According to Esquire magazine, these are the 12 authors every man (and woman) should know:
Saul Bellow - The Adventures of Augie March
Everything you need to know about what propels the American male: “I am an American, Chicago born — Chicago, that somber city — and go at things as I have taught myself, freestyle, and will make the record in my own way: first to knock, first admitted; sometimes an innocent knock, sometimes a not so innocent.”
Raymond Carver - Where I’m Calling From
A car hits a boy. A woman licks whiskey off her lover’s belly. Nobody captures the darkness and hopefulness of everyday America better.
Cormac McCarthy – Blood Meridian
Because he tells a truth most don’t want to hear: that man is capable of terrible evil.
This is how smart, beautiful, post racial women think. This is prose so kinetic, it seems to break-dance.
William Faulkner - As I Lay Dying
Sometimes you must see the world through a fractured lens.
Flannery O’Connor - The Complete Stories
Because: “She would of been a good woman … if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.” We all would.
No writer knows more about our current cultural fears — the cold-war anxiety of The Dead Zone, the post-9/11 fearfulness of Under the Dome — than Uncle Stevie.
Graham Greene - The Quiet American
Have you ever felt as though you can’t trust anyone, not your friends or your lovers, not your boss, your family, not your god, not even yourself?
George Orwell – Down and Out in Paris and London
Because he is angry, uncompromising, and unapologetically political.
Phillip Roth - American Pastoral
He understands that at base, we’re a nation of fearful womanizers. Plus, he wrote the only great novel to end with a guy getting poked in the eye with a fork.
Norman Mailer - The Executioner’s Song
Because behind the grandstanding — the run for mayor, the head-butting of Gore Vidal — you can sense that Mailer was as much a fragile soul as the last great literary man.
William Shakespeare – Henry V
We all come out of Shakespeare’s pen — every one of us, every one of our stories of revenge, of ambition, of baleful and nectarous and incestuous love.
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Charlotte’s Web (HarperCollins) by E.B. White and illustrated by Garth Williams is an award-winning children’s novel about a pig named Wilbur who is saved from being slaughtered by an intelligent spider named Charlotte.
Eloise (Simon & Schuster) by Kay Thompson and illustrated by Hilary Knight is the story of a six-year-old Eloise who lives in the room on the tippy-top floor of the Plaza Hotel in New York with her Nanny, her pug dog Weenie, and her turtle Skipperdee.
A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning (HarperCollins) by Lemony Snicket is not a typical kids’ book. It has plot lines similar to those of Charles Dickens but funnier.
The Tale of Peter Rabbit (Warne) by Beatrix Potter was published by Frederick Warne & Co. in 1902 with an initial 8,000 copies printed and the tale has never been out of print since. Potter went on to publish another 22 little books over the next 28 years, the proceeds from which enabled her to buy Hill Top Farm in the Lake District. Eventually she went on to own 15 farms and over 4,000 acres of land in the area. A woman ahead of her time, she saw the potential in her most famous character creating the first patented soft toy in 1903, making Peter Rabbit the oldest licensed character. She left an astounding legacy of stories, characters, art and unspoiled landscape to the world.
A Wrinkle in Time (Square Fish) by Madeleine L’Engle follows three children on a trip through time in search of their father, a scientist who disappeared while engaged in secret work for the government on the tesseract problem.
Bunnicula (Simon & Schuster) by Deborah and James Howe is the story of a vegetarian vampire bunny.
The Story of Ferdinand (Viking Juvenile) by Munro Leaf and illustrated by Robert Lawson tells of a little bull who prefers sitting quietly under a cork tree, smelling the flowers, to jumping around and butting heads with other bulls.
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Jeffrey Stepakoff’s second novel, Fireworks Over Toccoa, is a Spring 2010 Okra Pick. It will be released on March 30, 2010, by Thomas Dunne Books. Stepakoff is a former TV and movie writer. His first book, Billion-Dollar Kiss: The Kiss That Saved Dawson’s Creek and Other Adventures in TV Writing, is about his career.
Fireworks Over Toccoa is the story of Lily Woodward who was married for just days before her husband was sent abroad to fight in WWII. Now, he and the other soldiers are returning, and the small town of Toccoa, Georgia plans a big celebration. But a handsome and kind Italian immigrant, responsible for the elaborate fireworks display the town commissioned, captures Lily’s heart and soul. Torn between duty to society and her husband, and a poor, passionate man who might be her only true love—Lily must choose between a love she never knew and a commitment she’d already made.
Fireworks Over Toccoa can be purchased at most SIBA member stores, including Park Road Books in Charlotte, NC, and Quail Ridge Books & Music in Raleigh, NC.
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Saving CeeCee Honeycutt (Pamela Dorman Books, 2010) is Beth Hoffman’s debut novel. It is a SIBA Okra Pick, also. Read a synopsis of the book and check out the author’s tour schedule. Among other stops, Hoffman will be at Page and Palette Bookstore in Fairhope, AL on Thursday, March 4, 2010.
This novel will remind you of The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd and Keeping the Moon by Sarah Dessen.
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Final Target (Harper, 2010) is Steven Gore’s debut novel, an international thriller drawn from his own investigations. His character, Graham Gage, becomes involved in a stock swindle and an arms deal that threatens the American military in the Middle East. Gore is a private investigator who has uncovered murder, fraud, money laundering, and other crimes in Europe, Asia and Latin America. Final Target is a fast-paced, page-turner that you won’t want to put down.
Frame Up (Oceanview Publishing, 2009) by John F. Dobbyn takes us from Boston to Amsterdam in search of priceless art. Michael Knight practiced with the U.S. Attorney’s office and a prestigious trial firm before he and his mentor, Lex Devlin, form their own criminal defense law firm. In the wake of his best friend’s murder, Knight must build a defense for the alledged bomber, the son of a Mafia don.
Dead Air (Oceanview Publishing, 2009) by Deborah Shlian and Linda Reid brings us brash Sammy Greene, the host of The Hot Line, a talk radio show at her ultraconservative college. When Sammy discovers the body of Dr. Burton Conrad, one of the college’s most esteemed professors, her journalistic drive kicks in and she sets out to find answers to what happened. Sammy steps on toes and stumbles onto a frightening conspiracy that threatens to reach far beyond the college campus.
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Sworn to Silence is Linda Castillo’s 21st novel, but the first in her Kate Burkholder series. The town of Painters Mill is part Amish, part ‘English’. Its Chief of Police is Kate Burkholder, a young woman who chose not to enter the church when she came of age and left town. Some sixteen years later, still young and a tad inexperienced, she has returned to Painters Mill and to the top job. Now, she is faced with a series of brutal crimes in which the female victims are tortured and raped. The killer’s signature—Roman numerals ritualistically carved into each victim’s abdomen—matches the MO of four unsolved murders from 16 years earlier. Kate is personally connected to the old murders because she was sexually assaulted by an Amish man named Daniel Lapp. She shoots Lapp in self-defense and, seeing blood splattered across the floor, is certain he’s dead. Her father drags away the body, and the family banishes the incident from their memories, never reporting it to police. Kate battles her inner demons as she tracks down a killer who shows no sign of letting up. Can she come clean about her past without losing her job?
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The 13th Hour is a thriller told in reverse, reminiscent of the 2000 film Memento. This is Richard Doetsch’s third novel after The Thieves of Heaven and The Thieves of Faith. As a test of his writing skill, Doetsch wrote the story in 30 days. New Line Cinema has won the film rights to the story.
The story centers around Nick Quinn, a man accused of murdering his wife. A mysterious stranger visits him in the police interrogation room and offers him a way to go back in time to prevent Julia’s murder. Nick begins to realize that his actions in the past may have unexpected consequences in the future.
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Honoring the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction and television published or produced in 2009, the Edgar Awards will be presented to the winners at the 64th Gala Banquet, April 29, 2010, at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City.
The nominees for Best Novel are The Missing by Tim Gautreaux, The Odds by Kathleen George, The Last Child by John Hart, Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death by Charlie Huston and Nemesis by Jo Nesbo, translated by Don Bartlett.
Read the rest of the nominees here.
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The 2010 Caldecott Medal winner is The Lion & the Mouse, illustrated and written by Jerry Pinkney (Little Brown and Company Books for Young Readers).
The 2010 Newberry Award winner is When You Reach Me written by Rebecca Stead (Wendy Lamb Books).
The 2010 Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature winner is Going Bovine written by Libba Bray (Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers).
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As an audience, it seems we cannot get enough of Jane Eyre or the author, Charlotte Bronte. In this beautifully imagined tale of the Bronte sisters and the writing of Jane Eyre, author Sheila Kohler takes us to the gloomy Yorkshire moors of northern England. The family seems cursed: the mother and two of the children are dead; the father is sick; another son destroyed by alcohol and opiates. Is life imitating art or art imitating life?
In Becoming Jane Eyre, the story centers around Charlotte and the overlapping narratives of author and heroine. Both women, real and imagined, are angry at their circumstances and indignant at the injustices they suffer. Kohler ably portrays Charlotte’s unrequited love for a married man and the agony she undergoes because of it. The language of the book is the same as that in the time of Jane Eyre.
Kohler’s novel Cracks has been made into a movie directed by Jordan Scott (Ridley’s daughter).
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Ten years of great southern lit for $9.95!
Ordering Information:
Bookstores: Available from Ingram, 978-0-9825205-0-5, SRP $9.95
Consumers: Available at Southern Indie Bookstores.
How well do you know your Southern lit? We dare you to use a pen on these crossword puzzles, each inspired by one of the winning titles of the SIBA Book Award, honoring ten years of the very best in Southern literature as chosen by the people who would know...Southern Independent Booksellers! A great gift for your book club, for puzzle-lovers, and anyone who loves Southern literature.