Reading Rat 1926 on

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What to read, 1926 on

\/ 1901-1925

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If "well-read" means "not missing anything," then nobody has a chance. If "well-read" means "making a genuine effort to explore thoughtfully," then yes, we can all be well-read. --Linda Holmes

\/ Mid and late 20th Century

After The Fall: 1989, Twenty Years On

Marjane SATRAPI (b. 1969)
an Iranian-born French cartoonist, illustrator, film director, and children's book author. --Wikipedia
The Complete Persepolis (2007: Persepolis, 2004 translatiion of Persepolis I, 2000, and Persepolis II, 2001; and Persepolis II, 2004 translation of Persepolis 3, 2002, and Persepolis 4, 2003)
the revolution and the war are depicted through the eyes of a child who sees the world in black-and-white terms... . --Grant L. Voth

1968: Scarcity and Decade Analysis

J. K. ROWLING (b. 1965) post
Joanne "Jo" Rowling ... pen name J. K. Rowling, is a British novelist --Wikipedia
Harry Potter series (Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, 1997-Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, 2007) John Granger review | Harold Bloom review [pdf]
It is Harry's beautiful courage, I think, that makes this series unique. --Charles Van Doren

Jeanette WINTERSON (b. 1959) Official site post
The Passion (1997)

At some unmarked point during the last twenty years we imperceptibly moved out of the Modern Age and into a new, as yet nameless, era. --Peter F. Drucker, Landmarks of Tomorrow (1957)

Tony KUSHNER (b. 1956) post
Angels in America (1991, 1992) Donald Lyons review

Michael POLLAN (b. 1955) Official site
The Botany of Desire (2001)
It is about the concept of what he calls co-evolution, in this case between mankind and four plants--apple, tulip, marijuana, and potato. --Charles Van Doren
The Omnivore's Dilemma (2006) Blake Hurst review
What we eat represents our most profound engagement with the natural world, and he warns that modern agribiz is a destructive, precarious agricultural system that has wrought havoc on the diet, nutrition, and well-being of Americans as well as the inhabitants of the other developed countries of the Earth. --Charles Van Doren

also
Sandra CISNEROS (b. 1954)
an American writer ... . Her work experiments with literary forms and investigates emerging subject positions, which Cisneros herself attributes to growing up in a context of cultural hybridity and economic inequality --Wikipedia
The House on Mango Street (1984)
Cisneros revealed in an interview that she’s writing stories--not an autobiography. As she put it, the stories she writes about are stories that she has either lived, witnessed, or were told to her--she just arranged them in an order that would make them clear and cohesive. --Grant L. Voth

DAI Sijie (b. 1954)
a Chinese–French author and filmmaker --Wikipedia
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (2001 Ina Rilke translation; Balzac et la Petite Tailleuse chinoise, 2000)
For them, the experience of reading was emotional and intellectual but vicarious. How could they know that the Little Seamstress would act on the basis of what she had learned? --Grant L. Voth

David GROSSMAN (b. 1954) Hebrew Literature post
an Israeli author. ... He is also a noted activist and critic of Israeli policy toward Palestinians. --Wikipedia
See Under: Love (1989)

Kevin HART (b. 1954) Poetry International Web post
Peniel and Other Poems (1991)
also
Two poems The Guardian (December 21, 2002)

Carl HIAASEN (b. 1953)
an American journalist, columnist, and novelist. --Wikipedia
Tourist Season (1986)
It's a wild and wooly tale involving all Hiaasen's 'regular' characters: shady businessmen, corrupt politicians, dumb blondes, sunburned tourists, and apathetic retirees. --Charles Van Doren
Strip Tease (1993)
Lucky You (1997)

Thylias MOSS (b. 1954) Academy of American Poets
an American poet, writer, experimental filmmaker, sound artist and playwright, of African American, Indian, and European heritage, who has published a number of poetry collections, children’s books, essays, and multimedia work she calls poams, products of acts of making, related to her work in Limited Fork Theory. --Wikipedia
Small Congregations: New and Selected Poems (1993)
also
Three poems Internet Archive

Rita DOVE (b. 1952) Academy of American Poets Home page post
Selected Poems (1993)

Sven BIRKERTS (b. 1951)
an American essayist and literary critic of Latvian ancestry. --Wikipedia
The Electric Life: Essays on Modern Poetry (1989)
also
An Artificial Wilderness: Essays on 20th Century Literature (1987)
The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age (1994) excerpts Internet Archive
Contributor Agni

Paul MULDOON (b. 1951) Official site
Selected Poems (1986)

also
Doug ESTELL, Michele L. SATCHWELL, and Patricia S. WRIGHT
Reading Lists for College-bound Students (1993)

Edward HIRSCH (b. 1950) Poetry Foundation | Academy of American Poets | Poem Hunter
an American poet and critic ... . Hirsch is a well-known advocate for poetry --Wikipedia
Earthly Measures (1994)

Gloria NAYLOR (b. 1950)
an American novelist. --Wikipedia
The Women of Brewster Place (1982)

James WILCOX (b. 1949) Mississippi Writers & Musicians
Modern Baptists (1983)

Denis JOHNSON (b. 1949)
an American writer best known for his short story collection Jesus' Son (1992) and his novel Tree of Smoke (2007)... . He also writes plays, poetry and non-fiction --Wikipedia
Angels (1983)
Fiskadoro (1985)
Jesus' Son (1992)

Henning MANKELL (b. 1948)
a Swedish crime writer, children's author, leftist activist and dramatist --Wikipedia
Kurt Wallander mysteries (Faceless Killers, 1997 Steven T. Murray translation of Mordare utan ansikte, 1991, and following)
it will not take you long to apprehend Wallander's consciousness of the changes that are occurring in Swedish society, until recently so apparently immune to the social ills we ourselves... know so well. These feelings are accentuated in the succeeding books... --Charles Van Doren

Ian McEWAN (b. 1948)
an English novelist and screenwriter. In 2008, The Times featured him on their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945". --Wikipedia
On Chesil Beach (2007)
The setting of 1962 is crucial: Edward Mayhew and Florence Ponting stand at the waning of the Victorian world and just before the sexual revolution. Their doomed sexual congress will resonate with larger historical tones. --Emily Allen

also
Michael DIRDA (b. 1948)
a Pulitzer Prize–winning book critic --Wikipedia
Caring For Your Books (1990)
Classics for Pleasure (2007)
Reviews archive Washington Post
Browsings weblog archive The American Scholar

Mark HELPRIN (b. 1947)
an American novelist, journalist, conservative commentator --Wikipedia
Winter's Tale (1983)
a fantastic story of early twentieth-century life in New York City. --Charles Van Doren
A Soldier of the Great War (1995)
His experiences in the war are told by Alessandro, now an old man, to a young man with whom he is forced to walk for fifty miles to their destinations, which in the case of the young man is love and in that of the old man, death. --Charles Van Doren

David MAMET (b. 1947) The David Mamet Society post
American Buffalo (1975)
Speed-the-Plow (1988)
also
Secret Names The Threepenny Review (Winter 2004)

Salman RUSHDIE (b. 1947) post
Midnight's Children (1981)

Michael DIBDIN (1947-2007)
a British crime writer. --Wikipedia
Aurelio Zen series (Ratking, 1988-End Games, 2007)
His first book, Ratking, opens in Rome but ends in Venice, and the other novels range all over the Italian landscape as Zen anti-heroically confronts the Mafia and bravely tries to stand against it, always without success. --Charles Van Doren

People by 1945 could no longer be sure of the direction in which history took them. But they could still be sure that there was a direction; and they could, if they wished, select among a variety of theories that described their destination. After 1945, they could ever less often be sure even that any direction to human affairs existed at all, that they were not totally adrift in a meaningless universe. --Oscar Handlin

Pere GIMFERRER (b. 1945) Plurilingual Anthology of Catalan Poetry
Selected Poems

J. D. McCLATCHY (b. 1945) Poetry Foundation | Academy of American Poets | Poetry Archive Daniel Hall interview
an American poet and literary critic. --Wikipedia
The Rest of the Way (1992)

Simon SCHAMA (b. 1945) post
Citizens (1989)

Adam ZAGAJEWSKI (b. 1945) post
Tremor (1985)

August WILSON (1945-2005) Perspectives in American Literature
an American playwright whose work included a series of ten plays, The Pittsburgh Cycle, for which he received two Pulitzer Prizes for Drama --Wikipedia
Joe Turner's Come and Gone (1984)
Fences (1985)

The more books we read, the sooner we perceive that the true function of a writer is to produce a masterpiece and that no other task is of any consquence. --Cyril Connelly, The Unquiet Grave (1944)

Douglas CRASE (b. 1944) Poetry Foundation Authorized site
an American poet, essayist and critic. --Wikipedia
The Revisionist (1981)

Alice WALKER (b. 1944) Official site | Academy of American Poets
an American author, poet, self-claimed womanist, and activist. --Wikipedia
The Color Purple (1982)

Peter CAREY (b. 1943) Peter Carey Books
Illywhacker (1985)
Oscar and Lucinda (1988)

Alfred CORN (b. 1943) Poetry Foundation | Academy of American Poets
an American poet and essayist. --Wikipedia
A Call in the Midst of the Crowd (1978)
also
Playing Posthumous The Cortland Review (June 2006)
Weblog Topics and Events | Alfred Corn's weblog
Contributor Slate

Sam SHEPARD (b. 1943) Poetry Foundation | Academy of American Poets
an American playwright, actor, and television and film director. He is the author of several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs, and received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child. --Wikipedia
Seven Plays (1984)
(Buried Child, Curse of the Starving Class, The Tooth of Crime, La Turista, Tongues, Savage Love, True West) --Amazon

Reinaldo ARENAS (1943-1990) post
Hallucinations: The Ill-Fated Peregrinations of Fray Servando (El mundo alucinante 1966)

Donna LEON (b. 1942)
the American author of a series of crime novels set in Venice and featuring the fictional hero Commissario Guido Brunetti. --Wikipedia
Brunetti novels (Death at La Fenice, 1992, and following)
delves deeper and deeper into the corrupt underbelly of Venice, that glorious 'little jewel' built on an island that is slowly but surely sinking into the sea. --Charles Van Doren

John CROWLEY (b. 1942)
Little, Big (1981)
Aegypt (1987; The Solitudes 2007)
Love and Sleep (1994)

Peter HANDKE (b. 1942)
Slow Homecoming (1974)

Stephen HAWKING (b. 1942) Official web site John Preskill review | post
an English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, author ... . Among his significant scientific works have been a collaboration with Roger Penrose on gravitational singularities theorems in the framework of general relativity, and the theoretical prediction that black holes emit radiation, often called Hawking radiation. --Wikipedia
A Brief History of Time (1988)

John IRVING (b. 1942) Book Reporter | Times Topics | Life & Times Joan Smith interview | Suzanne Herel interview
an American novelist and Academy Award-winning screenwriter. --Wikipedia
The World According to Garp (1978)
The Hotel New Hampshire (1981)

Mahmoud DARWISH (1942-2008) Academy of American Poets post
a Palestinian poet and author who won numerous awards for his literary output and was regarded as the Palestinian national poet. --Wikipedia
The Music of Human Flesh (al-Nasheed al-jasadi, 1980)

Alan FURST (b. 1941)
an American author of historical spy novels. --Wikipedia
Night Soldiers novels (Night Soldiers, 1988, and following)
revitalized the entire genre of spy novels. --Charles Van Doren

Roberto CALASSO (b. 1941)
an Italian writer and publisher. ... He is the author of an unnamed ongoing work reflecting on the culture of modernity --Wikipedia
The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony (1993 Tim Parks translation; Le nozze di Cadmo e Armonia 1988)
in my opinion and that of many others is the finest book ever written about the Greek myths. --Charles Van Doren

James McCOURT (b. 1941)
Time Remaining (1993)

Paul THEROUX (b. 1941) Erinn fan site
The Mosquito Coast (1981)

J. M. COETZEE (John Maxwell Coetzee b. 1940) post
Foe (1986)
Disgrace (1999)
As his [protagonist David Lurie's] position and privilege are withdrawn from him, he is confronted by horrors, but also by the beauty found in small acts of mercy and repentance. --Arnold Weinstein
Elizabeth Costello (2003)

David RABE (b. 1940)
Streamers (1976)

Edmund WHITE (b. 1940) Official site
Forgetting Elena (1973)
Nocturnes for the King of Naples (1978)

Thomas M. DISCH (1940-2008) Weblog post
On Wings of Song (1979)

Joseph BRODSKY (1940-1996) post
his thinking appears to be guided more by the quest for a startling apothegm than by a concern for scrupulous accuracy--this is one of the inevitable consequences of the aphoristic style. But his seriousness is such that even our disagreements force our thought in unexpected directions. --Sven Birkerts
A Part of Speech: Poems (1977) Alex Safonov translation
So Forth (1996)

Ayi K. ARMAH (b. 1939) Petri Liukkonen biography
The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born (1968)

Margaret ATWOOD (b. 1939) Official site post
Surfacing (1972)
The Handmaid's Tale (1985)

Amos OZ (b. 1939)
A Perfect Peace (1982)

Michael THELWELL (b. 1939)
The Harder They Come (1980)

Seamus HEANEY (1939-2013) Internet Poetry Archive Guardian obituary | post
an Irish poet, playwright, translator and lecturer --Wikipedia
every age must have a great poet, whether he truly exists or not, and Seamus Heaney is apparently the man appointed for the job. --Joseph Epstein
Field Work (1979)
brings a meditative music to bear upon fundamental themes of person and place, the mutuality of ourselves and the world --Denis Donoghue
Station Island (1984)
as fine a long poem as we've had in fifty years. --Hugh Kenner
Selected Poems 1966-1987 (1990)
offers an ample selection of some of the best work by one of our finest contemporary poets. The collection emphasizes his recent efforts, although it does not include any new poems. --Frank Lepkowski
also
North (1975)
Fine poet from Northern Ireland talks about realities in a serious tone; his talent has strong roots; his poems will outlast their grim inspiration. --Raphael and McLeish
Three poems, selected by Ake Erlandsson Nobel Prize in Literature 1995

Les A. MURRAY (b. 1938)
The Rabbiter's Bounty: Collected Poems (1991)

Wa Thiong'o NGUGI (b. 1938)
A Grain of Wheat (1992)

Joyce Carol OATES (b. 1938) post
Them (1969)
also
Contributor The New York Review of Books

also
Philip WARD (b. 1938)
See RAMON
A Lifetime's Reading (1983) Table of Contents

Ishmael REED (b. 1938)
Mumbo Jumbo (1972)

Charles SIMIC (b. 1938) Veran Matic interview
Selected Poems: 1963-2003 (2004)

Robert NOZICK (1938-2002)
an American philosopher who was most prominent in the 1970s and 1980s --Wikipedia
Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974)
In opposition to A Theory of Justice by John Rawls, and in debate with Michael Walzer, Nozick argues in favor of a minimal state --Wikipedia

Raymond CARVER (1938-1988) Frank Kermode review
Where I'm Calling From (1988)

also
Ted NELSON (b. 1937) Official website
an American pioneer of information technology, philosopher and sociologist. He coined the terms "hypertext" and "hypermedia" in 1963 and published them in 1965 --Wikipedia
A File Structure for the Complex, the Changing and the Indeterminate (Association for Computing Machinery: Proceedings of the 20th National Conference, 1965) Scribd Gary Wolf review

David HOCKNEY (b. 1937) Authorized website
an English painter, draughtsman, printmaker, stage designer and photographer. ... An important contributor to the Pop art movement of the 1960s, he is considered one of the most influential British artists of the 20th century. --Wikipedia
David Hockney (1979) Daniel Soar review
His short line and lapidary description mask verse of deep seriousness and power. --Raphael and McLeish

Robert STONE (b. 1937)
Dog Soldiers (1974)
A Flag for Sunrise (1981)

Thomas PYNCHON (b. 1937) post
V. (1963)
The search for V, a puzzle slowly fitted together by a series of brilliant episodic flashbacks, provides the unifying device of the novel--a framework encompassing a considerable panorama of history and character. --George Plimpton
The Crying of Lot 49 (1966)
I struggled through a mishmash of pretentious symbolism and concluded that it was a load of nonsense. --Colin McArdle
Gravity's Rainbow (1973)
the ambition to produce a single compendious sacred writing... --Mary McCarthy

Tom STOPPARD (b. 1937) post
Travesties (1974)
Considers wittily what might have happened if Lenin, Joyce and the Dadaist poet Tzara (all living in Zurich simultaneously during World War I) had met each other. --Raphael and McLeish

Severo SARDUY (1937-1993)
Maitreya (1978)

Don DELILLO (b. 1936) Don DeLillo Society
Running Dog (1978)
White Noise (1985)
Libra (1988)
Mao II (1991)

Lars GUSTAFSSON (b. 1936)
Selected Poems

Larry McMURTRY (b. 1936)
an American novelist, essayist, bookseller and screenwriter whose work is predominantly set in either the old West or in contemporary Texas. --Wikipedia
Lonesome Dove (1985)
The story is mainly about two men, 'Gus' McCrae and Woodrow F. Call, both of them retired Texas Rangers, who with the help of several others are driving a herd of cattle north from Texas to Montana. --Charles Van Doren

Jonathan D. SPENCE (b. 1936)
The Death of Woman Wang (1978)
The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci (1984)

Mario VARGAS LLOSA (b. 1936) Official site post
The War at the End of the World (1984; La guerra del fin del mundo)

Avraham B. YEHOSHUA (b. 1936) Jewish Virtual Library
A Late Divorce (Gerushim Meuharim 1982)

Daryl HINE (1936-2012)
a Canadian poet and translator. --Wikipedia
Selected Poems (1981)

Vaclav HAVEL (1936-2011) RFE/RL obituary | post
The Garden Party (1969; Zahradni Slavnost 1963)
Memorandum (Vyrozumeni 1967)
Largo Desolato (1984)

Dahlia RAVIKOVITCH (1936-2005)
A Dress of Fire (1978)

Georges PEREC (1936-1982)
Life, A User's Manual (1978)

James APPLEWHITE (b. 1935)
River Writing: An Eno Journal (1988)
also
Southern Voices National Public Radio (September 25, 2005)

John Pepper CLARK-BEKEDEREMO (b. 1935)
Casualties: Poems 1966-68 (1970)

Thomas KENEALLY (b. 1935)
Schindler's List (Schindler's Ark 1982)
The Playmaker (1987)

David LODGE (b. 1935)
Changing Places (1975)
Small World (1984)

Daniel QUINN (b. 1935)
an American writer best known for his novel Ishmael ... . Quinn's ideas are popularly associated with environmentalism --Wikipedia
Ishmael (1992)
Why does inequality and the inevitable poverty that accompanies it exist, and how did they come into being? As a very young man, Quinn discovered a very simple answer to the question--namely that sometime in the not too distant past, some of the people on Earth locked up all the food and charged all the rest a fee if they wanted to eat it. --Charles Van Doren

Charles WRIGHT (b. 1935) Academy of American Poets post
an American poet. He shared the National Book Award in 1983 for Country Music: Selected Early Poems and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1998 for Black Zodiac. --Wikipedia
The World of the Ten Thousand Things: Poems 1980-1990 (1990)

Jay WRIGHT (b. 1935) Academy of American Poets
an African-American poet, playwright, and essayist. --Wikipedia
Dimensions of History (1976)
The Double Invention of Komo (1980)
Elaine's Book (1986)
Selected Poems (1987)
Boleros (1991)

Danilo KIS (1935-1989)
A Tomb for Boris Davidovich (Grobnica za Borisa Davidovica: sedam poglavlja jedne zajednicke povesti 1976)

Antonio PORTA (1935-1989)
Kisses from Another Dream (1988)

J. G. FARRELL (1935-1979)
The Siege of Krishnapur (1973)

Edward BOND (b. 1934)
Saved (1965)
The Fool (1975)

David MALOUF (b. 1934)
An Imaginary Life (1978)

Wole SOYINKA (Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka b. 1934) post
A Dance of the Forest (1963)
The Interpreters (1965)
Death of the King's Horsemen (1976)
Based on the true story of the jarring conflict between old ways and new, between tribal mores and the imposed ways of the British resident, in southern Nigeria at the end of World War II. --Raphael and McLeish

Mark STRAND (b. 1934)
Selected Poems (1980)
The Continuous Life (1990)
Dark Harbour (1993)

Yaakov SHABTAI (1934-1981)
Past Continuous (1985; Zikhron Devarim)
Shifting adeptly between daily life in modern Tel Aviv and the nerve-pattern intricacies of the remembered past, the novel renounces customary kinds of structure. No character or indicent is given special status. We feel, as a result, that we have walked in upon an epic family reuntion. --Sven Birkerts

also
Good Reading
It remains the best one-volume advisor for serious, academic reading. --Steven Gilbar
(22nd edition 1985) Edited by Arthur Waldhorn, Olga S. Weber, Arthur Zeiger
(23rd edition 1990) Edited by Arthur Waldhorn, Olga S. Weber, Arthur Zeiger Four reading lists

Reiner KUNZE (b. 1933)
Poems
Stories
The Lovely Years (Die Wunderbaren Jahre 1976)
an oblique prose work about adolescents at school, at home, and on holiday... --Philip Ward

Cormac McCARTHY (b. 1933)
an American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter. --Wikipedia
Child of God (1974)
Suttree (1979)
Blood Meridian (1985)
The Border Trilogy: All the Pretty Horses (1992); The Crossing (1994); Cities of the Plain (1998)
The trilogy is an extraordinary achievement and constitutes one of the finest literary achievements of the twentieth century. --Charles Van Doren
The Road (2006)
a novel about a father and son who are riding eastward after a nuclear holocaust has destroyed all of the world they inhabit. --Charles Van Doren

Philip ROTH (b. 1933) Times Topics post
an American novelist. ... Roth's fiction, regularly set in Newark, New Jersey, is known for its intensely autobiographical character, for philosophically and formally blurring the distinction between reality and fiction, for its "supple, ingenious style" and for its provocative explorations of Jewish and American identity. --Wikipedia
Goodbye, Columbus (1959) Irving Howe review
'Goodbye, Columbus' is a fine novella (published with stories)... . --Raphael and McLeish
Portnoy's Complaint (1969)
Portnoy's Complaint is a 'confessional'--set pieces of irresistibly comic anguish by the conscietious masturbator, Portnoy. --Raphael and McLeish
My Life as a Man (1974)
Zuckerman Bound: A Trilogy and Epilogue (1985)
The Counterlife (1986)
Patrimony (1990)
Operation Shylock (1993)

Oxford English Dictionary (1933) post

Nichita STANESCU (1933-1983)
The Still Unborn About the Dead (1975)

Joe ORTON (1933-1967)
The Complete Plays

Robert COOVER (b. 1932)
Spanking the Maid (1982)

Athol FUGARD (b. 1932) Iain Fisher fan site
A Lesson from Aloes (1981)

Allen GROSSMAN (b. 1932) Poetry Foundation
a noted American poet, critic and professor. --Wikipedia
The Ether Dome and Other Poems: New and Selected (1979-1990) (1991)
also
Words Taken to Heart: Four Answers to One Question Poetry Daily

Geoffrey HILL (b. 1932)
Selected Poems (2006)

V. S. NAIPAUL (b. 1932) post
A House for Mr. Biswas (1961)
A Bend in the River (1979)
Independence has been won, civil war concluded. 'The Big Man', president for life, rules by rhetoric, guile, sorcery and a strong helping of terror. --Irving Howe

Aharon APPELFELD (b. 1932) Hebrew Literature Hillel Halkin review
Badenheim 1939 (1980; Badenheim Ir Nofesh 1979)
The Immortal Bartfuss (1988)

John UPDIKE (1932-2009) Times Topics post
an American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic. --Wikipedia
Rabbit, Run (1961)
John Updike's choice of Rabbit Angstrom, in 'Rabbit, Run', was inspired, one of those happy, instinctive accidents than so often shape a literary career. For Rabbit, though a contemporary of the young writer--born, like him, in the early 1930s, and a product, so to speak, of the same world (the area around Reading, Pa.)--was a 'beautiful brainless guy' whose career (as a high school basketball star in a provincial setting) peaked at age 18; in his own wife's view, he was, before their early, hasty marriage, 'already drifting downhill.' --Joyce Carol Oates
Rabbit Redux (1971)
Rabbit is Rich (1981)
The Witches of Eastwick (1984) James Wolcott review
Rabbit at Rest (1990)
also
Seven Stanzas at Easter (1960) Paying Attention to the Sky
Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu (The New Yorker, October 22, 1960) Baseball Almanac
Contributor The New York Review of Books
Contributor The New Yorker

Christopher OKIGBO (1932-1967) Petri Liukkonen biography
Labyrinths, with Path of Thunder (1971)

Sylvia PLATH (1932-1963) post
Sylvia Plath -- interesting poetess whose tragic suicide was misinterpreted as romantic by the college girl mentality. --Alvy Singer, Annie Hall (1977)
Poems
The Bell Jar by "Victoria Lucas" (1966)

Walter ABISH (b. 1931) David Levine Gallery
an Austrian-American author of experimental novels and short stories. --Wikipedia
Alphabetical Africa (1974)
How German Is It (Wie deutsch ist es, 1980)
I Am the Dust Under Your Feet (Conjunctions 10, 1987)
Eclipse Fever (1993)

E. L. DOCTOROW (b. 1931) New York State Writers Institute John Leonard review essay
The Book of Daniel (1971)
Ragtime (1975)
It incorporates the fictions and realities of the era of ragtime while it rags our fictions about it. --George Stade
World's Fair (1985)

Juan GOYTISOLO (b. 1931) Maya Jaggi essay
Space in Motion (1987)

John le CARRE (David John Moore Cornwell b. 1931) post
The Spy Who Came In from the Cold (1963)
at his best, he is grippingly good: in The Spy Who Came in from the Cold he created a true mirror of our distracted times... --Raphael and McLeish

Toni MORRISON (b. 1931) Times Topics Eleanor Birne review | post
an American novelist, editor, and professor. ... She won ... the Nobel Prize in 1993. --Wikipedia
embodies the African-American voice; her books see the American reality from the viewpoint of someone who is in some ways an outsider and in others the center of things. --Charles Van Doren
Sula (1973)
Song of Solomon (1977)
'Song of Solomon' isn't , however, cast in the basically realistic mode of most family novels. --Reynolds Price
Beloved (1987)
Jazz (1992)

Alice MUNRO (b. 1931) Times Topics Margaret Atwood essay | Christian Lorentzen review | post
a Canadian author writing in English. ... In 2013, Munro was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature --Wikipedia
Dance of the Happy Shades (1968)
...Munro’s special territory is the inner lives of women in dreary little towns where nothing much seems to happen. --Grant L. Voth
Something I've Been Meaning to Tell You (1974)

also
Frederic RAPHAEL (b. 1931) and Kenneth McLEISH (1940-1997)
The List of Books (1981)
Arranged in forty-four categories, the lists, despite a decidedly Oxbridge tang, are often illuminating and often infuriating. --Steven Gilbar

Tomas TRANSTROMER (b. 1931)
Selected Poems Morning Birds

Tom WOLFE (b. 1931)
an American author and journalist, best known for his association and influence over the New Journalism literary movement in which literary techniques are used in objective, even-handed journalism. --Wikipedia
The Painted Word (1973)
Wolfe's thesis in The Painted Word was that by the 1970s modern art had moved away from being a visual experience, and more often was an illustration of art critics' theories. --Wikipedia

Jay MACPHERSON (1931-2004) Canadian Women Poets
Poems Twice Told: The boatman and Welcoming disaster (1981)

Sebastien JAPRISOT (Jean-Baptiste Rossi, 1931-2003)
a French author, screenwriter and film director, born in Marseille. His pseudonym was an anagram of Jean-Baptiste Rossi, his real name --Wikipedia
The Sleeping Car Murders (1963 Francis Price translation; Compartiment tueurs 1962)
Attempts are made to discover other occupants in the compartment besides the murdered woman. But these attempts lead nowhere, because whenever a fellow passenger is found, he or she too is dead. --Charles Van Doren
A Very Long Engagement (1993 Linda Coverdale translation; Un long dimanche de fiancailles 1991)
She is wealthy but crippled by polio; he is poor and a soldier in the Great War. --Charles Van Doren

Donald BARTHELME (1931-1989) Times Topics | Donald Barthelme at Jessamyn
The Dead Father (1975)
Forty Stories (1987)

Thomas BERNHARD (1931-1989) Eric Ormsby essay | Stephen Mitchelmore essay
is an existence without meaning or goal--he does not doubt that this is its true character--bearable or not? --Sven Birkerts
Woodcutters, (1988; Holzfällen: Eine Erregung 1984)

ADUNIS (Ali Ahmad Said, b. 1930) Academy of American Poets
Selected Poems

John BARTH (b. 1930) David Louis Edelman fan site
The End of the Road (1958)
Best, early work of later logorrhoid; campus life with the blinds rolled up; scabrous tenderness illuminates characteristic 1950s American milieu. --Raphael and McLeish
The Sot-Weed Factor (1960)
Tidewater Tales (1987)
Once upon a Time: A Floating Opera (1994)

Harold BLOOM (b. 1930) post
The Western Canon (1994)

Edna O'BRIEN (b. 1930) Petri Liukkonen biography | New York State Writers Institute
an Irish novelist, memoirist, playwright, poet and short story writer --Wikipedia
A Fanatic Heart (1985)

Gary SNYDER (b. 1930) Academy of American Poets David Kirby review
No Nature: New and Selected Poems (1992)

Derek WALCOTT (b. 1930) Nobel Prize | Times Topics Adam Kirsch essay
Ti-Jean and His Brothers (1958)
Collected Poems (1986)
Omeros (1990)
It is this everyman's Homer, and not the comfortable court poet some people imagine Homer to have been, who inspires Derek Walcott's epic poem, and who records the past events that determine the lives of the people he describes--including that of Mr. Walcott himself and, ultimately, of all of us. --Mary Lefkowitz

Nathan ZACH (b. 1930)
Selected Poems

Slavomir MROZEK (1930-2013)
a Polish dramatist, writer and cartoonist. --Wikipedia
Tango (1965)
On one level, Tango is a tale about the conflict between generations, but basically it demonstrates the process, in which youthful idealism turns into unscrupulous struggle for power and paves way to despotism. --Petri Liukkonen
The Ugupu Bird (1968, Konrad Syrop translation; Wesele w Atomicach) Nevil Gibson review

Yoram KANIUK (1930-2013) Hebrew Literature
an Israeli writer, painter, journalist, and theater critic. --Wikipedia
His Daughter (1987)

Chinua ACHEBE (1930-2013) Times Topics post
born Albert Chinualumogu Achebe; ... was a Nigerian novelist, poet, professor, and critic. --Wikipedia
Things Fall Apart (1958)
Wry African view of comedy and scandal of independence in a Nigeria at once debauched by its one-time masters and thrust, by their departure, into a parody of their vanities. --Raphael and McLeish
No Longer at Ease (1960)
Arrow of God (1964)

John ARDEN (1930-2012) Michael Coveney obituary | Raymond H. Thompson interview
an English Marxist playwright --Wikipedia
Plays

Harold PINTER (1930-2008) Official site | Times Topics | Nobel Prize post
They have the shape and feel of well-made plays in which every effect has a cause and every action produces a reaction. But the things they describe--violence, terror, disintegration--are usually dark and irrational. --Fintan O'Toole
The Homecoming (1964)
The Dumb Waiter (1966)
Here comes another incomprehensible order from above. --Kenneth L. Jost
The Room (1966)
The Caretaker (1967)
Pinter removes the metaphysical element from Beckett's Waiting for Godot (in which the two main characters are tramps) and endows his own central character, a Welsh tramp battening to anyone who will listen, with a speech pattern alternating between the the pathetic and the prosaic. --Philip Ward

Jacques DERRIDA (1930-2004) Adam Shatz review
a French philosopher, born in French Algeria. Derrida is best known for developing a form of semiotic analysis known as deconstruction. --Wikipedia
On Grammatology (Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak translation 1976; De la grammatologie, 1967)

Harold BRODKEY (1930-1996) Robot Wisdom
Stories in an Almost Classical Mode (1988)

Stanley ELKIN (1930-1995) Peter J. Bailey interview | Thomas LeClair interview
an American Jewish novelist, short story writer, and essayist. --Wikipedia
The Living End (1979)

Dan PAGIS (1930-1986) Audrey Shore essay
Selected Poems

Hans Magnus ENZENSBERGER (b. 1929) Bloodaxe Books
Poems for People Who Don't Read Poems (Michael Hamburger and Jerome Rothenberg translation 1968; Gedichte. Die Entstehung eines Gedichts, 1962)

Richard HOWARD (b. 1929) Poetry Foundation New York State Writers Institute biography William H. Pritchard review | Brad Leithauser review | Adam Travis review
an American poet, literary critic, essayist, teacher, and translator. --Wikipedia
Untitled Subjects (1969)
Findings (1971)

Milan KUNDERA (b. 1929) Stephan Muller fan site post
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Nesnesitelna lehkost byti, 1984)
When he [Tomas] was supposed by his hospital colleagues to be thinking of signing a retraction in order to keep his job they turned up their noses at him. Now that he's been declassed for maintaining his integrity, he's become an untouchable. --E. L. Doctorow

Ursula K. LE GUIN (b. 1929) Official site
The Left Hand of Darkness (1969)
Le Guin has a poetic sensibility; this study of a world called 'Winter' and the sexual life of its inhabitants is a stunning creation. --Raphael and McLeish

Emmanuel LE ROY LADURIE (b. 1929) Library of Congress
a French historian whose work is mainly focused upon Languedoc in the ancien regime, particularly the history of the peasantry --Wikipedia
The Territory of the Historian (1979; Le Territoire de l'historien, Vol. 1 1973, Vol. 2 1978)
also
The Beggar and the Professor: A Sixteenth-Century Family Saga (1997 Arthur Goldhammer translation; Le siecle des Platter, 1499-1628, 1995) excerpt University of Chicago Press

John MONTAGUE (b. 1929) New York State Writers Institute
Selected Poems

E. O. WILSON (b. 1929) Steven Pinker interview | Eugene Goodheart essay
an American biologist, researcher (sociobiology, biodiversity), theorist (consilience, biophilia), naturalist (conservationist) and author. His biological specialty is myrmecology, the study of ants, on which he is considered to be the world's leading authority. --Wikipedia
Sociobiology (1975) Tom Bethell essay
Darwin put humanity in its proper place in the animal kingdom. Wilson put human society there, too. --Michael Lind

John HOLLANDER (1929-2013) Academy of American Poets
an American poet and literary critic. --Wikipedia
Reflections on Espionage: The Question of Cupcake (1976)
takes you on a trip through the obsessive mind of a spy (code named, obviously, Cupcake), through nine months of his reports both to superiors and colleagues --Robert P. Beveridge
Tesserae and Other Poems (1993)
The title poem is the center piece of this collection. It is a set of 144 quatrains that utilize the stanza immortalized by Fitzgerald's rendering of The Rubaiyat. --L. Stearns Newburg
Selected Poetry (1993)
Perfection is a rare accomplishment, particularly in American poetry, and the perfection of much of Hollander’s work makes it essential reading for anyone who genuinely cares for the craft of poetry. --Vernon Shetley

Christa WOLF (1929-2011)
a German literary critic, novelist, and essayist. She was one of the best-known writers to have emerged from the former East Germany. --Wikipedia
Cassandra (Kassandra, 1983)
The retelling of the story of Cassandra--really of the Iliad, from Cassandra's perspective --Deb Oestreicher

Ralf DAHRENDORF (1929-2009)
a German-British sociologist, philosopher, political scientist and liberal politician. --Wikipedia
The Modern Social Contract (1990)

Alvin FEINMAN (1929-2008) Reginald Shepherd In Memoriam
Poems
Because his poetry has been so sparse, Feinman found only a small audience, but they have been select, skilled, and faithful readers. --Harold Bloom

Guillermo CABRERA Infante (1929-2005) Associated Press obituary | Gazarian Gautrier interview | David Levine caricature
View of Dawn in the Tropics (Vista del amanecer en el tropico 1964)
Three Trapped Tigers (Tres Tristes Tigres 1967)

Edward ALBEE (b. 1928)
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1961–1962)
Raucously witty, agonized dissection of campus marriage; a bravura piece for bravura actors. --Raphael and McLeish

Noam CHOMSKY (b. 1928) The Online Books Page Official site post
an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, logician, political commentator and activist. Sometimes described as the "father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is also a major figure in analytic philosophy. --Wikipedia
... among the most capable of those from your own side who speak to you on this topic and the manufacturing of public opinion is Noam Chomsky, who spoke sober words of advice prior to the [Iraq] war... . --Osama bin Laden
Syntactic Structures (1957)

Irving FELDMAN (b. 1928) Poetry Daily
New and Selected Poems (1979)

Donald HALL (b. 1928) post
The One Day (1988)
Old and New Poems (1990)

Ferenc JUHASZ (b. 1928)
a Hungarian poet --Wikipedia
Selected Poems (1970)

William KENNEDY (b. 1928) New York State Writers Institute
Ironweed (1983)

Thomas KINSELLA (b. 1928)
Peppercanister Poems: 1972-1978 (1979)
also
Five poems A Small Anthology of Poems

Philip LEVINE (b. 1928) Poetry Foundation | Academy of American Poets | Internet Poetry Archive Terrence Rafferty review
a Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet best known for his poems about working-class Detroit --Wikipedia
Selected Poems (1984)

Cynthia OZICK (b. 1928) Complete Review John Leonard review
The Messiah of Stockholm (1987)
Envy, or Yiddish in America (1989)

Robert PIRSIG (b. 1928) Bohemian Ink
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974)

William TREVOR (b. 1928) British Council - Literature
Having removed himself from his native Ireland, he can write about its imagined people with the same clarity of distance that he commands over his London and provincial characters. His short stories are considerable works of art, but it is probably in his novels that he reaches the highest peak of achivement so far. --Philip Ward
The Love Department (1970)
The Children of Dynmouth (1980)
Collected Stories (1992)
deadly bullets, all of them, piercing some sensitive area of common experience. --Bernard Bailyn

James WATSON (b. 1928) post
an American molecular biologist, geneticist, and zoologist, best known as a co-discoverer of the structure of DNA in 1953 with Francis Crick. --Wikipedia
The Molecular Biology of the Gene (1965)
The Double Helix (1968) Kenneth R. Miller resources
An eminently readable book about the unraveling of DNA, one of the most important scientific discoveries of the century. --The Intercollegiate Review
also
A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid, with F. H. C. Crick Nature (April 2, 1953)
The Involvement of RNA in the Synthesis of Proteins Nobel Lecture (December 11, 1962)

Gabriel GARCIA Marquez (b. 1928) The Guardian: Authors | Times Topics Michael Wood review | Perry Anderson review | Francisco Goldman essay | Silvana Paternostro essay
a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo throughout Latin America. Considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century --Wikipedia
One Hundred Years of Solitude (Cien anos de soledad, 1967) (excerpt) Nobel Prize Ilan Stavans review
The narrative is a magician's trick in which memory and prophecy, illusion and reality are mixed and often made to look the same. --Robert Kiely
Love in the Time of Cholera (El amor en los tiempos del colera, 1985)
In substance and style not as fantastical, as mythologizing, as the previous works, this is a compelling exploration of the myths we make of love. --Barbara Hoffert

Carlos FUENTES (1928-2012) Debra A. Castillo interview
A Change of Skin (1968)
Terra nostra (1975)

also
Martin SEYMOUR-SMITH (1928-1998)
The 100 Most Influential Books Ever Written (1998) Table of Contents

Philip K. DICK (1928-1982) The Online Books Page
an American novelist, short story writer and essayist whose published work is almost entirely in the science fiction genre --Wikipedia
The Man in the High Castle (1962)
touches on nearly all of Dick's major themes but follows a relatively clear plot line, which is surprising since it was written with the divinatory help of the I Ching. --Michael Dirda

John ASHBERY (b. 1927) Times Topics | New York State Writers Institute
...Ashbery used to work with comparative deliberateness. ... But when the vast possibilities implicit in randomness became apparent to him, Ashbery soon left convention behind. --John Malcolm Brinnin
The Double Dream of Spring (1970)
Houseboat Days (1977)
Selected Poems (1985)
Flow Chart (1991)
Hotel Lautreamont (1992)
And the Stars Were Shining (1994)

Gunter GRASS (b. 1927) post
The Tin Drum (1959) Bold Type (October 1999)
Inventive, patchy disquisition (as if by a German Lawrence Sterne) on the Hitlerian legacy as seen by an 'autobiographical' dwarf. --Raphael and McLeish
Grass's hero, Oskar, begins as the misbegotten child of the Nazi era and ends--what could be more modern?--as a jazz musician in a mental hospital. --Frederick Morton
The Flounder (1978)

Galway KINNELL (b. 1927) Poetry Foundation | Academy of American Poets | Poem Hunter | Modern American Poetry Official site Wendy Anderson interview
an American poet. ... His best-loved and most anthologized poems are "St. Francis and the Sow" and "After Making Love We Hear Footsteps". --Wikipedia
Selected Poems (1982)

W. S. MERWIN (b. 1927) Bold Type (June 2002) Peter Davison essay
Selected Poems (1988)

Ruth Prawer JHABVALA (1927-2013) The Online Books Page Petri Liukkonen biography
a German-born British and American Booker prize-winning novelist, short story writer and two-time Academy Award-winning screenwriter. --Wikipedia
Heat and Dust (1975)
novel of an "outrageous" Anglo-Indian romance in 1920s Khatm and Satipur... Anne, the story's narrator, travels to India to discover more about the mystery surrounding her grandfather's first wife, Olivia. --Jana L. Perskie

Guy DAVENPORT (1927-2005) Bernard Hoepffner interview
Tatlin! Six Stories (1974)

Laszlo NAGY (1927-2005)
a Hungarian poet and translator. --Wikipedia
Love of the Scorching Wind (1973)

James WRIGHT (1927-1980) Academy of American Poets
an American poet. --Wikipedia
Above the River: The Complete Poems (1992)

David ATTENBOROUGH (b. 1926) The Online Books Page The Life Series
an English broadcaster and naturalist. --Wikipedia
Life on Earth (1979)
Outstanding illustrations; lively, lucid text expounds the origins and development of all forms of life. --Raphael and McLeish

John BERGER (b. 1926)
an English art critic, novelist, painter and poet. --Wikipedia
Ways of Seeing (1972)
According to Berger, practically every painting was an advertisement for something, usually the wealth of the person--man or woman--who commissioned it. --Charles Van Doren
About Looking (1980)
another extraordinary book. It is mostly about photography. --Charles Van Doren

also
Charles VAN DOREN (b. 1926)
an American intellectual, writer, and editor who was involved in a television quiz show scandal in the 1950s. --Wikipedia
The Joy of Reading (1985)
The Joy of Reading (2008)
See collaborations with Mortimer J. Adler

John FOWLES (1926-2005) Bob Goosmann fan site Saray Lyall obituary | Ian Sansom review essay
The Magus (2nd Ed., 1977)
In some mysterious way, Conchis, the Magus or magician who inhabits, or, better, infuses, the Greek island where Nicholas goes to teach in a boys' school, becomes the instructor-ally that Alison needs, so that Nicholas finally learns something. Not everything; not enough, perhaps. --Charles Van Doren
Convoluted games on a mesmeric Greek island: tries to provide 'an experience beyond the literary' and certainly dishes up a rich and stimulating brew. --Raphael and McLeish

David SHAHAR (1926-1997) Jewish Virtual Library
The Palace of Shattered Vessels: Summer in the Street of the Prophets (1985; Kayitz Be-Derech Ha-Nevi'im, 1969); A Voyage to Ur of the Chaldees (1985; Ha-Masah Le-Ur Kasdim, 1971); The Day of the Countess (1986; Yom Ha-Rozenet, 1976); Nin-Gal (1996; Ningal, 1983); Day of the Ghosts (1996; Yom Ha-Refaim, 1986); A Tammuz Night`s Dream (1996; Halom Leyl Tammuz, 1988); Nights of Lutetia (1991; Leylot Lutezia); On Candles and Winds (1996; Al Ner Ve Al Ruah, 1994)

A. R. AMMONS (Archie Randolph Ammons, 1926-2001) Academy of American Poets
Collected Poems: 1951-1971 (1972)
Sphere: The Form of a Motion (1974)
Selected Longer Poems (1980)

Elizabeth JENNINGS (1926-2001) Plagiarist Poetry Archive
Selected Poems (1979)

James MERRILL (1926-1995) Len Krisak review
The Changing Light at Sandower (1982)
From the First Nine: Poems 1946-1972 (1982)

Ingeborg BACHMANN (1926-1973) Poem Hunter Petri Liukkonen biography
In the Storm of Roses: Selected Poems (translated and edited by Mark Anderson, 1986)

Frank O'HARA (1926-1966) Academy of American Poets post
an American writer, poet and art critic. ... O'Hara is regarded as a leading figure in the New York School—an informal group of artists, writers and musicians who drew inspiration from Jazz, Surrealism, Abstract expressionism, action painting and contemporary avant-garde art movements. --Wikipedia
Selected Poems (2004)

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\/ 1901-1925

Revised November 14, 2013.
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