Back in 2017 I talked about my tactic to make sure I read certain authors more frequently. I then elaborated on those authors in 2019. All of this is in addition to my ongoing yearly Books in Review list, which covers every new book I've read since 2007, but not the re-reads. But what happened before that ( Read more... )

When this series went into extra innings I said that there were two additions in 2018, later revealed as Jesmyn Ward and Junot Diaz, as well as one who was effectively on my original list who I had not explicitly listed. That person was Robert Galbraith, or as you more likely know "him", J.K. Rowling ( Read more... )

The second late addition to my original list was actually mentioned in my Jhumpa Lahiri summary, where I said that "Junot Diaz isn't playing in the same league as Lahiri. Most people aren't." And while that's true, when I read all three of his books in two months in 2018 I found them to be very enjoyable.

Junot DiazIn a normal year Diaz might have ( Read more... )

Over the last four months I've covered each of the authors who appeared on my original list from 2017. Since that list was created, I realized that there are three more authors who should be on it. Two were additions in 2018, and the other is one who was there all along who I didn't write down for some reason. The first of these is Jesmyn Ward, of ( Read more... )

The last author on my original list is Lois McMaster Bujold, who is simultaneously is the author of my favorite scifi series, The Vorkosigan Saga, as well as the author of what is quite possibly my single favorite non-Tolkien fantasy novel, The Curse of Chalion. For all that, I almost missed out on her. My library growing up had a few of her books ( Read more... )

From my original list, I had two authors as "I Have Already Read Everything, and I Definitely Want More". The first of those has only published two novels and two short story collections. One of those novels and one of those collections are as good as anything I've ever read; the others are merely very, very good. Meet Jhumpa Lahiri, an American ( Read more... )

The last author in the "I Definitely Want to Read More" category in the original list is Margaret Atwood. I had definitely read The Handmaid's Tale back in high school, but most of the other books I've read by her were because of my ex, who was a big fan and owned several of them.

Margaret AtwoodAccording to her wikipedia page, Atwood has written ( Read more... )

Like pretty much everyone else in America who reads, I'd heard of Kurt Vonnegut long ago. However, with the exception of the short story Harrison Bergeron in high school, I didn't actually read anything he'd written until my 2009 book resolution. I've read five of his novels and one short story collection since then. He's solidly in the I want to ( Read more... )

Of all the authors I originally listed, the one I've read the least of is Lionel Shriver. I've only read three of her books, and none since 2012. So how'd she end up on this list? Good question. I think when I built it I took a quick troll through my end of year lists to see if any authors jumped out as people I wanted to read more of, and there ( Read more... )

Is it weird that so many of the authors that I am profiling were basically "given" to me by other people? Haruki Murakami was gift from Grover aka Justin formerly jackthebodyless, who told me to read The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle because the he believed that Mike Doughty's song Looking at the World from the Bottom of a Well referenced it. I did read it, and one ( Read more... )