Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Novels
I'm having my students write book reviews, and I'm giving them a list to select from. Because most of the students are entirely out of touch with current work, I'm putting only novels published in the last five years on the list. So I'm looking for suggested titles. Right now my list is fairly male dominated and white guy. I need diversity on the list for my students and for my own reading pleasure.
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7 comments:
Woot, woot! I love the idea! And who knows, you may be responsible for turning some young kid on to a writer who within the next ten years may turn out to be one of our greats.
I just finished reading The Septembers of Shiraz by Dalia Sofer and wanted the chance to hype it somewhere. It's so new that it isn't even in Goodreads database. I bought it in hardback, because she's fresh from Sarah Lawrence's writing program, and this is her first novel. It's great; she's Iranian; it's about fleeing after the Iranian Revolution; but it's not difficult, just beautiful. Craft-wise a real gem. I think Sofer is my two cents.
Good suggestion. I saw her read a couple of months back at the KGB bar reading series.
They'd probably dig Junot Diaz's new novel, "The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao," but I haven't read it.
I just read Susanna Moore's The Big Girls-- it's about a women's prison. Multiple viewpoints and all that jazz. The subject matter may be a bit much for them though: molested-as-a-child-mother ends up killing her children because of "voices" in her head. Her shrink is the main narrator. Wait, they can't read that. What the hell am I thinking? It was just the last novel I read. And it was good.
If they want a prison novel, or really if you do, Carol Muske Dukes, Channeling Mark Twain. I liked it more for the info than the prose.
My developmental writing students seem to share a love of amy tan. They've passed around a copy of "Saving Fish from Drowning". I have yet to read it though. Also, I haven't read Nelly yet, but she's on my list.
I think it si more than 5 years old and maybe a borderline young adult novel, but when I was 19 ish I loved the Alchemist by Paulo Cuelo.
Also on my list is Gloria Naylors "fictionalized memoir" 1996--that's the title 1996. But it is about government spying and that could go either way right?
This is a good self assignment. At first, I only came up with Zadie Smith's On Beauty, which isn't my favorite even though I read and loved Howard's End which it sort of holds a mirror to.
I've been meaning to read Daniel Alarcon - either War by Candlelight (stories) or Lost City Radio (novel) - for a couple of years. Tell one of your students to read them for me and report back, cool?
It looks like you're covered in the traditional novel department...
I've been reading tons of graphic novels lately, so here are some nontraditional formats for you:
American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang, and Persopolis 1 and 2 by Marjane Satrapi.
Sarah, I just picked up "In the Cut" by Moore, on your suggestion fifteen years ago.a
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