Customer Reviews

The Salon.com Reader's Guide to Contemporary Authors

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

this is what I needed! and so many other people too... a place to run when someone talks glibly about some author... you want a basic, opinionated take on them, and you want a list of the person's books -- but with a sub-list of the ones that are notable and should be read. AND you want the word on "what is the ONE book by them that you should read if you were only to read one?"

I just wish to god they had this for popular music. and maybe they're doing it. would be a harder task.

LOVE this book.

Opinionated--Yes. Irreverent--Somewhat. Eclectic--Definitely.

Some choices I just don't understand (Mario Puzo? John Grisham? Bret Easton Ellis? Tom Clancy? Jacqueline Susann? These people are "Fascinating"? Um, No.)

But, a lot of excellent, even brilliant, authors are included that would otherwise be overlooked: Sherman Alexie ("The Lone Ranger..." stories are just brilliant), Paul Auster ("City of Glass"), TC Boyle ("Collected Stories"), Raymond Carver (ANYTHING by Carver), VS Naipul ("A House for Mr. Biswas"--stunning), David Foster Wallace ("Infinite Jest"--you'll never look at a book the same way again!), and my personal favorite--Lydia Davis ("Break It Down"--A MUST READ/ditto "The End of the Story"). The usual OWM (old white men) deservedly get mentioned: Roth, Irving, Bellow, Mailer, Wolfe, Vidal. Even if you don't like them, their work has certainly shaped American writing.

Overall, an interesting selection of contemporary authors. Could have been a little more comprehensive on each entry, but still fairly thorough. Interesting trivia throughout.

What impresses me about this book is that the critics involved write about what pleases them instead of what they think is the *correct* thing to read. Kurt Vonnegut, who has taken it on the chin from many reviewers lately, gets a warm appreciation from Dave Eggers. And Bret Easton Ellis gets a non-poisonous review (not that I like Ellis all that much, but it's nice to see a dissent from the conventional wisdom for a change.) A few writers get dissed: Michael Crichton is quickly chopped into hamburger, and Edwidge Danticat and Alice Walker are surprisingly (but accurately) dismissed as non-entities. Saul Bellow gets a mixed review. My favorite old white guy, Philip Roth, gets a positive write-up and I learned about possible new authors to read like Geoff Nicholson. One limitation: the exclusion of translated works leaves out a master like Milan Kundera. And any collection that includes the hack John Grisham and leaves out the wonderful Scott Turow needs a reality check. (The "See Also" paragraphs that follow each main review help make up for some of the most obvious exclusions.) Well worth your time.

Like any "guide" this expansive, there are plenty of omissions and controversial assessments; that's the point. You are allowed to agree or disagree or argue with the choices. But what's shocking are the number of typos contained in this supposed reference book. There seems to be at least one error per page, from A.M. Homes' age (they've added ten years) to Brett Easton Ellis with two t's to retitling the new Denis Johnson book "The Name of the Word." (It's actually The Name of the World.") I don't blame the editors; the fault lies with the publisher and their staff I would guess. Otherwise, this is a lot of fun.

"The Salon.com Reader's Guide to Contemporary Authors" is edited by Laura Miller, with Adam Begley. It consists primarily of alphabetically-arranged entries on selected writers. Each entry contains a list of books by the author, as well as a critical essay. This collection of writers is international and multicultural, although the selection is (as noted in the preface) limited to authors who write (or wrote) fiction in English and who have had major works published since 1960.

This is a book that I use both to "discover" authors I'm not familiar with, as well as to get new perspectives on authors I already know (either passingly or thoroughly). Each entry is about 1 to 2 pages long. A very short sampler of some of the authors covered: Chinua Achebe, Sherman Alexie, Saul Bellow, Charles Bukowski, Ian Fleming, Allegra Goodman, Ursula K. LeGuin, Amy Tan, Gore Vidal, etc.

The critical articles contain some questionable statements, but that's half the fun of this book: it's a reference work with which an intelligent reader can disagree.

In addition to the main entries, there is a series of sidebar book lists compiled by various individuals. Examples: "Five Contemporary Noir Classics," listed by David Bowman; "A Walk on the Wild Side: Very Original Novels," by Peter Carey; "Smart and Sexy," by Erica Jong; etc. The books are listed with short descriptive paragraphs.

There is also a series of interspersed literary essays: "Every Novel Is a Lesbian Novel," by Dorothy Allison; "Of This World: Why Science Fiction Can't Be Dismissed," by John Clute; etc. If you love contemporary literature, you may find "The Salon.com Reader's Guide" to be a wonderful resource.

I eagerly took this book home, and quickly flipped through the pages to see how many books I've read by the 225 authors listed in this guide. I've got a lot of work ahead of me. What I appreciated the most about the book is that along with literary giants such as Margaret Atwood, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Toni Morrison, and Robertson Davies, the contributors to this guide also mention commercial success stories such as Stephen King, Tom Clancy, John Grisham, and Michael Crichton. For each entry there is a bibliography given, a summary of the authors works, and a 'see also' paragraph that leads you to other great authors with similar writting styles as your favourites. In between entries there are essays and suggestions given by the said authors themselves which are enlightening and entertaining. I don't know much about salon.com, but I've learnt that they're capable of producing a top notch reference that I'll will use frequently.

In true Salon.com form, this book offers readers wonderful insight into contemporary literature. A great resource, a wonderful guide for any book lover! The folks at Salon continue to amaze me with their irreverant, wonderfully fresh writing. I challange anyone to find a better content site. More importantly, Salon writers, lead by Ms. Miller, translate beautifully from web to print, as seen in The Salon.com Reader's Guide to Contemporary Authors.

Coming at this book from the angle of someone who hasn't read a great deal of contemporary fiction, I found this book well worth the investment. While some seasoned readers may complain that specific authors didn't make the final cut, for me the book offered a wide selection of styles and genres to pick from. Furthermore, the "See Also" dialogues give several jumping-off points once you've exhausted a specific author's entire bibliography. For people who live and breathe by the New York Times Book Review, this probably won't provide much additional information. But if you've always enjoyed the contemporary literature you've read and want to find out a bit more, you can't go wrong with the two hundred authors listed here.

Some of the reviews and "Must Read" selections make me engage in self-mutilation. In spots, the writing is embarrasing and too off-handish. Also, I am offended by the use of the word "Canadian" to describe a specific literary style (no writer is described as having an "American" style). The "See Also" sections can be right on target, too predictable or pathetically off-the-mark. Actually, due to the number of reviewers and essayists, the book as a whole is wildly, gloriously, confusingly inconsistent - books recommended in the essays and sidebars are frequently not highlighted as worth reading in the author sections. I've found, however, I can't live without it. After finding my favourite books praised, and reading and thoroughly enjoying "The World As I Found It" (Bruce Duffy), I stopped buying anything that didn't get a positive write-up in the guide. I lent the book to a friend who kept it for several weeks and I started experiencing withdrawl symptoms - shaking, insomnia, facial tics, etc. About eleven times every day, I thought "If only I could look that up in the Salon book....". I yearned to show people the wickedly accurate author caricatures or to quote the best reviewers (Laura Miller and Carter Scholz in particular). I am sadly, sadly addicted. Other people get wine, women, song.... I get snarky reference books.

Editor, Laura Miller helped found Salon.com. she is currently New York Editorial Director for Salon.com and lives in Manhattan.

Ms. Miller wrote in the preface to her book, "We intended this book for those remarkable and slightly mysterious individuals who read contemporary fiction for pleasure. We didn't imagine an audience of researchers or scholars or critics or prize committees or members of the publishing industry. . . " We think, however that she must have imagined an audience of reading group members because she had our interest at heart. Your group will find that Ms. Miller holds them in high regard as readers. She and her reviewers might even sound like a member of your group.

Your group needs only one copy of this book. Share it at meetings and pass it around between meetings. Some groups do not like to be influenced by reviews but we often suggest that the group wait until they have fully discussed a book before they pull out the reviews. This would be a great time to turn the pages in The Salon.com Reader's Guide.

Martha's reading group is reading "After Rain" by William Trevor for its first meeting this year. She knew nothing about William Trevor--not that he was Irish- and not that his stories are permeated with the sadness of fate. Following the discussion she plans to read the Salon.com review of Trevor to her group and it will be interesting to discuss how Trevor "writes about disappointment." And it will be fascinating to see if the group agrees with the reviewer in Salon.com that while Trevor always writes about the disappointed that his work is never disappointing.

Be forewarned that this book is not all-inclusive and could never be. It is a book compiled based upon "personal preferences" and the list is "probably insufficiently balanced." But we accept this as we suspect your reading group will too. What is most pleasing to us about this book is that we got the feeling as we flipped through the pages that we were reading the notes of an eclectic and observant reading group. It felt like we were reading their collected notes in the margin.

Our interesting word selection is a word that jumped off the page several times. It is "Bildungsroman". A novel about the early development or spiritual education of the main character.

We loved this statement about reading from the reviewer of A.S. Byatt: "What makes aptitude more than a parlor trick and Byatt more than a smirking postmodern jester are her motivating passions and beliefs-in the power of reading and writing to rescue human beings from dull, confining lives and in the transformative capacities of the mind."

We do believe in the power of reading and believe that shared reading is truly transformative.

Martha Burns and Alice Dillon are the authors of Reading Group Journal: Notes in the Margin.