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I've been talking about and pondering this thread for a while and figured I might as well just get it started. I want to make some longer entries, myself, but I didn't want my laziness to keep others from sharing.
What authors have you discovered recently? What works do you recommend people check out for themselves?
meant to respond to this days ago, great thread
I mostly do literary stuff so I've been giving myself a break w/ scifi by Samuel R. Delany (his first few ones) and they're a blast
I also read my first Anthonly Trollope this week and it was hilarious and surprisingly self-reflexive and cool.
He's probably not the most obscure discovery and neither are Wm Gaddis who I read all of this year, like I did Richard Yates last year and Philip Roth the year before (Young Hearts Crying and My Life as a Man are my favorites of theirs respectively)
So far my best of the year (first time reads for me, not necessarily published this year):
One DOA One on the Way (Robison)
A Frolic of His Own (Gaddis)
The Charterhouse of Parma (Stendahl)
Concrete (Bernhard)
The Warden (Trollope)
Rage is Back (Mansbauch)
Too Bight to Hear Too Loud to See (Garey)
Looking forward to the new Pynchon, Auster, Coover, and Donna Tartt books this fall
This year it's been Gillian Flynn and Muriel Spark who've been discoveries for me so far. I think the library finally has a copy of Gone Girl for me so other reads might end up being pushed-back for this one, but Flynn's debut was energetic and nicely twisted thematically. And Spark ran very hot-and-cold with me; loved two and found one severely lacking in the ability to track its thematic motivations.
Kinda hope to get to Paul Harding's latest later in the year as well.
He's certainly very popular, but I just finished my first P.G. Wodehouse (Picadilly Jim) and absolutely loved it. Silly, witty, romantic, chaotic screwball that was perfect in every way. Just a breeze to read, and entertaining as all hell.
Love Wodehouse. The Fry/Laurie adaptations are great, too.
The past year, I've taught the course that covers the second half of the British Literature. I love it, and I've discovered (and rediscovered, or reevaluated) so many authors.