Recommended Reading

As a teacher of creative writing, I'm always asked by students to recommend some good books to them. So, on this page I have listed some of my favorite books written in the last twenty years or so. They are divided into different categories--fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. You won't find any of my comic book reading recommendations here; instead, they can be found starting on this page. I have limited the authors below to one title even though many of them have written a number of wonderful books. If you like one of the books below, you should look for other books by that same writer. Anyway, here they are:

This classic is Atwood's harrowing tale of a dystopian future, told from the perspective of a woman whose role in this new society is to be a "breeder" for the upper class. This novel was adapted into a pretty crappy movie in 1990.

Baker's wild send-up of Hollywood is told in the form of a faux oral history of the meteoric rise and spectacular fall of Shark Trager, movie mogul. This novel is like Citizen Kane crossed with Quentin Tarantino; it's a crazy, clever book filled with unforgettable characters, surreal plot developments, and all kinds of in-jokes and references for movie buffs. The Academy Awards scene towards the end of the book is laugh-out-loud hysterical. The book is a cult classic but (inexplicably) out of print; if you can find a copy at a used bookstore or online, grab it.

This book is a collection of stories, most of which feature the same character--a young, clever, single urban woman struggling with career and love. However, it would be reductive to classify this fine collection as "Chick Lit"; Bank's writing is a whole lot smarter than that.

Banks's heartbreaking novel centers around a fatal incident that dramatically transforms the small town in which it takes place. After a school bus filled with kids falls through a frozen lake, four different narrators tell their stories of the aftermath. This novel was made into an amazing film by Atom Egoyan--one of the truly rare examples of an exceptional book being made into an exceptional movie.

A "best of" collection from one of the masters of the contemporary American short story. Carver's style is minimalist and precise, and he excels at investigating the details of the lives of "ordinary folks." Several of Carver's short stories were adapted into the 1993 Robert Altman film, Short Cuts.

You don't have to be a fan of comic books to appreciate this great, Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about two cousins who create the "Escapist" and other comics heroes in 1940s New York. But the story is only partially about comics; spanning several decades and continents, Chabon's novel is a rich tapestry of love, loss, and the American experience.

A brilliant, engaging book that's a meditation on identity disguised as a thriller. The novel follows three separate characters--all involved in the complex and dangerous process of reinventing themselves--whose relation to each other forms the novel's central mystery.

This beautiful and brief novel is told from the perspective of a young girl who is exploring her world--her neighborhood--and the people in it. A wonderfully crafted narrative voice.

Diamant revises no less than the Bible in this daring novel. She both retells and invents the story of Dinah, one of Jacob's daughters, who is mentioned only in passing in the Bible. By cleverly recasting these characters' stories with an eye toward female empowerment, Diamant reclaims the feminine voice from a male-centered past.

A wildly entertaining and moving novel about Oscar Wao, a 300-pound sci-fi/fantasy/comic book nerd from the Dominican Republic. The book is also about a family curse, the history of the Dominican Republic, and the redemptive power of love and imagination. All this and footnotes, too!

This witty send-up of office life has earned comparisons to Catch-22, and deservedly so. The book is set in a Chicago ad agency that, like much of corporate America, is facing downsizing and layoffs. Ferris is a sharp observer, and his writing features an inventive first-person collective voice, sharply delineated characters and details, and the ability to let humanity shine through the satire.

Franzen's satire of modern life follows the misadventures of members of a dysfunctional midwestern clan. In this literary age of the overused first-person narrator, Franzen fully inhabits the third-person voice to tell the kind of "grand narrative" that's no longer in vogue. His attention to detail and voice and his sharp observations of American culture are outstanding.

This National Book Award-winning novel, set in final days of the Civil War, tells two parallel stories: that of Inman, a wounded soldier who is engaged in a Homeric journey to get back to his love Ada; and that of Ada, who is struggling to maintain her farm. The strength of this novel is Frazier's prose, which recreates a time, place, and mood like few other novels set in the past.

This novel is the quintessential example of the "magical realism" style of many Central- and South American writers. This style, in brief, is one that treats incredible events as everyday occurrences. Solitude focuses on the sprawling tale of the Buendia family, inhabitants of the small fictional village of Macondo. The events that transpire throughout this novel are bizarre and beautiful in the extreme, and reading the book is like stepping into a strange and wonderful world.

This novel is the story of a twentysomething American who discovers a secret beach (and the other young Westerners who inhabit it) off the coast of Thailand. Hip and knowing, the book is an electrifying tale about the pervasive self-destruction of the contemporary Western mindset, and it reads like a Generation X Lord of the Flies (and if you don't believe me, read the reviews on the back, nearly all of which use the words "Generation X" and "Lord of the Flies").

On the surface, this book is a flat-out thriller filled with double- and triple-crosses. But beneath this surface lies a dark, unsettling tale of sin and redemption. There's some extreme violence in this book, so it's not for the faint of heart.

The hero and narrator of this book is a young boy with autism who is attempting to solve the mystery of a neighbor's dog's murder. With this book, Haddon has created one of the most memorable characters in recent fiction, and his achievement with narrative voice is nothing short of remarkable.

A thoroughly engrossing story about a woman who accidentally allows her neighbor's daughter to drown while babysitting her.

The wild life and times of fictional novelist and Irving alter-ego T.S. Garp. Not only does Irving create indelible characters involved in a multitude of impossible-to-look-away situations, but he also offers some sharp insight into academics, sexuality, and politics. Robin Williams did a pretty good job with the Garp character in the 1982 movie, but this novel is so layered and complex that any adaptation is bound to miss a lot. Read the book.

Kingsolver's most impressive novel focuses on the life of a missionary, his wife, and their four daughters as they venture into the heart of Africa with disastrous results. Like several other books on this page, Kingsolver makes extraordinary use of multiple narrators to tell her story. She also offers some pointed criticism about culture clash.

McCarthy is one of the great living American writers, and this book is, perhaps, his best. In the novel, a man and his son wander across the devastated countryside, which has been destroyed by an unspecified calamity from years before. Nuclear Armageddon? Global warming? A meteor? McCarthy never tells us; he lets his descriptions speak for themselves. And they speak volumes, for his pared-down prose meshes perfectly with the bleak, post-apocalyptic landscape. The Road is a nightmarish vision of the future, but at its heart lies the powerful bond between father and son.

An outstanding novel about the dramatic and tragic results of a precocious young girl's action. McEwan does a fantastic job of exploring his characters' thoughts and lives over a period of time.

I'm not a huge fan of westerns, but this meaty novel about best friends Augustus McCrae and Woodrow F. Call is a great read. McMurtry has written many good novels, but this one stands out among the rest. An epic adventure.

It's hard to describe this wonderfully original book. The "author" is actually one Jeffrey Cartwright, who pens the biography of his deceased friend, novelist Edwin Mullhouse. What's unusual about this? Both biographer and dead writer are eleven years old. What drives this narrative is the dark undercurrent in Cartwright's voice.

Naylor's "novel-in-stories" tells of the lives of several women living on a dead-end street of an anonymous, uncaring city. Each tale, taken separately, is a powerful story of lives on the margins; taken as a whole, this book packs an artistic punch that will knock you over.

Vietnam vet and writer O'Brien offers up a collection of fictional stories that play with our preconceived notions of what constitutes "truth." This book is a truly outstanding example of the power of stories and storytelling and how these things allow us to connect to the lives of others and to ourselves. A one-of-kind reading experience.

O'Nan delivers the disquieting story of a small Wisconsin town in the midst of a diptheria epidemic circa the mid 1860s. The book is also a rare example of an author sustaining a second-person narrative voice. Our "narrator" here is the town's sheriff, a good man whose sense of his own goodness is called radically into question as the town's situation worsens. Many times, the use of such a narrator is gimmmicky; here, though, it perfectly creates the atmosphere.

Price is the great chronicler of urban crime and race conflict, and this novel--easily his best--focuses on the characters of Strike, a drug dealer trying to escape his life, and Rocco, a police chief investigating a murder that Strike may or may not have been involved in. This novel is at once an engrossing story and a powerful insight into the city life that most of us do our best to ignore. Spike Lee adapted this book into a movie back in the mid-90s.

A remarkable novel about the death of a 13 year old boy, killed in a hit-and-run accident. The novel is told from three perspectives--the father of the dead boy, the mother of the dead boy, and the man who drove the car. The tension mounts in this book to an unforgettable climax.

Three men stumble upon a fortune--over four million dollars--when they find a small plane and a dead pilot in the snowy woods. Their plan is to wait and see if anyone is after the money, then split it and go their separate ways. Of course, everything goes wrong--first gradually and then spectacularly. This book invariably makes us consider the question "What is evil?" on a very personal level. Overall, A Simple Plan is storytelling at its finest. If you pick this book up, make sure that you've got a long stretch ahead of you because you won't want to stop reading. It was also made into a pretty good movie directed by Sam Raimi.

Tartt's first novel focuses on a small group of classics scholars studying at a small college in New England. Sound boring? It isn't; these students get involved in weird rituals that lead to tragic results, including murders and betrayals. For such a young writer, her style is assured and gripping--much like her characters.

The touching and weird story of two friends, one of whom goes to war and the other of whom is obsessed with birds. A great story of friendship, captivity, and freedom. Birdy was adapted into a pretty solid film in 1984 starring a young Matthew Modine and Nicolas Cage. This novel is so interior, though--thoroughly occupying the heads of its two main characters--that it needs to be read, not seen.

Wolff, known more for his short stories and memoirs, has delivered a first novel that centers on a private boys school in 1960 and a group of young literary-minded students who vie for a writing prize. Over the course of this slim volume, Wolff's characters explore why books matter, what it means to tell the truth in writing, and the inimitable bond between fathers and sons.

A riveting account of a failed military mission in Mogadishu, Somalia. One of the most realistic and harrowing accounts of modern warfare that you are likely to find in print. This book was adapted into a well-received movie of the same name, but the book is much more thorough in depicting the intricacies of the situation and its background. Also, the power of this book is that it conveys the horrors of battle through language and not with the aid of visual effects.

Douglas provides a cheeky and insightful look at how American popular culture has depicted and shaped women, as told through her very personal perspective of growing up in the media age. The chapter on Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie alone is well worth the cover price. All in all, this book shows how academic study can be both smart and entertaining.

Eggers--a fellow University of Illinois alum--delivers a unique autobiography about life with his younger brother after both of their parents die of cancer within months of each other. Eggers, who also edits McSweeney's Quarterly journal, has a wholly original voice and his wit is evident on every page. Be sure to read the title page; Eggers likes to include interesting details for obsessive readers.

Journalist Ehrenreich wanted to write about the plight of minimum wage workers in America, but rather than dryly research the topic in libraries, she instead moved to different parts of the country for a month at a time and attempted to survive on a minimum wage job. Her stories and findings are amazing, and her method makes her conclusions both credible and hard to ignore. An amazing insight into the working and living conditions of too many people in this country.

This book chronicles a tragic clash between East and West in the person of young Lia Lee, a Hmong child whose epilepsy is viewed very differently by her people and the California county hospital where she is treated. Fadiman's skill as a writer is to address large issues of faith and medicine while never losing sight of the very personal drama before her.

A thoroughly researched book in which Frazier retells the story of his family by tracing his roots back to Revolutionary War days and up through the present. He has a wonderful storyteller's voice, and each page is packed with original insights and unique turns of phrase. Taken as a whole, this book represents one of the noblest objective of the writer: to rescue the past--in this case, his own--from obscurity.

A fascinating look into the world of high school basketball. Frey spends a year with several young basketball players in Coney Island, New York, who are banking on basketball to rescue them from the mean streets.

Grice--a community college English professor in Oklahoma--delivers a knockout piece of nature writing with this book, which examines in great, hair-raising detail the habits of predators such as tarantulas, rattlesnakes, black widows, and others. Each chapter is devoted to a different animal, and the last chapter--on the Brown Recluse--will keep you up at night. As a writer, Grice has a great eye for detail and knows how to tell a story.

Harr spins out an electrifying narrative about a civil suit brought against two corporations by the people of a town who charge that they have been poisoned by the companies' manufacturing waste. In Harr's hands, this is no dry legal battle; instead, the characters come alive in his novelistic rendering of true-life events.

Klosterman is a self-admitted pop culture junkie, and he waxes philosophic on everything from Larry Bird to The Empire Strikes Back to the Left Behind series. His "interludes" between chapters are priceless--especially the one entitled, "The twenty-three questions I ask everybody I meet in order to decide if I can really love them."

Krakauer, a former journalist for Outside magazine, writes this book in which he reconstructs the story of Chris McCandless, a bright young man from a middle class family who rejected mainstream values to wander the country and, sadly, ended up dead in Alaska at age twenty-four. Krakauer uses the young man's story to raise questions about the "lure" of the open road, the antagonistic relationship between mainstream and margin, and the sometimes bitter dynamics of family--particularly between fathers and sons.

An insightful and engaging "instruction manual" on creative writing. If you feel like being inspired to write, pick up this book.

Novelist Patchett turns to nonfiction in this account of her tender and turbulent friendship with troubled, self-destructive writer Lucy Grealy (author of Autobiography of a Face--another fine book). This heartbreaking story provides some insight into the pressures of acceptance that writers place on themselves, but more than that it explores the depths--and limits--of friendship.

Sedaris is one of the premier humorists working today, and this collection of essays about his family is (probably) his funniest and (definitely) his most layered and moving to date.

Snyder was a tenure-track English professor at a small private university in the Northeast when he was let go. This book chronicles his search for himself in the aftermath of what he initially perceived to be a devastating road block. He ends up finding redemption not in academia, but in construction work. Overall, he's an interesting writer with a lot to say.

Waitzkin, father of chess prodigy Josh Waitzkin, brings the reader into the strange and interesting world of chess--its rules, tournaments, eccentrics, losses, and victories.

Quite possibly Wolff's finest book, This Boy's Life chronicles his peripatetic early life with his mother and his desperation to escape the life she finds for them in the Pacific Northwest. It's also a fascinating look at a writer's early life.

Much of Bukowski's poetry is like a punch to the face--brutal, quick, and unforgettable. This book represents the most comprehensive collection of his work.

Former U.S. poet laureate Collins edited this book in which he gathered up 180 offerings from contemporary poetry. It's a fine, fine anthology of--to use Collins's words--"clear, reader-conscious poems." The perfect book for people who think that they don't like poetry.

The only shortcoming of Poetry 180 is that it features just one of Collins's own poems. This collection--an anthology culled from Collins's first several books--is a remarkable portrait of one of our finest poets.

A very unique collection of poetry, this book tells the story of Olds's father, dying of cancer. The story is told, however, through a series of poems that document not only the disease, but the troubled and tenuous bond between father and daughter.

Few poets write about nature as movingly as Oliver, and this collection--centered on the flora and fauna of her environs--is her finest.

Home	Classes	Spotlight on Comics
About Me	Links	Recommended Reading