feel of this Japanese writer's books. Even in translation, there's something unique that shines through. I've only read one book and some short stories. Would like to read more.

Wole Soyinka

I loved his play Death and the King's Horseman: A Play - fascinating and great for discussion. This Nigerian writer has written plays, novels and poetry too; so much to explore and discuss.

Thank you dely! I have edited my comment so that the links now connect to the main author page :)

Well Alannah beat me to the punch suggesting Sarah Waters! Which leaves me with

Alexandre Dumas, author of The Three Musketeers & many others...

Is anyone making a master list?

Ian, the first author isn't registered here at GR.

John Clellon Holmes
I think this is the person!

This seems a bit top-heavy with English and American authors to me. Any other suggestions not from those areas?

Gill wrote: "This seems a bit top-heavy with English and American authors to me. Any other suggestions not from those areas?"

One reason I chose Dumas... plus I love what I have read of his :D

But I agree that some more writers whose primary language isn't English would be nice!

Thanks, Gill.

Based on Gill's good point, I changed my second nomination from Joyce Cary to Wole Soyinka. My original post at #33 has been edited to reflect the change.

I'd like to add Irène Némirovsky into the mix.

So far there are:

English language authors:
Alexandra Fuller
Colum McCann
D.H. Lawrence
Elizabeth Gaskell
Graham Joyce
H.G. Wells
James Baldwin
Jeanette Winterson
Jhumpa Lahiri
Joanne Harris
John Banville
John Clellon Holmes
Joyce Carol Oates
Julian Barnes
Monica Ali
Richard Powers
Sarah Waters
Sebastian Barry
Toni Morrison
William Gay

African-English:
Wole Soyinka

French:
Alexandre Dumas
Irène Némirovsky

Italian:
Umberto Eco

Spanish:
Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez

Japanese:
Haruki Murakami
Yasunari Kawabata
Yukio Mishima

Can I replace Anita Brookner by Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez please.

Now you have me utterly confused! LOL

OK, now I see the edit! Haha

Jenny wrote: "Now you have me utterly confused! LOL"

I don't know how I managed that!

Hmm that is a bit english heavy. Perhaps we should have some extra suggestions for other countries, or at least think of how we want to pick our 4 seasonal authors. Do we purposely want different nations represented, or should we just let things fall to voting? I'd like to avoid having all white English/ American authors if possible.

OK, another change. I edited my first original pick in message #33 to change from Angela Carter to Yasunari Kawabata.

Pink, at the moment we are just asking for suggestions so that as mods we have something to work with when we choose the seasonal authors. There will only be four chosen, and we will make sure they are not all of the same type, so we have variety.

What a great list! Perhaps we could vote for 2 English and 2 other.