I don’t tend to follow the work of an author, whilst I read my fair share of novels (25-30 a year), I switch up between various categories as I’m more interested in the wordsmithery, the imagery, and the storytelling of a novel than the genre.
I’m as happy reading a ‘beach book’ —typically a police crime thriller— as I am the latest Booker Prize winner (apart from The Sellout, I just couldn’t get into it, must try again sometime!). I enjoy sci-fi, and as a young teenager spent a long time in the worlds of King and Herbert, before disappearing into the (overly) detailed cosmos that a certain Mr. Clarke enjoyed.
David Mitchell is probably the closest I’ve gotten to becoming a fan of a particular writer, I have read every novel he’s written and wholeheartedly recommend all of them.
Another writer that is fast becoming a firm favourite is Elizabeth Strout. Her novel Olive Kitteridge started things off, and from the first few pages I fell in love with her style, her use of words, the way her characters are slowly built into the beautiful, broken, everyday humans that are usually the most fascinating.
After all, don’t we all wonder really goes on behind close doors? Don’t we all react with disbelief when you hear something that happened to someone else with a sense of ‘well I didn’t think it would happen to them’?
I’ve just finished Amy & Isabelle. It is a wonderful, sad, funny, uplifting story of a mother and daughter who are just finding their way through a relentlessly hot summer.
I finished the book on the train on the way home from Edinburgh last night as the sun started to dip below the horizon, leaving long shadows strewn across cropped fields.
I have started another book —Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami— but already know I’ll fall back into the gently real world that Strout has created. I like it there.
Who are your favourite authors?
What are your thoughts?