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For reviews of some of these books, see www.samizdat.com/isyn/reviews.html For brief notes on others, see www.samizdat.com/readrev.html For more on books and reading, see www.samizdat.com/readers.html
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John Irving (A Widow for One Year, Prayer for Owen Meany, Cider House Rules, The World According to Garp, A Son of the Circus, Hotel New Hampshire Trying to Save Piggy Sneed)
Jeanette Winterson PowerBook ENGLISH 20th 1 NOVEL 10 review
Susan Minot (Evening)
Richard Powers (Gain, The Goldbug Variations, Prisoner's Dilemma, Three Farmers on their Way to a Dance, Galatea 2.2, Plowing the Dark)
Don DeLillo (Underworld)
Cormac McCarthy (All the Pretty Horses, Blood Meridian, The Crossing, Cities of the Plain)
Gail Godwin (The Good Husband)
Arthur Golden Memoirs of a Geisha
J. K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets , Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban , Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire)
Zadie Smith (White Teeth)
Jeffrey Thomas (Punktown)
Patrick O'Leary (Door Number Three, The Gift )
Zak Mucha (The Beggar's Shore)
Thomas Sanchez (Rabbit Boss, Mile Zero)
Nicholson Baker (Room Temperature,U and I, Fermata, Vox, The Mezzanine)
Alan Lightman (The Diagnosis)
Allen Kurzweil (A Case of Curiosities)
Carol Shields (The Stone Diaries)
John Dufresne (Louisiana Power and Light, The Way that Water Enters Stone, Love Warps the Mind a Little)
Louise Erdrich (Tracks, Love Medicine, Beet Queen, Bingo Palace, Tales of Burning Love)
Neal Stephenson (Snow Crash, Zodiac, The Diamond Age, Cryptonomicon)
David Duncan (The Brothers K, The River Why)
Kazuo Ishiguro (When We Were Orphans , Remains of the Day, The Unconsoled)
Marta Morazzoni (The Invention of Truth)
Frank Conroy (Stop-Time)
Milorad Pavic (Dictionary of the Khazars: female edition, male editon)
Oscar Hijuelos (Mambo Kings Sing Songs of Love, Empress of the Splendid Season, The Fourteen Sisters of Emilio Montez O'Brien)
Gabriel Marquez (Hundred Years of Solitude, Love in the Time of Cholera)
Steve Erickson (Days Between Stations, Rubicon Beach, Tours of the Black Clock, Arc d'X, Amnesiascope, The Sea Came in at Midnight )
Russell Hoban (Turtle Diary, Riddley Walker, Pilgermann)
Milan Kundera (Unbearable Lightness of Being, Immortality, Slowness)
Julian Barnes (History of the World in 10-1/2 Chapters, Staring at the Sun, Flaubert's Parrot)
Robert Pirsig (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,Lila)
Jose Saramago (Blindness , The History of the Siege of Lisbon)
Geoff Ryman (Was)
Amy Tan (The Bonesetter's Daughter, Hundred Secret Senses, The Kitchen God's Wife, Joy Luck Club)
Rebecca Wells (Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood )
John Updike (Rabbit Run, Rabbit Redux, Rabbit is Rich, Rabbit at Rest, The Centaur, Gertrude and Claudius)
A. S. Byatt (Possession)
Graham Swift (Waterland)
William Styron (Sophie's Choice)
D.M. Thomas (The White Hotel, Pictures at an Exhibition, Eating Pavlova)
Jane Hamilton (A Map of the World, The Book of Ruth)
Stanislaw Lem (The Invincible, The Investigation, A Perfect Vacuum )
Richard Adams (Watership Down)
Thomas Pynchon (Gravity's Rainbow, The Crying of Lot 49)
Louis de Bernieres -- (Corelli's Mandolin)
James Clavell (Shogun, Tai-Pan)
W.P. Kinsella (Shoeless Joe)
Victor Pelevin (Buddha's Little Finger)
Bernard Malamud (The Natural, The Fixer)
Sebastian Japrisot (A Very Long Engagement, The Sleeping Car Murders, Trap for Cinderella , The Lady in the Car, One Deadly Summer)
Tom Robbins (Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas, Skinny Legs and All, Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates)
Michael Ondaatje (The English Patient, Anil's Ghost, In the Skin of a Lion )
Richard Selzer (Mortal Lessons, Down from Troy, Imagine a Woman , Raising the Dead)
Peter Hoeg (Smilla's Sense of Snow, Borderliners)
Francisco Goldman (The Ordinary Seaman, The Long Night of the White Chickens)
David Guterson (Snow Falling on Cedars, East of the Mountains)
Rick Moody (Purple America)
David Foster Wallace (Infinite Jest, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men)
Orson Card Card (Ender's Game, Ender's Shadow)
Kurt Vonnegut (Timequake)
Arundhati Roy (The God of Small Things)
Annie Proulx (The Shipping News)
Dikkon Eberhart (Paradise)
Linda Hall (Margaret's Peace, Island Refuge, Katheryn's Secret)
Brian Hall (The Saskiad)
Alain de Botton (The Romantic Movement: Sex, Shopping, and the Novel)
Brooks Hansen (The Chess Garden)
Arturo Perez-Reverte (The Club Dumas, The Flanders Panel, The Seville Communion)
Albert Camus (The First Man)
Tracy Chevalier (Girl with a Pearl Earring)
Frederick Busch (The Night Inspector )
Frederick Reuss (Horace Afoot)
Looking back over the list, I was curious to check my tastes in recent fiction -- books that I read 1973-1995, that were written or first published during that period (approximately) and that I particularly enjoyed. These are books that I came upon on my own after grad school. (I don't include classics that I finally got around to reading).
The dates are when I read the books, not when they were published. (Since I typically read paperbacks, there's probably at least a year and sometimes as much as 10 year's gap between when the book was originally published and when I got around to reading it.)
Here's the year by year list of the ones I particular liked, from which I picked the above "winners". I notice that there are a lot more this year (1995) than any year before, and wonder if the quality of fiction is on a major upswing or if I was simply lucky in my choice of what to read.
1974 Gravity's Rainbow -- Thomas Pynchon
1975 Justice, My Brother -- Roberta Kalechofsky; Watership Down -- Richard Adams
1976 Shogun -- James Clavell
1977 Tell Me a Riddle (stories) -- Tillie Olsen; Yonondio -- Tillie Olsen; Madonna Red -- James Carroll; Separate Flights (stories) -- Andre Dubus; Dune -- Frank Herbert; The Shrine (stories) -- Mary Lavin
1978 Kin Flicks -- Lisa Alther; Burr -- Gore Vidal; West End Horror -- Nicholas Meyer; Mortal Friends -- James Carroll; Trinity -- Leon Uris; World According to Garp -- John Irving; Humboldt's Gift -- Saul Bellow
1979 Friday the Rabbi Slept Late -- Harry Kemelman; Whistle -- James Jones; Inherit the Stars -- James Hogan; Dosadai Experiment -- Frank Herbert
1980 Winds of War -- Hermann Wouk; Wizard of Earthsea -- Ursula LeGuin; The Jesus Incident -- Frank Herbert and Bill Ransom; War and Remembrance -- Hermann Wouk; Dragonsong -- Anne McCaffrey
1981 Confessions of Nat Turner -- William Styron; Ring World -- Larry Niven; Ring World Engineers -- Larry Niven; Tai Pan -- James Clavell
1982 Rabbit Redux -- John Updike; Rabbit Run -- John Updike; The White Hotel -- D.H. Thomas; The Invincible -- Stanislaw Lem; Sophie's Choice -- William Styron; Hotel New Hampshire -- John Irving; Noble House -- James Clavell
1983 Rabbit is Rich -- John Updike
1984 Zen and the Art of Motorcylce Maintenance -- Robert Pirsig; Gateway -- Frederik Pohl; Beyond the Blue Event Horizon -- Frederik Pohl
1985 Pinball -- Jerzy Kosinski; Riddley Walker -- Russell Hoban; Heechee Rendezvous -- Frederik Pohl; Lazarus Effect -- Frank Herbert; Neverending Story -- Michael Ende; The Pagan Rabbi (stories) -- Cynthia Ozick
1986 Cider House Rules -- John Irving; The Heroic Age -- Stratis Haviaros; Lake Wobegone Days -- Garrison Keillor
1987 Ender's Game -- Orson Scott Card; Carpenter's Gothic -- William Gaddis; Rubicon Beach -- Steve Erickson; Handmaid's Tale -- Margaret Atwood; Love Medicine -- Louise Erdrich; A Day No Pigs Would Die -- Robert Peck; Days Between Stations -- Steve Erickson
1988 Turtle Diary -- Russell Hoban; Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance -- Richard Powers; Unbearable Lightness of Being -- Milan Kundera; The Bone People -- Keri Hulme; The Last Worthless Evening (stories) -- Andre Dubus; The World as I Found It -- Bruce Duffy
1989 Prayer for Owen Meany -- John Irving; Love in the Time of Cholera -- Gabriel Marquez; Satanic Verses -- Salman Rushdie; Dictionary of the Khazars -- Milorad Pavic
1990 Tracks -- Louise Erdrich; Prisoner's Dilemma -- Richard Powers; Bonfire of the Vanities -- Tom Wolfe; Rabbit Boss -- Thomas Sanchez; Tours of the Black Clock -- Steve Erickson; Mile Zero -- Thomas Sanchez
1991 History of the World in 10-1/2 Chapters -- Julian Barnes; Mambo Kings Sing Songs of Love -- Oscar Hijuelos; Joy Luck Club -- Amy Tan; Staring at the Sun -- Julian Barnes; Emperor of the Air (stories) -- Ethan Canin
1992 The Goldberg Variations -- Richard Powers; Mating -- Norman Rush; Waterland -- Graham Swift
1993 Vox -- Nicholson Baker; Possession -- A. S. Byatt; Was -- Geoff Ryman; Immortality -- Milan Kundera; Remains of the Day -- Kazuo Ishiguro; The River Why -- David Duncan ; Lila -- Robert Pirsig
1994 -- Einstein's Dreams -- Alan Lightman; Pictures at an Exhibition -- D.M. Thomas; The Brothers K -- David Duncan; The Mezzanine -- Nicholson Baker; Foucault's Pendulum -- Umberto Eco; Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor -- John Barth; The Kitchen God's Wife -- Amy Tan; Life and Fate -- Vassily Grossman
1995 -- Blue River -- Ethan Canin; Fermata -- Nicholson Baker; The Bird Artist -- Howard Norman; A Map of the World -- Jane Hamilton; Room Temperature -- Nicholson Baker; Galatea 2.2 -- Richard Powers; U and I -- Nicholson Baker; Snow Crash -- Neal Stephenson; Leah, New Hampshire -- Thomas Williams; A Son of the Circus -- John Irving; The Stone Diaries -- Carol Shields; The Invention of Truth -- Marta Morazzoni; Greasy Lake -- T. Coraghessan Boyle; Eating Pavlova -- D.M. Thomas; Louisiana Power and Light -- John Dufresne; The Bingo Palace -- Louise Erdrich; Corelli's Mandolin -- Louis de Bernieres
1996 -- Zodiac -- Neal Stephenson; Paperboy -- Pete Dexter; Good Benito -- Alan Lightman; A Case of Curiosities -- Allen Kurzweil, The Miracle Game -- Josef Skvorecky, A Very Long Engagement -- Sebastian Japrisot, Memoir from an Antproof Case -- Mark Helprin, Tripmaster Monkey -- Maxine Hong Kingston, Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas -- Tom Robbins, Water Music -- T. Coraghessan Boyle, The Centaur -- John Updike, The Good Husband -- Gail Godwin, The English Patient -- Michael Ondaatje, Jitterbug Perfume -- Tom Robbins, Arc d'X -- Steve Erickson, Smilla's Sense of Snow -- Peter Hoeg
1997 -- Hundred Secret Senses -- Amy Tan, The Way that Water Enters Stone -- John Dufresne, Trying to Save Piggy Sneed -- John Irving, Love Warps the Mind a Little -- John Dufresne, Raising the Dead -- Richard Selzer, History of Danish Dreams -- Peter Hoeg, Imagine a Woman -- Richard Selzer, Amnesiascope -- Steve Erickson, Wittgenstein's Mistress -- David Markson, Borderliners -- Peter Hoeg, Blood Meridian -- Cormac McCarthy, Slowness -- Milan Kundera, The Ordinary Seaman and The Long Night of the White Chickens -- Francisco Goldman, The Unconsoled -- Kazuo Ishiguro, Independent People -- Halldor Laxness, The Book of Ruth -- Jane Hamilton, Snow Falling on Cedars -- David Guterson, Purple America -- Rick Moody, Timequake -- Kurt Vonnegut, The God of Small Things -- Arundhati Roy, The Shipping News -- Annie Proulx,
1998 -- Paradise -- Dikkon Eberhart, Margaret's Peace -- Linda Hall, The Romantic Movement: Sex, Shopping, and the Novel -- Alain de Botton, The Chess Garden -- Brooks Hansen, Trap for Cinderella -- Sebastian Japrisot, The Lady in the Car -- Sebastian Japrisot, In the Skin of a Lion -- Michael Ondaatje, One Deadly Summer -- Sebastian Japrisot, A Widow for One Year -- John Irving, Senor Vivo and the Coca Lord -- Louis de Bernieres, The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts -- Louis de Bernieres, The Club Dumas -- Arturo Perez-Reverte, Gain -- Richard Powers, Skinny Legs and All -- Tom Robbins, The Flanders Panel -- Arturo Perez-Reverte, Underworld -- Don DeLillo, The First Man -- Albert Camus, The Seville Communion -- Arturo Perez-Reverte, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood -- Rebecca Wells, The Saskiad -- Brian Hall , Evening -- Susan Minot
1999 -- Memoirs of a Geisha -- Arthur Golden, Empress of the Splendid Season -- Oscar Hijuelos, Cryptonomicon -- Neal Stephenson, Island Refuge -- Linda Hall, The Night Inspector -- Frederick Busch, Horace Afoot -- Frederick Reuss, East of the Mountains -- David Guterson, The Fourteen Sisters of Emilio Montez O'Brien -- Oscar Hijuelos, All the Pretty Horses -- Cormac McCarthy, The Sea Came in at Midnight -- Steve Erickson, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone -- J. K. Rowling
2000 -- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets -- J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban -- J.K. Rowling, Girl with a Pearl Earring -- Tracy Chevalier, Katheryn's Secret -- Linda Hall, Gertrude and Claudius -- John Updike, The History of the Siege of Lisbon -- Jose Saramago, Anil's Ghost -- Michale Ondaatje, White Teeth -- Zadie Smith, Punktown -- Jeffrey Thomas, A Perfect Vacuum -- Stanislaw Lem, Stop-Time -- Frank Conroy, Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates -- Tom Robbins, Plowing the Dark -- Richard Powers, Buddha's Little Finger -- Victor Pelevin, The Diagnosis -- Alan Lightman, Door Number Three -- Patrick O'Leary, The Gift -- Patrick O'Leary, The Beggar's Shore -- Zak Mucha
2001 -- PowerBook -- Jeanette Winterson, The Bonesetter's Daughter -- Amy Tan, When We Were Orphans -- Kazuo Ishiguro, Blindness-- Jose Saramago
This site is published by B&R Samizdat Express, 33 Gould St., West Roxbury, MA 02132. 617-469-2269 seltzer@samizdat.com
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