[VFB]⇒ Read Free The Saloncom Reader Guide to Contemporary Authors Laura Miller Adam Begley 9780140280883 Books

The Saloncom Reader Guide to Contemporary Authors Laura Miller Adam Begley 9780140280883 Books

Download As PDF : The Saloncom Reader Guide to Contemporary Authors Laura Miller Adam Begley 9780140280883 Books

The Saloncom Reader Guide to Contemporary Authors Laura Miller Adam Begley 9780140280883 Books

Terrific read! I would love to see this book updated, seeing as it's now about 18 years since originally published.


Tags : The Salon.com Reader's Guide to Contemporary Authors [Laura Miller, Adam Begley] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. An alphabetically organized guide to 225 of the most insteresting authors of the twentieth century features biographical profiles,Laura Miller, Adam Begley,The Salon.com Reader's Guide to Contemporary Authors,Penguin Putnam,014028088X,American fiction;20th century;Bio-bibliography.,English fiction;20th century;Bio-bibliography.,Reading interests.,20th century,American fiction,Bio-bibliography,English fiction,General,Literary Criticism,Literary Criticism Reference,Literature - Classics Criticism,Reading interests,Reference,Reference Personal & Practical Guides

The Saloncom Reader Guide to Contemporary Authors Laura Miller Adam Begley 9780140280883 Books Reviews

It's hard to find anything like this book. Most literature reviews refuse to take any kind of stand except when talking about the classics. Even then they just tell you what you should read and rarely go into the reasons why it's worth bothering.

Putting this book together was just a great idea. In it, you'll find a list of 225 modern authors. Most published after 1960, and all of them published their works in English (though there is a small appendix of translated authors worth checking out). For each author you get a bit of background information, a list of the books they'd written (up until 2000, anyway), and recommendations on which books are best. On top of that, you'll also find frank criticism, as well as comparisons to other authors you might also like.

The list of authors covered is fairly extensive. A lot of attention is given to female and minority writers. You'll find award winning authors like Toni Morrison and Philip Roth next to bestsellers such as Michael Crichton and Anne Rice. You can assume that almost any important novelist from 1960 to 2000 is at least mentioned, if only in passing, and their works are summarized and criticized, sometimes harshly.

Also included are tons of informative sidebars written by the authors themselves, including stuff like a list of books dealing with adultery (by John Updike), a list of southern literature put together by William Styron, and a list of war novels by Robert Stone.

A ton of people helped write the author blurbs--from editor Laura Miller to David Eggers. Sometimes the writing is pretentious or just plain bad, but often it's humorous, and despite the attempts at getting cute, in the end you look to a reference book to find information, and the information contained here is exceptional.
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.
"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.
Terrific read! I would love to see this book updated, seeing as it's now about 18 years since originally published.