The Book Thread Book • Page 104

J.K. Rowling is the only one I can think off the top of my head

 

That's really tough because I have some books by authors I hold in extremely high regard whereas I think their other work just doesn't touch that same level of brilliance. Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything is Illuminated was that for me in high school. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close was also incredible. Then Tree of Codes just felt self-indulgent. Here I Am was good, but felt like it dragged on and never resolved (FYI I've never read his nonfiction).

There are a lot of books on my all-time list instead of authors, though as I've begun to read much more the last few years, I'm starting to really get a more complete sense of different authors and their legacies.

 

Don DeLillo. very easy answer for me. Would be content if I was trapped somewhere will only his works as entertainment.

 

Mark Danielewski for me. His books have re-shaped how I think about literature, and I still find them all endlessly entertaining when I revisit them.

Annie Proulx, Kazuo Ishiguro, and Cormac McCarthy are my other contenders.

 

Philip Pullman or Robert Shearman for me, with Stephen King coming in close

 

Toni Morrison, Joan Didion, Paul Murray, Clarice Lispector

 

David Mitchell

 

Right at this moment probably Zadie Smith. I don’t think I have an all time favorite.

 

Got White Teeth on my shelf, gonna get to it soon. Read Swing Time a year or two ago and enjoyed it a lot.

 

The member's only Audible sale is exceptional. They just hit me for just over $100. Damn. So many good books that have been on my list.

ALSO -- Carlos Ruiz Zafon's The Shadow of the Wind (and others from that series) are on sale in it. DO IT.

 

White Teeth is really good, but it took me a while to really get into it. For a lot of it I was like "this is cool but I don't see what the hype is all about" but it really picks up speed at some point and once I was done I couldn't stop thinking about it for weeks.

I'm about to start On Beauty.

 

I've really leaned heavily into science fiction throughout my life so I'd have to say Orson Scott Card and most recently Pierce Brown. Wish I read more growing up to have more exposure to other authors but here we are.

 

Yeah I've read a lot of fantasy over the course of my life but I'm not sure I have a specific favourite there.

 

Charles Williams

 

I'm a basic but I love Salinger and that's who came to mind first. I wish I could write smth half as good as Franny and Zooey or "A Perfect Day for Bananafish"

 

Erik Larson is my favorite. His genre is historical non-fiction. He tells incredible stories in a narrative format. And his newest on Churchill came out today. Can’t wait to start reading it when I get home

 

The Iliad and the Odyssey Boxed Set

I just ordered this, Zeus help me

 

wow cool set. I only ever read the Odyssey, I should go back and read the Iliad one of these days

 

Yeah this is supposed to be an amazing translation so I’m excited to get into it. We’ve covered this stuff in school but I haven’t actually really read any of it.

 

Anybody in here ever read The Storied Life of AJ Fikry?

I started it last night and it's definitely not something I'd normally gravitate towards but I'm enjoying it so far.

I'm only about 50 pages in but it seems like a book that some of y'all would probably enjoy, especially @Garrett L.

 

never heard of it, but I just looked it up and it does seem up my alley

 

alright only took my two months but finished my first book of the year!

 

Finished The House on Mango Street. Short, poetic, occasionally funny and occasionally inspiring. Was such an easy quick read, I finished it in two sittings.

Now starting The Moviegoer by Walker Percy. Anyone ever read it?

 

Zeus help me, I’m about to do this

 

What book?