Since we’re deep into the season of “year end” lists, here’s a list of ten great novels written by women that didn’t get a lot of critical attention this year. That isn’t to say that aren’t a ton of other books deserving of this distinction, just that these are some really good ones. Go list-crazy and pair with our own Year in Reading series.
10 More Books to Read Just Because
Everyone’s Writing
“Every month, Literary Hub, Electric Lit, and Catapult engage more than two million people with serious writing and contemporary writers, instead of leaving them to play Candy Crush or what-have-you.” Meet the man behind Lit Hub, Electric Lit, and Catapult, Andy Hunter. For reflections on the world of print, Nick Ripatrazone writes on the literary magazine and getting paid.
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“A Novel” Reminder
Eliza Brooke for Vox explains why the seemingly obvious phrase "A Novel" still appears on book covers and spines today.
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The First Family of Letters
Want to become a successful writer? Get adopted by Stephen King. With five fiction writers to their name — Stephen, Tabitha King, Joe Hill, Owen King, and his wife, Kelly Braffet — the Kings have turned writing into a family business, according to The New York Times Magazine profile on the clan. Pair with: the accompanying article on “Easter eggs” found in the family’s fiction.
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The Wind-Up You Chroncile
Do you love old jazz? Are you nostalgic? Did your wife mysteriously disappear? Then you might be in a Haruki Murakami novel. At The Toast, Alice Lee gives criteria to determine whether you’re part of Murakami’s fictional universe.
Den Father
By now the overlap between writers and drug addicts is pretty well-known, but it wasn’t so well-known back when Thomas De Quincey wrote Confessions of an English Opium Eater. In the essay, De Quincey admitted that not only was he addicted to opium, he suspected he’d ingested more of the substance than any other man save Coleridge. (Incidentally, we reviewed a novel by Year in Reading alumnus Jeet Thayil that largely took place in an opium den.)
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Tuesday New Release Day: Morris; Backman; Burke; Frank; Rasmussen; Holbert; Harrison; Mapson; Young
Our own Bill Morris has a new novel on shelves this week, which you can learn more about in his recent conversation with our own Edan Lepucki. Also out: A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman; Wayfaring Stranger by James Lee Burke; All I Love and Know by Judith Frank; Evergreen by Rebecca Rasmussen; The Hour of Lead by Bruce Holbert; The Spark and the Drive by Wayne Harrison; Owen’s Daughter by Jo-Ann Mapson; and Season to Taste by Natalie Young.
Digital Eustace
Sparksheet interviews Blake Eskin, the New Yorker’s first and only web editor, who shares the venerable magazine’s unique approach to having an online presence. (via)
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