Women Authors -- BOOK THOUGHTS

BOOK THOUGHTS

Women Authors

March is Women's History Month, so I thought I'd highlight some of the women authors sitting on my TBR shelves. My reading is split pretty evenly between male and female authors and this is reflected in the books on my TBR shelves. 

Who are some of your favorite women writers? Or those you want to try?

Here’s are two stacks of books by women. In the stack on the left are ten books by women writers whose books I’ve already tried. Some of these, like Iris Murdoch and Muriel Spark, are favorites and I've read most of their books. Others, like Margaret Atwood and Elizabeth Strout, are those I've only dipped into but want to read more of their work. In the right stack are ten book by women writers whose work is new to me. There are many other women authors I love, but I limited myself to ten of each. 

FAVORITE AUTHORS

Kate Atkinson, Transcription. I love everything by Atkinson. I really like her Jackson Brodie mystery series, but I also like her historical fiction. 

Margaret Atwood, Hag-Seed. This is Atwood's retelling of William Shakespeare's last play, The Tempest. I've read and enjoyed a few other books from the Hogarth Shakespeare series so am really looking forward to this one. 

Joanne Harris, Five Quarters of the Orange. I've only read one Joanne Harris book and can't remember which one, other than it wasn't Chocolat. I need to remedy this situation. 

Patricia Highsmith, Ripley Under Ground and Ripley’s Game. My book club read her first Ripley book a few years ago and I intended to read the others straight through, but I got off track.

Iris Murdoch, Nuns and Soldiers. I love Murdoch's books but she was so prolific! I feel like I must have read them all but I'm only halfway through. 

Ann Patchett, State of Wonder. I read Bel Canto right when it came out and didn't like it so never read any more books by Anne Patchett. Then my book club read The Dutch House and I loved it, so I read Tom Lake when it came out. Now I want to go back and read her earlier books. 

Annie Proulx, Bad Dirt. The Shipping News is one of my very favorite books. I think I've read almost everything Proulx has written. I don't gravitate to short stories, so what is left on my TBR shelf are a coup of sort story collections, like this one.

Barbara Pym, An Academic Question. Pym is another author I love but have not read as many of her books as I think I have. Time to catch up!

Muriel Spark, The Comforters. I love Spark's snarky, dark humor but have never read this, her first novel. 

Elizabeth Strout, Oh William! I'm not wild about the two other Strout books I've read, but I found this one in a little free library so want to give her another chance. 

NEW-TO-ME 

Ann Beattie, Chilly Scenes of Winter. This one is on Erica Jong's list of Top 20th Century Novels by Women, one of my favorite sources of women authors. 

Suzanne Berne, A Crime in the Neighborhood. This one won the 1999 Women's Prize for Fiction (then the Orange Prize), my other favorite source for finding women writers.

Gina Berriault, Women in Their Beds. Again, I am not drawn to short stories. But this one won both the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction and I am working my way through both those lists. 

Harriet Doerr, Stones for Ibarra. Another Erica Jong listed book.

Shirley Hazzard, The Transit of Venus. This has been on my TBR shelf for years, even though it sounds like a wonderful ovel about two sisters. 

Sarah Orne Jewett, The Country of Pointed Firs. It isn't easy to find classic books by women so I don't know why I haven't read this before now. 

Hiromi Kawakami, The Nakano Thrift Shop. I don't know anything about this, but bought it on a whim because I liked the cover and title. 

Molly Keane, Good Behaviour. This one gets a lot of love on Instagram so I am excited to read it. 

Olivia Manning, The Balkan Trilogy. Anthony Burgess included this trilogy on his list of the Best 99 Novels in English Since 1939 (to 1984), another list I'm working on.

Jody Picoult, Keeping Faith. Despite Picoult's enormous popularity, I have yet to read any of her books. 

Do any of these look good to you? Where would you start?

TBR 23 in '23 and Mt. TBR Challenges -- My Sign Up Post & Wrap Up Post

 

THE TBR 23 IN '23 CHALLENGE

COMPLETED

This is my sign up post for the TBR 23 in '23 Challenge. The simple idea is to read 23 books off your TBR shelves between January 1 and December 31, 2023. If you want to join me (and I hope you do), go to the main challenge page here to sign up. You can participate through your blog, social media, or just in the comments on the challenge pages.

You do not have to pick all your TBR 23 in '23 books ahead of time. I like to, so I do. You can pick them now. Or you can pick some now and some as you go. You can pick them all at whim. Or you can pick now and then change your mind. The only real rule is that you read books that you already owned before January 1, 2023. Find all the rules on the challenge page.

MY TBR 23 IN '23 BOOKS

I like to pick my books ahead of time and keep them stacked by my bedside to motivate me through the year. These are all books that have been on my shelves for so long I want to read them so I can stop looking at them! One has been on my shelf since 1982!!

Here's a list of what is in this basket, listed in alphabetical order by author name, not as shown in the picture above. I may read them in this order because I have no other plan.

• The History Man by Malcolm Bradbury. Campus novels are my favorite sub-genre and this one is a classic.

• Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There by David Brooks, now out of date social commentary, which happens when I leave books on my TBR shelf for so long. 

• Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen by Laurie Colwin. I can't wait to get to this one and have More Home Cooking I plan to slip in as well. 

• The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy is a NYRB Classic that gets lots of social media love for it's awesome cover. 

• Mrs. Ted Bliss by Stanley Elkin. This is on my shelf because it won the National Book Critics Circle Fiction Award in 1995. I want to read it now because I read Francine Prose's praise of Elkin in her book, What to Read and Why.

• A Cordiall Water: A Garland of Odd and Old Receipts to Assuage the Ills of Man and Beast by M.F.K. Fisher, one of her few books I haven't read yet.

• In Search of a Character: Two African Journals by Graham Greene. He's a big favorite of mine but I've not read his nonfiction before.

• The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff is a book I found in a Little Free Library and it looked interesting, if not my usual cup of tea. I'll give it a go, although I did not like Fates & Furies. 

• Mystical Paths by Susan Howatch is the last of five novels in her Church of England series, which I really enjoyed.

• Mystic River by Dennis Lehane. I can't believe I've never read this. 

• Scandinavian Noir: In Pursuit of a Mystery by Wendy Lesser. My law partner gave this to me for Christmas two years ago and I forgot about it!

• Black Dogs by Ian McEwan is one of his earliest books and has sat on my shelf a long time. 

• The Orchid Thief: A True Story of Beauty and Obsession by Susan Orlean. Another contemporary classic I can't believe I haven't read yet.

• Oregon Confetti by Lee Oser is a book that caught my eye a few years back then got lost on my shelf. It looks excellent. 

• The Cloister and the Hearth by Charles Reade. This is the one I bought in high school in 1982 and have carted around ever since. It is time I finally read it!

• The Tuscan Year: Life and Food in an Italian Valley by Elizabeth Romer is one of the many ex pat memoirs lingering on my shelves. 

• The Complete Lord Peter Wimsey Stories by Dorothy L. Sayers. I finished the last of the Wimsey novels last year but never get around to the short stories. Time to fix that. 

• The Driver's Seat by Muriel Spark looks terrific. 

• S. by John Updike is a modern retelling of The Scarlet Letter, which sounds very good. 

• Know Your Style: Mix It, Match It, Love It by Alyson Walsh is a fun little book about fashion for women of a certain age. 

• The Spring by Megan Weiler is a novel about an American ex pat living Tuscany. It's a book club pick so i will read it sooner rather than later, and maybe follow it with the Tuscan memoir.

• The Bear Comes Home by Rafi Zabor won the 1998 PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction and is about a jazz saxophone playing bear in New York City. OK. I'll give it a try.

THE MT. TBR CHALLENGE

COMPLETED

This TBR 23 in '23 Challenge dovetails nicely with the Mt TBR Challenge that Bev at My Reader's Block hosts every year. Like I've done for the past couple of years, I am signing up for the "Mt. Kilimanjaro" Level in 2023 to read a total of 60 books off my TBR shelves. That means 37 books in addition to those listed above.

MY MT. TBR BOOKS

I will try to remember to list my Mt. TBR books here as I read them, although I completely forgot this last year.

UPDATE: Indeed, I forgot to list the books as I went along, but here they are. I read 63 books off my TBR shelves, in addition to my 23 TBR 23 in '23 books, for a total of 86 books off my TBR shelves -- my best year ever!

• Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan

• Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens (abridged)

• The Big Four by Agatha Christie

• Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh

• Playing for the Ashes by Elizabeth George

• A German Requiem by Philip Kerr

• Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene

• Waverley by Sir Walter Scott

• Resurrection Men by Ian Rankin

• The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister

• Rule Britannia by Daphne du Maurier

• The Man Who Was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton

• Winston Churchill: Painting on the French Riviera by Paul Rafferty

• Slightly Foxed, No. 25, Edited by Gail Pirkis

• A Ladder to the Sky by John Boyne

• The Flight of the Falcon by Daphne du Maurier

• The Holy Bible, King James Version

• On Cussing: Bad Words and Creative Cursing by Katherine Dunn

• In the Presence of the Enemy by Elizabeth George

• Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

• So Big by Edna Ferber

• The Magic Barrel by Bernard Malamud

• Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz

• Mapp & Lucia by E. F. Benson

• Deception on His Mind by Elizabeth George

• More Home Cooking: A Writer Returns to the Kitchen by Laurie Colwin

• Lucia's Progress by E. F. Benson

• Kingdom of the Blind by Louise Penny

• Trouble for Lucia by E. F. Benson

• The Grave Gourmet by Alexander Campion

• Assignment in Brittany by Helen MacInnes

• A Simple Country Murder by Blythe Baker

• In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner by Elizabeth George

• Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh

• The Sellout by Paul Beatty

• A Better Man by Louise Penny

• The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham

• The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

• Dusk and Other Stories by James Salter

• Snow by John Banville

• After Many a Summer Dies the Swan by Aldous Huxley

• My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier

• The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron

• Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham

• A Traitor to Memory by Elizabeth George

• Mating by Norman Rush

• The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte

• The Chosen by Chaim Potok

• Hungry Hill by Daphne du Maurier

• The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens

• The Collected Poems by W. B. Yeats

• The Long Good-Bye by Raymond Chandler

• Black Mischief by Evelyn Waugh

• The Man with Two Left Feet by P. G. Wodehouse

• Lost for Words by Edward St. Aubyn

• A Place of Hiding by Elizabeth George

• Innocent Blood by P. D. James

• Straight Man by Richard Russo

• Piccadilly Jim by P. G. Wodehouse

• The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham

• Even Dogs in the Wild by Ian Rankin

• Aqua Alta by Donna Leon

• War & Peace by Leo Tolstoy

The Counterlife by Philip Roth -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

After our cold, rainy spring, summer is finally here in Portland. Of course, by next week, we will all complain it is too hot. That’s a ritual of Oregon life.

But it is beautiful this week. And I am so looking forward to Book Club tonight because it is the perfect evening for dinner outside, drinking pink wine, and chatting about books with my IRL book friends.

Are you in a book club? How do you pick the books you read and how often do you meet? We meet every other month and rotate hosting alphabetically by last name. The hostess picks the book for the next meeting. 

Fortunately, I remembered to post my Book Beginnings on Fridays post before I left for Book Club. Please join me to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading this week -- of just a book that caught your fancy.

MY BOOK BEGINNING

Ever since the family doctor, during a routine checkup, discovered an abnormality on his EKG and he went in overnight for the coronary catheterization that revealed the dimensions of the disease, Henry’s condition had been successfully treated with drugs, enabling him to work and to carry on his life at home exactly as before.

-- The Counterlife by Philip Roth, winner of the 1987 National Book Critics Circle Award.

I'm reading this one now and love it. It's the fifth of nine Nathan Zuckerman books. It starts with the idea is that Zuckerman's younger brother needs heart surgery. Then there are alternate versions of where the story goes from  there -- Henry dies during surgery; he survives but leaves his family and moves to a kibbutz in Israel's West Bank; it's really Nathan who needs the surgery and he dies; Nathan marries a fourth wife and moves to England. There might be another version, but that's as far as I've gotten so far. It's very clever.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNING

Please leave the link to your Book Beginning post in the Linky box below. If you share on SM, please use the #bookbeginnings hashtag.

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THE FRIDAY 56

TIE IN: The Friday 56 hosted by Freda's Voice is a natural tie in with this event and there is a lot of cross over, so many people combine the two. The idea is to post a teaser from page 56 of the book you are reading and share a link to your post. Find details and the Linky for your Friday 56 post on Freda’s Voice.

MY FRIDAY 56

From The Counterlife:

Down in the living room, he worked his way through the clan, accepting their sympathies, listening to their memories, answering questions about where he was living and what he was writing, until he had made his way to Cousin Essie, his favorite relative and once upon a time the family powerhouse. She was sitting in a club chair by the fireplace with a cane across her knees.

National Book Critics Circle Fiction Award Winners -- BOOK LIST

The National Book Critics Circle presents annual awards for books published in English in six categories: Fiction, Nonfiction, Biography, Autobiography, Poetry, and Criticism. The NBCC Awards started in 1975.

I confess I bear a grudge against the NBCC fiction Award for inflicting some of my least favorite novels on me, including Being Dead, All the Pretty Horses, and Song of Solomon. On the other hand, I only read Americanah and Motherless Brooklyn because they are on list and I love both of them.

I decided to not keep updating the winners after 2021. My enthusiasm for prize-winners is waning with the 2020s. I may focus my efforts on reading the winners up to 2020 then declare victory and move on to other bookish projects.

This is the list of the NBCC fiction Award winners through 2021, with notes about whether I've finished the book or not. So far, I've read 33 of the winners. I've also noted it a book is on my TBR shelf or available as an audiobook from my library. Those notes help me keep track. 

2021 The Love Songs of W.E.B DuBois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers ON OVERDRIVE

2020 Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell FINISHED

2019 Everything Inside by Edwidge Danticat ON OVERDRIVE

2018 Milkman by Anna Burns FINISHED

2017 Improvement by Joan Silber ON OVERDRIVE

2016 LaRose by Louise Erdrich FINISHED

2015 The Sellout by Paul Beatty FINISHED

2014 Lila by Marilynne Robinson FINISHED

2013 Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie FINISHED

2012 Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain FINISHED

2011 Binocular Vision: New & Selected Stories by Edith Pearlman

2010 A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan FINISHED

2009 Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (reviewed here) FINISHED

2008 2666 by Robert Bolano TBR SHELF

2007 The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz FINISHED

2006 The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai FINISHED

2005 The March by E.L. Doctorow ON OVERDRIVE

2004 Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (reviewed here) FINISHED

2003 The Known World by Edward P. Jones FINISHED

2002 Atonement by Ian McEwan FINISHED

2001 Austerlitz by Winfried Georg Sebald FINISHED

2000 Being Dead by Jim Crace FINISHED

1999 Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem FINISHED

1998 The Love of a Good Woman by Alice Munro TBR SHELF

1997 The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald FINISHED

1996 Women in Their Beds by Gina Berriault TBR SHELF

1995 Mrs. Ted Bliss by Stanley Elkin FINISHED

1994 The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields FINISHED

1993 A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines TBR SHELF

1992 All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy (reviewed here) FINISHED

1991 A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley FINISHED

1990 Rabbit at Rest by John Updike FINISHED

1989 Billy Bathgate by E. L. Doctorow FINISHED

1988 The Middleman and Other Stories by Bharati Mukherjee TBR SHELF

1987 The Counterlife by Philip Roth FINISHED

1986 Kate Vaiden by Reynolds Price FINISHED

1985 The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler FINISHED

1984 Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich TBR SHELF

1983 Ironweed by William Kennedy FINISHED

1982 George Mills by Stanley Elkin TBR SHELF

1981 Rabbit is Rich by John Updike FINISHED

1980 The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard TBR SHELF

1979 The Year of the French by Thomas Flanagan FINISHED

1978 The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever (reviewed here) FINISHED

1977 Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison FINISHED

1976 October Light by John C Gardner TBR SHELF

1975 Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow FINISHED

NOTES

Updated March 20, 2024. This is a refresh of the list I first posted in 2012. 

Billy Bathgate by E. L. Doctorow - BOOK BEGINNINGS and THE FRIDAY 56

 

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Welcome to Book Beginnings on Fridays, where we share the first sentence or so of the book we are enjoying this week. You can play along on your own blog, social media, or in the comments below.

If you post on your blog or social media, please link to your post in the linky below. Please link to your BBOF post not your home page or social media profile. If you want to participate in the comments, just leave a comment with the opening sentence of the book, along with the title and author's name. 

If you post or share on social media, please use the #bookbeginnings hashtag so we can find each other. 

MY BOOK BEGINNING

I'm making a big effort -- a bigger effort than usual -- to clear off my TBR shelves in 2021. With that goal in mind, I'm reading Billy Bathgate by E. L. Doctorow this week because it has been on my TBR shelf for as long as I can remember. 

He had to have planned it because when we drove onto the dock the boat was there and the engine was running and you could see the water churning up phosphorescence in the river, which was the only light there was because there was no moon, nor no electric light either in the shack where the dockmaster should have been sitting, nor on the boat itself, and certainly not from the car, yet everyone knew where everything was, and when the big Packard came down the ramp Mickey the driver braked it so that the wheels hardly rattled the boards, and when he pulled up alongside the gangway the doors were already open and they hustled Bo and the girl upside before they even made a shadow in all that darkness.

Wow! That is quite a shaggy opening sentence. It's an entire story in itself. Billy Bathgate won the 1989 National Book Critics Circle Award and the 1990 PEN/Faulkner Award. 

I didn't care for Ragtime, even though most people love it, so I put this one off. But I'm now halfway through and enjoying it very much. Ragtime bugged me because it seemed to me a bucket of historic facts dumped out and then strung together like beads by the story. Although Billy Bathgate is based on the criminal history of New York gangster Dutch Schultz, it is a solid, cohesive story.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

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THE FRIDAY 56

TIE IN: The Friday 56 hosted by Freda's Voice is a natural tie in with this event and there is a lot of cross over, so many people combine the two. The idea is to post a teaser from page 56 of the book you are reading and share a link to your post. Find details and the Linky for your Friday 56 post on Freda’s Voice.

MY FRIDAY 56

From Billy Bathgate

It surprised me that someone that physically unfortunate would want to dress sharply. His trousers were pulled up so high by his suspenders that he seemed not to have any chest.

Doctorow is a good storyteller. He spins a yarn so you can picture everything precisely. 

2018 CHALLENGE: European Reading Challenge Wrap Up

COMPLETED

This is my personal wrap up post for the 2018 European Reading Challenge.

If you have completed the 2018 challenge, please got to the official wrap up page and add a link to your wrap up post. To post a review for a 2018 book, please go to the review page.

The 2019 challenge will be posted ASAP.

BOOKS I READ

The Virgin in the Garden by A. S. Byatt (UK)

The Tsar of Love and Techno by Anthony Marra (Russia)

Long Ago in France: The Years in Dijon by M. F. K. Fisher (France)

The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson (Sweden)

Austerlitz by W. G. Sebald (Germany; National Book Critics Circle Award winner)

The Lesser Bohemians by Eimear McBride (Ireland; James Tate Black Memorial Prize winner)

Nemesis by Jo Nesbo (Norway)

Exodus by Leon Uris (Belgium)

Waiting for Sunrise by William Boyd (Austria)

The Janissary Tree by Jason Goodwin (Turkey; Edgar Award winner)

Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay by Elena Ferrante (Italy)

Gertrude and Claudius by John Updike (Denmark)

Outline by Rachel Cusk (Greece)

I visited a total of 13 different countries for this challenge, which is pretty good for me. What is better, for me, is that four of the books were translated to English from the authors' native languages. I read a lot of books set in other countries, but not usually by authors from other countries.

Teaser Tuesday: Austerlitz by W. J. Sebald

And just as Austerlitz had broken off with these words that first evening, so he continued his observations the following day, for which we had arranged a meeting on the promenade beside the Schelde. Pointing to the broad river sparkling in the morning sun, he spoke of a picture painted by Lucas van Valckenborch toward the end of the sixteenth century during what is now called the Little Ice Age, showing the frozen Schelde from the opposite bank, with the city of Antwerp very dark beyond it and a strip of flat countryside stretching toward the sea.

Austerlitz by W. J. Sebald. There is a rule for writers, "Don't tell, show." This book does the opposite. The entire novel is Jacques Austerlitz telling his life story to an unnamed narrator. His fictional life is interesting, but he goes off on digressions about walled fortifications, moths, exotic birds, Liverpool Station, Turner aquatints, and a dozen other things. It's like following someone click through random Wikipedia articles.

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by The Purple Booker, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event.

TBT: Review: The Stories of John Cheever

Throw Back Thursday

This review was first posted on March 24, 2008

Before there was Mad Men, there was John Cheever.

The Stories of John Cheever, which won the National Book Critics Circle award in 1978 and the Pulitzer in 1979, is a chronological collection that spans Cheever’s short story career, from pre-WWII up to 1973. To read this collection – just shy of 700 pages – is to live in Cheever’s head, tracking his artistic and personal development in a way that a single novel or volume of stories doesn’t allow.

These are not happy stories. The earlier pieces are particularly bleak and raw. While the later stories are deeper and more nuanced, they are still pretty dark. Precious few have cheerful resolutions. The best Cheever’s characters seem to achieve is contentment despite imperfect circumstances.

Cheever’s is a world of commuter trains and cocktail parties, where everyone wears hats, has a cook, drinks martinis at lunch, summers, sails, and commits adultery. Not everyone is rich; in fact, money problems are a continuing theme. But the trappings, however tarnished, of a mid-century, Northeast corridor, upper crust way of life hang on all the stories. And that is Cheever at his best. He can bring us so deep into that world that it feels like living it.

Five Faves: Midwest Books

There are times when a full-sized book list is just too much; when the Top 100, a Big Read, or all the Prize winners seem like too daunting an effort. That's when a short little list of books grouped by theme may be just the ticket.

Inspired by Nancy Pearl's "Companion Reads" chapter in Book Lust – themed clusters of books on subjects as diverse as Bigfoot and Vietnam – I decided to start occasionally posting lists of five books grouped by topic or theme. I call these posts my Five Faves.

Feel free to grab the button and play along.  Use today's theme or come up with your own.  If you post about it, please link back to here and leave the link to your post in a comment.  If you want to participate but don't have a blog or don't feel like posting, please share your list in a comment.

FIVE FAVE MIDWEST BOOKS

My roots are in Nebraska and as the holidays roll around -- Thanksgiving especially -- nostalgia waxes for the flatlands of my childhood.

Any suggestion? What stories of the heartland tug on your heartstrings?

Here are five of my favorite books set in a celebrating the American Midwest.  You can tell from my list that my idea of "the Midwest" doesn't extend further east than about Davenport, Iowa.

• O Pioneers! by Willa Cather.  This very readable classic about prairie settlers is on the Radcliffe list of Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century -- the rival to the Modern Library's list. 

• The Road Home by Jim Harrison.  Harrison's inter-generational family story picks up where his earlier novel, Dalva, left off.  It has a permanent place on my personal Top 10 list and is probably my favorite American novel.

• The Echo Maker by Richard Powers.  Brain science and sand-hill cranes, no wonder it won the National Book Award.

• Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (reviewed here).  Robinson won the Pulitzer Prize for this uplifting and entertaining epistolary novel.

• A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley.  It may be a little overwrought, but this Midwest Gothic deserves its Pulitzer Prize.  It also won the National Book Critics Circle Award and made it onto Erica Jong's list of Top 100 20th Century Novels by Women.

Flashback Friday: The Stories of John Cheever

The Stories of John Cheever, which won the National Book Critics Circle award in 1978 and the Pulitzer in 1979, is a chronological collection that spans Cheever’s short story career, from pre-WWII up to 1973. To read this collection – just shy of 700 pages – is to live in Cheever’s head, tracking his artistic and personal development in a way that a single novel or volume of stories doesn’t allow.

These are not happy stories. The earlier pieces are particularly bleak and raw. While the later stories are deeper and more nuanced, they are still pretty dark. Precious few have cheerful resolutions. The best Cheever’s characters seem to achieve is contentment despite imperfect circumstances.

Cheever’s is a world of commuter trains and cocktail parties, where everyone wears hats, has a cook, drinks martinis at lunch, summers, sails, and commits adultery. Not everyone is rich; in fact, money problems are a continuing theme. But the trappings, however tarnished, of a mid-century, Northeast corridor, upper crust way of life hang on all the stories. And that is Cheever at his best. He can bring us so deep into that world that it feels like living it.

NOTES

I read this book back in 2006 or so, before I started this blog.  I can't say I enjoyed all the stories, but the collection left a powerful impression that has stayed with me.

This is the first time I've participated in Flashback Friday, but I like the idea and hope to participate more often.

Flashback Friday

hosted by Bookshelf Fantasies

Pick a book from your reading past to highlight -- something you’ve read yourself and wish everyone would read, preferably that is still in print, but was originally published five or more years ago.

Review: The Stories of John Cheever

The Stories of John Cheever, which won the National Book Critics Circle award in 1978 and the Pulitzer in 1979, is a chronological collection that spans Cheever’s short story career, from pre-WWII up to 1973.

To read this collection – just shy of 700 pages – is to live in Cheever’s head, tracking his artistic and personal development in a way that a single novel or volume of stories doesn’t allow. These are not happy stories. The earlier pieces are particularly bleak and raw. While the later stories are deeper and more nuanced, they are still pretty dark. Precious few have cheerful resolutions. The best Cheever’s characters seem to achieve is contentment despite imperfect circumstances.

Cheever’s is a world of commuter trains and cocktail parties, where everyone wears hats, has a cook, drinks martinis at lunch, summers, sails, and commits adultery. Not everyone is rich; in fact, money problems are a continuing theme. But the trappings, however tarnished, of a mid-century, Northeast corridor, upper crust way of life hang on all the stories. And that is Cheever at his best. He can bring us so deep into that world that it feels like living it.


OTHER REVIEWS

If you would like your review of this book listed here, please leave a comment with a link and I will add it.

List: National Book Critics Circle Award

First awarded in 1976, the National Book Critics Circle Award is an annual award given by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) to promote the finest books and reviews published in English.

The main awards fall into six categories: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Memoir/Autobiography, Biography, and Criticism. Awards are not given to titles that have been previously published in English, such as re-issues and paperback editions.

I confess I bear a grudge against the NBCC Award for inflicting Being Dead, All the Pretty Horses, and Song of Solomon on me -- all which I read only because they were on this list.  On the other hand, I only read Motherless Brooklyn because it was here, and I loved that book.

This is the list of fiction winners. Those I have read are in red. Those on my TBR shelf are in blue.

2020 Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

2019 Everything Inside by Edwidge Danticat

2018 Milkman by Anna Burns

2017 Improvement by Joan Silber

2016 LaRose by Louise Erdrich

2015 The Sellout by Paul Beatty

2014 Lila by Marilynne Robinson

2013 Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

2012 Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain

2011 Binocular Vision: New & Selected Stories by Edith Pearlman

2010 A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

2009 Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (reviewed here)

2008 2666 by Robert Bolano

2007 The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

2006 The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai

2005 The March by E.L. Doctorow

2004 Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (reviewed here)

2003 The Known World by Edward P. Jones

2002 Atonement by Ian McEwan

2001 Austerlitz by Winfried Georg Sebald

2000 Being Dead by Jim Crace

1999 Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem

1998 The Love of a Good Woman by Alice Munro

1997 The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald

1996 Women in Their Beds by Gina Berriault

1995 Mrs. Ted Bliss by Stanley Elkin

1994 The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields

1993 A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines

1992 All the Pretty Horses by Cormac Mccarthy (reviewed here)

1991 A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley

1990 Rabbit at Rest by John Updike

1989 Billy Bathgate by E. L. Doctorow

1988 The Middleman and Other Stories by Bharati Mukherjee

1987 The Counterlife by Philip Roth

1986 Kate Vaiden by Reynolds Price

1985 The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler

1984 Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich

1983 Ironweed by William Kennedy

1982 George Mills by Stanley Elkin

1981 Rabbit is Rich by John Updike

1980 The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard

1979 The Year of the French by Thomas Flanagan

1978 The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever (reviewed here)

1977 Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison

1976 October Light by John C Gardner

NOTE

Last updated on December 31, 2018.

OTHERS READING THE BOOKS ON THIS LIST

If you would like to be listed here, please leave a comment with links to your progress reports or reviews and I will add them here.

Mailbox Monday

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia at A girl and her books (fka The Printed Page), who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring meme (details here).

Serena at Savvy Verse & Wit is hosting in October.  Please go by and visit her wonderful blog.

Because the Friends of the Multnomah County Library had their big fall sale this past weekend, a huge stack of books came into my house.

Not counting the eight Jack Reacher books that Hubby got (he's only just now discovered Lee Child, although I've been raving for years), the stack includes:

Parnassus on Wheels and The Haunted Bookshop by Christopher Morley



Getting to Know the General: The Story of an Involvement by Graham Greene

The Complete Claudine: Claudine at School, Claudine in Paris, Claudine Married, Claudine and Annie by Colette (one of several omnibus editions I picked up; I read a lot of Colette when I was in college, but don't remember any of it; on my French Connections list)

The Complete Essays and Other Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson (a great Modern Library edition with dust jacket)



The Diary of Anais Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934 and The Diary of Anais Nin, Vol. 3: 1939-1944 (I am in a Paris book reading mood, so got these to add to my French Connections list; too bad I couldn't find Vol. 2)

The Vicar of Wakefield and Other Writings by Oliver Goldsmith (another cool Modern Library edition with dust jacket)



Between the Acts by Virginia Woolf (her last novel; I have an aspiration to read more Woolf)



Cities of the Interior by Anais Nin (in for a penny . . . )



Maurice: A Novel by E. M. Forster

The Beet Queen and Love Medicine by Louis Erdrich (Love Medicine won the National Book Critics Circle award)



The Raj Quartet by Paul Scott (in a nifty boxed set of paperbacks)



Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith (I've seen this around a lot -- it looks very good and I want to read it right away)



The Secret Hangman by Peter Lovesey (I've now gathered three of his books but haven't read any of them yet -- must start)



The Complete Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton (I've been meaning to get to these; here they are in an omnibus edition)



The Gun Seller by Hugh Laurie (I took a flyer on this one)



Toward the End of Time by John Updike (I'm an Updike completist)



Absolute Truths by Susan Howatch (the sixth and last book in her series about the Church of England; I want to read the series and still need the first two)



Brief Lives by Anita Brookner (I was inspired by International Anita Brookner Day)



House Made of Dawn by Scott N. Momaday (this won the Pulitzer Prize in 1969)



Small World by David Lodge (the sequel to Changing Places, which I loved)



The Woman Who Walked into Doors by Roddy Doyle



The Avignon Quintet by Lawrence Durrell (a doorstop of an omnibus edition; Monsieur: Or, The Prince of Darkness, the first book of The Avignon Quintet, won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize))



Venice: Lion City: The Religion of Empire by Gary Wills (looks great and is going on my Venice List)



The Lion by Nelson DeMille (because I am so loving Cathedral that I am stocking up on his others)

Mailbox Monday

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia at A girl and her books (fka The Printed Page), who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring meme (details here).

Serena at Savvy Verse & Wit is hosting in October.  Please go by and visit her wonderful blog. 

Many books came into my house last week from a variety of sources:

First, I had lunch with Larry Dennis to discuss his company, Turbo Leadership Systems doing some work with my law firm.  Larry gave me a copy of his book InFormation: How To Gain The 71% Advantage.  I don't read a lot of business books, but I'll read this one.



Second, Bob Sanchez, author and nonfiction editor at the Internet Review of Books, sent me a copy of his mystery, Little Mountain. I don't have a Kindle, so Bob was nice enough to send a paperback, but the Kindle edition is a steal at only $2.99! It looks great -- a Cambodian refugee now homicide cop in Lowell, Massachusetts.



Third, because I completed the Vintage Mystery Challenge, hostess Bev from My Reader's Block sent me a prize -- A PRIZE! For reading books. Does it get any better than that?  I chose An Oxford Tragedy by J. C. Masterman because this challenge has me hooked for good on vintage mysteries.



Finally, showing an uncharacteristic willingness to relinquish control, I gave a copy of my "Books to Buy and Read" list to Rachelle at my favorite Second Glance bookstore.  She found several nice copies for me, so I have a stack of new (to me) books, most of them on one or another of my book lists:

The Once and Future King by T. H. White (on the Burgess list)



One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn (on the College Board's Top 101 List and the MLA's 30 Books Every Adult Should Read Before They Die list)



What Makes Sammy Run? by Budd Schulberg (in a nice Modern Library edition; on the BOMC's Well-Stocked Bookcase list)



An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro (winner of the Costa Book of the Year award)



Old Bones: A Gideon Oliver Mystery by Aaron Elkins (an Edgar Award winner)



A Case of Need by Michael Crichton (another Edgar winner)



The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir (in a nice Everyman's Library reissue; on my own French Connections list)



The Love of a Good Woman by Alice Munro (winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award)



The Jungle Books by Rudyard Kipling (on the Easton Top 100 list)