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Best modern american novelists? Links about modern literary criticism?


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I would like to read the most well respected modern authors. I am completely unfamiliar with modern literary criticism - who is considered good and why. Does anyone have links?

 

I read The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides. I was so intrigued by his good reviews... I flipped through his other two novels at a bookstore. I read an article that said he knew David Foster Wallace and Jonathan Franzen. They are very highly thought of in literary circles apparently, so I added them also.

 

I would appreciate any recommendations of who to read.

 

Marilynne Robinson (love her already though)

Jonathan Franzen

David Foster Wallace

Jeffrey Eugenides

Edited by LNC
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I mean last 20-25 years. I shortened my op to simplify - but I originally wrote past 25 yrs. since I graduated. :)

 

The Yale course is post WW2. That is fine for my purposes as well bc I haven't read any of the authors in the syllabus besides O'Conner (took a southern gothic class in college and read tons).

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How about taking a look at some of the authors in this list?

 

http://www.pulitzer.org/bycat/Fiction

 

Thanks, I have the Pulitzer and National Book Award lists. I started thinking about this bc no fiction book won a Pulitzer for 2012.

 

My interest has been piqued further by reading some well regarded authors myself...

 

I am interested in why books/novelists are considered "good" these days. I am hoping the open Yale course will give me a list w/ the answers to the "why?".

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The Pulitzer site helps you along the way with quotes from the committee expounding briefly on what qualities they saw in the books. I've seen them mention stylistic skill (from that list, Jhumpa Lahiri's books are ones I've read that are stylistically gorgeous), generosity of spirit, taking on prominent social and cultural issues in a convincing story, the use of oddball characters to explore life outside the mainstream of society, etc.

 

I have also googled around in the past and found online bits from the judges going into quite a bit of detail about disagreements among the committee members, which makes for some fascinating reading. Members of the Booker Prize committee in England also publish some of their thoughts and quarrels.

 

I'm looking for the quotes on the Pulitzer site and don't see them.

http://www.pulitzer.org/bycat/Fiction

Should I google the names of the judges and the book winner?

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I started thinking about this bc no fiction book won a Pulitzer for 2012.

 

My interest has been piqued further by reading some well regarded authors myself...

 

I am interested in why books/novelists are considered "good" these days. I am hoping the open Yale course will give me a list w/ the answers to the "why?".

 

LNC, did you read the New Yorker articles by Michael Cunningham? (first one here for anyone who hasn't - http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2012/07/letter-from-the-pulitzer-fiction-jury-what-really-happened-this-year.html ) I'm reading this thread with great interest, as I have a great love of reading, but hate reading anything written after about, oh, 1950 or so. And every time I tell myself, oh, there must be some good modern books, I'll go find some list of the 'best' and end up reading something that I think STINKS.

 

Case in point - go to the New Yorker article and look about halfway down the page for the opening sentence of "The Pale King". I've been listening to SWB's audio lectures on teaching writing in preparation for the upcoming school year, and the first thing I thought after I read that was, if you can't figure out where it goes in a diagram, it doesn't belong in your sentence! :lol:

 

Seriously - there MUST be some modern fiction that is considered 'good' that isn't insanely pretentious!

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I have a list of about 70 modern classics that I plan to read on my blog. I spent quite a bit of time putting the list together based on other lists and recommendations. The list is not exclusively American but MANY of them are. There are some books on criticism on the list too.

Hopefully the link works, I'm on my phone

http://www.aesoptooz.com/the-modern-classics-list/

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I have a list of about 70 modern classics that I plan to read on my blog. I spent quite a bit of time putting the list together based on other lists and recommendations. The list is not exclusively American but MANY of them are. There are some books on criticism on the list too.

Hopefully the link works, I'm on my phone

http://www.aesoptooz.com/the-modern-classics-list/

 

Perfect! Thanks!

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