8 Authors I'd Read Anything By

We've all read one-hit wonders, and authors who we only sporadically connect with. But, who are your go-to authors? The ones who, the minute you see the name on the cover, you put the book at the top of your reading pile?

It takes a lot for an author to achieve that kind of loyalty from me. As I looked over my virtual shelves in preparation for this post, I realized that I am incredibly picky. Many authors have wowed me with one or two of their books, and failed to grab me with the rest. Still more are on my "Must Read More By This Author" list, and could very well be added to me Auto-Read list eventually.

I was going for a Top Ten Tuesday list but I only came up with four authors who are still alive and writing. So, I cheated and added some dead people. Hey, you never know what might be discovered in a drawer in somebody's relative's basement. That got me to 8.

 Ron Carlson

Carlson was one of the first topics I ever blogged about. I'm mystified as to why everyone isn't in love with this author the way I am. His novels are some of the few books I will happily re-read, his short stories are fabulous, and his book on writing is like have a kind professor as a next door neighbor.

My favorite novel of his is The Signal, though I loved Five Skies as well. Recently, Carlson came out with a book of mostly poetry, called Room Service. I am forcing myself to read it slowly, so I can savor it, because who knows when his next work will come out. The man's busy teaching and being a next door neighbor and stuff, after all.

Michael Cunningham

Cunningham is most famous for The Hours, but I've actually enjoyed his other books more. He has an insightful understanding of human nature and a beautiful way of writing about it.

His 2010 book, By Nightfall, is on my bookshelf right now and I'm not sure why it's taken me so long to get around to reading it.

Barbara Kingsolver

Okay, I haven't loved every Kingsolver book I've ever read--The Poisonwood Bible left me dissatisfied--but her batting average is still pretty darned high. I finished most of her books before I started blogging, but this year I read and loved Flight Behavior. Kingsolver is also known for non-fiction. The only one of those I've read is Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, a memoir of the year she decided to eat only local foods. It had that combination of readability and new information that I look for in a nonfiction book, and it inspired me to eat more local foods in season.

John Green

Ironically, I've been working myself up to tackling the cancer story in The Fault in Our Stars for over a year. And yet, I know that I'll read it--even though I dread reading a teen cancer story that's going to make me cry--because it's by John Green. That's why he's on this list.

Now for the dead ones.

Maurice Sendak
Because:

 There are no words.

 

Laura Ingalls Wilder

As a child, I read every single one of her books, and I read them again in adulthood. If anything by Mrs. Wilder was uncovered, even if it were directions for building a sod home, I'd pick it up before you could say "Watch out for the leeches."

William Wharton
I discovered Mr. Wharton when we went to see the movie Birdy, in 1984. Oh, how I loved that movie. When I found out there was a book, I immediately devoured it (not knowing that it had won the National Book Award for Best First Novel) and then I read everything else written by him as the years went by. As a twenty-something, back when a card catalog was still a piece of furniture with index cards, I'd habitually check the W section of the library bookshelves just to make sure there wasn't a new one out. He didn't write very much, though, and he died in 2008. I'm hoping  there's an unpublished manuscript in a drawer somewhere.

J.D. Salinger

Oh, J.D.
He was a one-book wonder, but what a book it was. I'm one of many readers who would love to read the man's other works. Rumor has it there are as many as ten manuscripts that Salinger never saw fit to publish. Maybe one day we'll get to read them.

Those are my 8. For many more top ten lists, check The Broke and the Bookish.

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What I'm Reading: Flight Behavior (Barbara Kingsolver)

I've loved all of Barbara Kingsolver's novels except for The Poisonwood Bible (which was actually the first of her books that I read, so obviously I didn't hate it since I went on to read more). So, I was thrilled to see she'd come out with a new one.

The Story: Dellarobia Turnbow is a young mother, living on her husband Cub's family sheep farm in Appalachia.  On a walk up the mountainous side of their property, she discovers that their forest is, inexplicably, covered with monarch butterflies. This discovery draws the community to the farm to view what many see as a miracle. As word spreads, others arrive from farther way, including a team of scientists with their own perspective on the "miracle" (climate change) that has brought the butterflies to a region they've never been to before.

My bookmark is on page 156 of 433, which is early in chapter 7.

Thoughts: I was a little worried in chapter one, to be honest. Dellarobia was walking up the side of the mountain to meet up with a guy, and it was taking her the w-h-o-l-e chapter to walk up the hill, see that the trees looked weird (she wasn't wearing her glasses), decide not to meet with the guy, and walk down the hill again. Let's just say . . . I generally like a faster-paced beginning. This didn't bode well.

By the end of chapter two, though, things start happening. Most importantly, Dellarobia starts to find her voice and stand up to her domineering mother-in-law. By chapter 3 I was fully engrossed. Kingsolver writes a good story, and can make me laugh out loud on occasion.

There's one thing I've been grappling with, though. The characters, while definitely not at all flat, seem a bit typecast to me. I've never been to Appalachia, and Kingsolver grew up there, so obviously she knows these people and I don't. I often struggle with this in books set in the south, as well, so maybe it's just because people around here are so different in some ways. There are such stereotypes in the media, though, that I guess I would hope that a well-written book would break down those stereotypes for me instead of reinforcing them. I am hoping that some of the characters will surprise me by stepping out of their roles as the book continues. Knowing Kingsolver's skill as a storyteller, they probably will.

A favorite passage: My favorite scene so far is when Dellarobia invites the scientist, Dr. Ovid Byron, to dinner. She doesn't know he's a scientist. All she knows is that he came from far away to see the butterflies, he's black, and he has a Carribbean accent. She feels sorry for him because he's staying in the grossest motel in town. Over dinner, she proceeds to tell him everything she's learned on the internet about the butterflies, and then while listening to him talk to her five-year-old son, it becomes clear that he knows more than he's let on.

"You came here because you're one of the people who study these monarchs," she said.
"You are exactly right. I spent the day doing a quick census up there."
Quick, she thought, as in nine hours. Had he counted them all? "So, you do, what, experiments, or observations? And write up what you found out?"
He nodded. "A dissertation, articles, a couple of books. All on the monarch."
"A couple of books," she said to this man, recalling his look when she'd informed him, They're called monarchs. So, there were worse things than feeding meatloaf to a vegetarian.

Soundtrack: The soundtrack of the movie Cold Mountain comes to mind, both because the story is set in the same region, and because of the way the soundtrack fit in so beautifully with the movie and (by extension) Charles Frazier's book of the same title. For Flight Behavior, I'm going to pick Like a Songbird That Has Fallen, performed by Reeltime Travelers. It's not about butterflies, but close enough.

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