I would read their next books without hesitation. Who’s on that list for you?
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The Edge of the American West 
72 comments
May 14, 2008 at 11:04 pm
Vance Maverick
I’m embarrassed to admit that this list, for me, is empty. (Of living authors, that is. When Henry James comes out with his next novel, I’ll preorder it in hardback.) Time was, I would have said Haruki Murakami, but the defects of his books just got more annoying with perseveration, and the real virtues (extraordinary, even) never added up, for me, to a whole book.
I’ve been reading a certain amount of Chabon lately, with mixed feelings. [Warning: crotchety opinionating ahead.] Wonder Boys is a satisfying genre exercise, but everything else is so stilted. (Currently on Kavalier and Clay, and I could give examples of what’s bugging me if you care.)
Which is to say, I don’t have much to offer in this discussion, but I would love to hear others’ lists, in the hope of repopulating my own.
May 14, 2008 at 11:09 pm
Ben Alpers
Richard Powers, John Crowley, Richard Harris, and Susanna Clarke (those last two are somewhat guilty pleasures)
May 14, 2008 at 11:19 pm
Ben Alpers
I should perhaps add Philip Roth, most of whose books I seem to eventually read (and usually enjoy), though for some reason I rarely rush to the bookstore to buy them. I still haven’t read (or bought) Everyman.
And my “until recently” category would include Thomas Pynchon, whose Against the Day has been occupying, largely undisturbed, a huge chunk of my bookshelf for over a year.
May 14, 2008 at 11:36 pm
Vance Maverick
Ben, do you mean Robert Harris, of the thrillers?
May 14, 2008 at 11:37 pm
Ben Alpers
I do, Vance…but I haven’t had my coffee yet ;-)
May 15, 2008 at 12:04 am
ari
Who’s on that list for you?
Only you, baby. You’ve just got to put out another book. (That’s the right answer, isn’t it? Well, isn’t it?)
May 15, 2008 at 12:05 am
ixnaythemetier
I really enjoyed Fatherland, especially the world building aspect and the frighteningly realized vision of Albert Speer. Having something the reader knows to be true the central mystery in a alternative history story was also a neat trick of dramatic irony. But Archangel left me sort of cold. Are his other books worth a look?
May 15, 2008 at 12:06 am
foolishmortal
Piers Brendon, David Fromkin, Benny Morris. In fiction, M. John Harrison, Jonathan Lethem, China Mieville. In addition I’d second ben’s Crowley and Clarke. (What’s guilty about Clarke?) In cookbooks, Fuschia Dunlop. In dreams, Thomas Pynchon. Is Delaney still kicking?
May 15, 2008 at 12:27 am
Hemlock
Nick Hornby, Michael Chabon, John Irving, and Louis Erdrich.
Reading a bit of Robert Jordan on a rec (fantasy stuff).
May 15, 2008 at 12:39 am
foolishmortal
Robert Jordan, on the other hand, entails a great deal of guilt. Why not just rape a nun and be done with it?
May 15, 2008 at 12:47 am
Hemlock
HAHAHAHAH
May 15, 2008 at 1:42 am
Ben Alpers
If we’re including popular non-fiction, add Jon Krakauer and Michael Pollan to my list.
Are [Robert Harris’s] other books worth a look?
I really enjoyed his last two books. The Ghost is a perfect airplane book, a pageturning political thriller that is just clever enough to be interesting as well as fun. And Imperium, the first in a projected trilogy about Cicero and ancient Roman politics, showed up just in time to make up for the loss of HBO’s Rome (a really guilty pleasure of mine). Since Harris’s next book is going to be the sequel to Imperium, I really am sure that I will read it.
What’s guilty about Clarke?
I’m a Jewish academic. Basically everything makes me feel guilty. Now back to work….
May 15, 2008 at 2:53 am
drip
I will read the next book be each of these fine folks: Pamuk, Ake, Coetzee, Lessing Saramago, Oe, Gordimer, Marquez. But thats probably not what you meant. Of contemporary American authors: William Gibson, David Antrim, Richard Russo, Lethem, Dennis Johnson, Stewart O’Nan, Dennis Johnson, and Peter Carey (he’s Austrailian, but really ought to be a big hit at this site). There, that ought to be guilt inducing at some level after what you all do to me.
May 15, 2008 at 3:38 am
Chris
I’d suggest Codex 626 by Jose Rodriguez dos Santos. I just finished it. It’s molded comparably to the Da Vinci Code and The Rule of Four. Entertaining read about the origins of Christopher Columbus.
May 15, 2008 at 3:51 am
The Modesto Kid
Orhan Pamuk; José Saramago; Thomas Pynchon; Zaydie Smith; Jennifer Egan; Annie Proulx.
May 15, 2008 at 3:56 am
Levi Stahl
Kazuo Ishiguro, despite increasing frustration with his recent novels, John Crowley, and that’s it this early in the morning, many of my favorites having left us in recent decades.
May 15, 2008 at 4:00 am
The Modesto Kid
Kazuo Ishiguro
Ooh! I just recently read my first of his books, Never Let Me Go, and enjoyed it greatly. Did you find it frustrating?
May 15, 2008 at 4:05 am
The Modesto Kid
(Also I think that Ukranian-American dude who writes for the New Yorker, who wrote The Russian Debutante’s Handbook, should be on my list, but I’ve forgotten his name. I enjoyed his two novels enough that if I saw in the book review he had written something new, I would probably run out and buy it.)
May 15, 2008 at 4:12 am
drip
Gary Shteyngart and Aburdistan is great as well
May 15, 2008 at 4:56 am
Levi Stahl
Modesto Kid,
I did have some troubles with Never Let Me Go, though I’m in a distinct minority–my wife thought it was great, which was also the general critical consensus. So I could just be wrong here, but it (and its predecessor, When We Were Orphans) felt like a retreat of sorts from what I viewed as the unforgettable, beautiful failure that was The Unconsoled. These recent books felt a return to a form and narrative approach that he has already exploited brilliantly in several novels–whereas The Unconsoled seemed to open up his palette to incredible new possibilities.
May 15, 2008 at 5:48 am
The Modesto Kid
Thanks Drip — Shteyngart is indeed who I was thinking of. The only problem with Absurdistan — to my way of thinking — was how closely similar it was to TRDH. But I have high hopes for his next novel being different enough from those two, to have fun with.
Levi, I’m looking forward to reading Ishiguro’s catalog — you make The Unconsoled sound fantastic. NLMG was just impossible to put down — I need to reread it because I kept thinking of notes I wanted to write down in the course of it but could not tear myself away to do it. (I picked it up on Robyn Hitchcock’s recommendation — Hitchcock thinks it is Ishiguro’s “strongest yet”.)
May 15, 2008 at 5:59 am
Levi Stahl
Modesto Kid,
Be warned: many, many people dislike The Unconsoled. Its Amazon review page makes for very entertaining reading, because the number of people who love it is about the same as the number that can’t believe how much they hate it. So if you try it and find it a chore, it may just not be for you.
May 15, 2008 at 6:47 am
eric
Vance, I find Chabon actually improves on re-reading. But I like him on the first go, too. (Inasmuch as you’re a Bay Arean, I wonder, have you read Carter Beats the Devil?)
Powers I like, but for some reason I didn’t mention him. Oh well, I didn’t say it was an exhaustive list.
Nobody said anything about Haddon. Go, read Haddon, you people with time and inclination.
May 15, 2008 at 7:03 am
The Modesto Kid
Go, read Haddon
Don’t even recognize the name. Whad’e write? What’s good about it?
(Of Chabon, I read Kavalier and Klay, and liked it, but not enough to make me search out more of his stuff. I described it at the time as “a fun and amusing read, not touched by genius but the work of an attentive craftsman.”)
May 15, 2008 at 7:17 am
Vance Maverick
Carter looks like fun, I’ll check it out. Haddon too.
drip, do you mean Donald Antrim? (And you must really like Dennis Johnson.)
And I realize that if David Antin were to come out with another book, I would read it; but at this point it’s unlikely (he’s not young, and with the last book, I felt like the vein was exhausted).
May 15, 2008 at 7:40 am
eric
Further comments on the comments:
Ben, on “guilty pleasures”—the prompt for this post was the easy pleasure with which I picked up Chabon’s new collection of essays, the first of which argues there should be no such thing as a guilty pleasure.
Gibson is good too, also Susanna Clarke; don’t see why they would be guilty, anyway.
May 15, 2008 at 8:14 am
Zenboy
John Scalzi, Charlie Huston, and William Gibson. No hesitation.
May 15, 2008 at 8:27 am
Yorick
William Trevor, Ian McEwan, and, if news reports are true, Vladimir Nabokov.
May 15, 2008 at 8:46 am
Cameron
Arturo Perez Reverte, Steven Saylor, Peter F. Hamilton, J. Joseph Ellis, Richard Dawkins, Carl Zimmer, Paul Kemp. Too many to really list properly.
May 15, 2008 at 9:06 am
Anticipating new books
[…] a fun thread about anticipating new books by your favorite authors. […]
May 15, 2008 at 9:11 am
Michael
I usually read by topic, not by author necessarily. There are some authors that show up on my list. I have read Robin Wright’s work on the ME, and will read her new one, Dreams and Shadows. I like to read Alan Taylor because he writes well and he writes about an area of the country that I find very interesting. I enjoyed his book about Cooperstown because I know the town very well. I have also read a lot of Chomsky and Said, and I have read about them.
I don’t read much fiction (no cracks about Chomsky, please), but anything that Dave Barry writes is a must read for me when I can get my hands on it. Naturally, I do read J.F. Cooper even though it is often hard to stay with it. I have tried to read many of the modern writers, but, to me, many are so boring that I can’t last more than a chapter or two.
May 15, 2008 at 9:30 am
ben wolfson
John Crowley, Harry Mathews, David Markson. Time was: Murakami, Hoban, Dick, Alasdair Gray.
May 15, 2008 at 9:32 am
charlieford
I went thru a bit of a Richard Ford period in the ’90s, really loved the Sports Writer, but haven’t kept up.
Dennis Johnson? The Tree of Smoke guy? You gotta read the review in the Atlantic Monthly. Gotta, just gotta . . .
May 15, 2008 at 9:37 am
ari
charlie, I’m fairly sure that you and I are the same person. I used to love Richard Ford and kept reading through Independence Day (which is even better than The Sportswriter). Then I stopped. I’m not sure why. That said, I still sometimes go back to read him for style. He crafts incredibly clean (also articulate!) prose, so reading him can help me when I’m writing.
May 15, 2008 at 10:26 am
Scott
Aimee Bender, Neil Gaiman and Iain M. Banks.
May 15, 2008 at 10:28 am
Vance Maverick
Ben, do all of Markson’s novels consist principally of concise retellings of anecdotes about famous high-culture figures? That’s the impression I’m getting browsing Amazon. Partial exception for Wittgenstein’s Mistress (though the title suggests he isn’t straying far from the pattern).
May 15, 2008 at 10:37 am
Ben Alpers
Here‘s the link to the Atlantic Monthly’s review of Tree of Smoke, which charlie references above (FWIW, I began listening to the novel as an audiobook and have somehow never finished).
May 15, 2008 at 10:52 am
drip
V. Maverick, yes Donald Antrim, but David Antin too, tho’ I haven’t thought of him in years. Yes, I like Dennis Johnson but not twice as much as anyone else on the list and not as much as Denis Johnson, who is the Tree of Smoke guy. I’ve made the same mistake with Lenny Elmore and Elmore Leonard and Danny deVito and Louis dePalma, although the latter is a different sort of problem. I must wake up before I start typing.
May 15, 2008 at 11:25 am
Vance Maverick
Oops, you’re right — Denis. I for one once confused Bettina von Arnim with Elizabeth von Arnim.
May 15, 2008 at 11:31 am
charlieford
On Ford, I liked Independence Day too, though Sportswriter had more of a subjective effect, don’t know why. He weaves a spell, a feeling, a mood–it’s downright existential and palpable–and his ability to do so reminds me of Updike and Fitzgerald (of Gatsby of course) though the spell he casts is utterly unique. There was also a bunch of short stories that were ok. Glad to hear we’re kind of the same person, Ari. If you come home one day and I’m on your couch listening to Exene Cervenka’s solo albums at neighbor-enraging volume, I don’t expect you to give me any grief.
May 15, 2008 at 12:28 pm
MichaelElliott
If I had more time, I would be reading more science fiction. I have a feeling that’s where most of the interesting thinking (in fiction) is going on these days. Neil Gaiman for sure. William Gibson, too.
Here’s the contemporary book I recommend to people to people I don’t even know: David Mitchell’s “Cloud Atlas.” Interlocking short stories all written in beautiful, but stylistically and generically distinct ways. I haven’t read anything that surprised me more in a long time.
That being said, the two new novels that I’ve just bought for this summer are Junot Diaz’s and Alexander Hemon’s. (These are both people who have written short fiction that I liked immensely, and I am very curious to see what’s next.)
Of course, what I would really like to read next is a complete version of this essay that I am supposed to be writing.
May 15, 2008 at 12:37 pm
The Modesto Kid
what I would really like to read next is a complete version of this essay that I am supposed to be writing.
You might want to check out termpapers.com — I understand they specialize in complete versions of essays that you are supposed to be writing.
May 15, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Ben Alpers
I second MichaelElliott’s recommendation of Cloud Atlas, which is a very smart and very enjoyable tour de force.
May 15, 2008 at 1:39 pm
matt w
I once abandoned a copy of The Sportswriter in an apartment I was vacating, so I wouldn’t be tempted to pick it up and start it again and get annoyed again about how pointless it all was. To me, anyway. People seem not to agree with me.
Alice Munro, though she seems to be claiming that she isn’t going to publish any more books. Eric Kraft, though that may be cheating because he’s in the middle of a trilogy. Maybe Javier Marias, though I haven’t got around to starting Your Face Tomorrow yet. And I’m one behind on Marian Keyes too.
May 15, 2008 at 2:03 pm
drip
My wife put David Mitchell at the top of her list when I asked. I also forgot how much I enjoy Russell Banks, Harry Crews, Mary Gaitskill, Barbara Kinsolver, and Anne Tyler, who are all compulsively readable (at least to me). I complain about contemporary fiction a good bit, but looking at what people are reading and the books that popped to mind, I realize I won’t get to them all anyway.
May 15, 2008 at 2:28 pm
charlieford
“I’m a Jewish academic. Basically everything makes me feel guilty.”
Feeling guilty is sine qua non of civility.
May 15, 2008 at 3:27 pm
ac
Jonathan Coe.
May 15, 2008 at 3:55 pm
Jason B
Until someone reanimates Flannery O’Connor or Nathanael West, my only must-read author anymore is George Saunders. Even though The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil was a little precious.
May 15, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Galvinji
I used to love Richard Ford and kept reading through Independence Day (which is even better than The Sportswriter). Then I stopped. I’m not sure why. That said, I still sometimes go back to read him for style. He crafts incredibly clean (also articulate!) prose, so reading him can help me when I’m writing.
The third book about Frank Bascombe, The Lay of the Land, is worth reading — not as good as Independence Day, and I think it takes a wrong turn at the end, but it has the same narrative voice as the earlier two books.
He weaves a spell, a feeling, a mood–it’s downright existential and palpable–and his ability to do so reminds me of Updike and Fitzgerald (of Gatsby of course) though the spell he casts is utterly unique.
Much better said than I could, though having only read one book by Updike, I’ll have to take your word for it.
I agree about Chabon — although I can’t imagine what kind of sense The Yiddish Policeman’s Union would make to someone that is not a member of the tribe — but haven’t read anything else by Mark Haddon other than The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. I was under the impression that he had been a writer of children’s books prior to that one.
I’d add Richard Russo, though I haven’t read the latest one, and the ending of Empire Falls seems to come from another book.
May 15, 2008 at 6:35 pm
rja
Milan Kundera. Not that I ever get a chance to read fiction anymore.
Until someone reanimates Flannery O’Connor or Nathanael West
You know, couldn’t science make itself useful by bringing back great writers?
May 15, 2008 at 6:43 pm
shadowcook
I’d like to put in a very good word for Mothers and Sons, the recent collection of short stories by Colm Toibin (life is short: you add the diacritics).
May 15, 2008 at 7:40 pm
eric
I can’t imagine what kind of sense The Yiddish Policeman’s Union would make to someone that is not a member of the tribe
It’s a brilliant book, simply considered as a creation of a plausible and fully realized alternate history. Anyway, the tribe is big enough to sell books to.
haven’t read anything else by Mark Haddon other than The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
I recommend the next one, A Spot of Bother. It’s bigger than Curious Incident, which relies on a (brilliantly implemented, imho) single central conceit, but I think it’s very good. I think you’re right that he’s also written children’s books.
May 15, 2008 at 8:17 pm
Galvinji
simply considered as a creation of a plausible and fully realized alternate history
I loved his throw-aways (references to a different end to WWII, the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1940s, the Sitka World’s Fair poster he posted on his website, references to the two main industrial products of the Sitka District: mobile phones and ATVs) — especially because they were irrelevant to the story except insofar as they gave evidence that Chabon had spent a lot of time and effort fleshing out his alternate history.
on a (brilliantly implemented, imho) single central conceit
I agree. I read an interview with Haddon in which he described the process of thinking about how to make his narrative plausibly told from the point of view of a teenager with Asperger’s, since many Asperger’s kids can’t tell a proper story or have little interest in fiction. So he decided that his narrator could be obsessed with Sherlock Holmes, and thus could pattern his story on a Sherlock Holmes mystery.
May 15, 2008 at 9:39 pm
urbino
Lotsa good names already mentioned.
Chabon’s on my list, but Ian McEwan heads it. All of his stuff just knocks me out (except Amsterdam). John Banville’s in there. And Graham Swift. Somebody mentioned William Trevor; him, too. (Detecting a trend?) I love Trevor’s short stories, but I haven’t gotten into the novels yet. I also haven’t gotten into John Crowley’s Aegypt books, but Little, Big is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever read, and I liked The Translator very much. And I, too, find myself getting around to most of Roth’s stuff, sooner or later. I’m sure I’ll read Audrey Niffenegger’s next one.
Under the influence of The Wire, I’m about start dabbling in Richard Price’s books.
Nobody’s mentioned Don DeLillo, and neither shall I.
As long as we’re resurrecting the dead, can we get Virginia Woolf, Graham Greene, Ovid, and E.B. White back?
There was a time (a long one) when Ron Dworkin was on my list, but he went too NYRB.
William Langewiesche is on the verge of being listed.
May 15, 2008 at 10:30 pm
rja
My summer reading list is now becoming impossibly long.
…but Little, Big is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever read
Very true, but that is a whole other category. One that must include Kerouac’s Big Sur, Brautigan’s The Abortion and Roy’s The God of Small Things, if only for this:
“With the certitude of a true believer, Velya Paapen had assured the twins that there was no such thing in the world as a black cat. He said that there were only black cat-shaped holes in the Universe.”
May 15, 2008 at 11:02 pm
urbino
Anybody else here subscribed to the 25th-anniversary Little, Big?
May 16, 2008 at 12:47 am
Ben Alpers
Anybody else here subscribed to the 25th-anniversary Little, Big?
*raises hand*
There was a time (a long one) when Ron Dworkin was on my list, but he went too NYRB.
Let this be a warning to you, eric!
May 16, 2008 at 8:02 am
Michael Bartley
3 Picks representing, in spirit if not always geographically, the West.
Fiction: Jim Harrison, Rick Bass, Lydia Millet
Nonfiction: Charles Bowden, Elliot West, Dan Flores
May 16, 2008 at 9:15 am
The Commander Guy
Book recommendations end up being some of my favorite posts on blogs.
I’ll cast a third vote for Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell. It Rox.
I’ll add a recommendation for Shalimar the Clown by Rushdie and De Bernieres Birds Without Wings.
May 16, 2008 at 9:37 am
charlieford
TNR has an article on Lionel Trilling, which reminded me how much I liked “The Middle of the Journey.” Another now-almost-forgotten mid-American-century author worth checking out is Louis Auchinchloss–his “The Romantic Egoists” was really good. As for people writing now, I have no plans to read them till they’ve been dead for a good long while.
May 16, 2008 at 9:42 am
eric
I quite like Auchincloss, who is still going, you know. I met him once. Maybe I will blog that.
May 16, 2008 at 10:18 am
The Modesto Kid
who is still going
Ooh — a dent in charlieford’s resolve not to read living authors.
May 16, 2008 at 10:24 am
charlieford
Yes, I read an article on him a year ago or so, about him living in New York. He’s a national treasure. I wish Charley Rose would have him on. If you want to see some really amazing stuff, Auchincloss wrote the cover article about Jesuit theologian John Courtney Murray (who dropped acid, it turns out, when visiting your state back in the ’60s) in TIME in 1960. I read it for some research awhile ago, and it’s stunning the level at which TIME was pitched back in the day (as well as number of columns, size of font, dearth of visuals, etc.). The vocabulary and concepts in that article out-strip 80% of academic work being done today.
May 16, 2008 at 10:26 am
charlieford
“Ooh — a dent in charlieford’s resolve not to read living authors.”
Ah, look, I’m just a poser. I actually only read the Cliff Notes, if you must know.
May 16, 2008 at 10:35 am
charlieford
I’d like to put in a plug for one of my favorite novels, if I may: Willa Cather’s “The Professor’s House.” I like it even better than the more famous “Death Comes for the Archbishop,” and its protagonist is–drum roll–a historian of the American west, living on an edge of sorts.
May 16, 2008 at 10:45 am
Vance Maverick
I thought of another author, almost alive in the sense that his work is still coming out in English, who I expect to read entire — Roberto Bolaño. He’s even from the edge of the (South) American west….
May 16, 2008 at 11:01 am
charlieford
Nabokov and Trilling discuss “Lolita”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ldpj_5JNFoA&feature=related
May 16, 2008 at 12:37 pm
urbino
The terms of my parole forbid me from clicking that link.
May 16, 2008 at 12:51 pm
urbino
*raises hand*
They supposedly start shipping this month. Only . . . how many years late? I’ve lost track.
Anyway, it’ll be a good excuse to re-read the book.
May 17, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Michael
Didn’t the complete and total lack of psychological verisimilitude at the end of Kavalier and Clay bother anyone else? Jack Kirby is a hero of mine, so I’d enjoyed the book for the most part, but the ending just ruined it for me.
My list: Jose Saramago, and – though I wouldn’t have thought of him unless someone else had mentioned him – David Markson, too.
And speaking of Markson, and to try to bring this back around to History, from the reviews it sounds as if Nicholson Baker used Markson’s trademark style for Human Smoke. Has anyone read that yet, and is my sense of it accurate? I would love to get Ari or Eric or anyone else’s informed take on his book.
May 17, 2008 at 7:52 pm
urbino
A history-of-the-west novel that Ari, in particular, might like is Brian Hall’s I Should be Extremely Happy in Your Company. It’s a novel told in alternating POVs — Meriwether Lewis’s, and Sacagawea’s, the latter very interestingly done. (I have no idea how accurately it’s done; just that it’s interestingly done.)
May 25, 2008 at 5:53 pm
Leslie M-B
Louise Erdrich, Leslie Marmon Silko, Margaret Atwood, Michael Chabon, Sarah Vowell, Sarah Lindsay (poems). I can’t recommend Erdrich’s books highly enough, especially Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse. (I just nabbed her latest, The Plague of Doves.)