Tuesday, December 11, 2012

LIST: Top Ten Tuesday: New Authors

This week, the topic at The Broke and Bookish for the Top Ten Tuesday is New to Me Authors. When I check my New Authors challenge that I've kept updated, I see I've read 47 new authors this year. Awesome! I divided my list into authors with many books (38), and debut authors (9). As I check the lists, I'm picking authors who I plan to read again, or look forward to another book by them.

Top Ten New to Me Authors (in no particular order)

1. Jane Harris (Gillespie and I)
I know that Harris has written another Orange nominated book (The Observations), and Gillespie and I was a fun romp through Scotland.

2. CJ Sansom (Dissolution)
Finding a new series wasn't really something I needed, but this series set during Henry VIII time and starring a hunchback lawyer, grabbed me, and I will keep reading this series.

3.  Paula McLain (The Paris Wife)
I really liked this historic novel set during Hadley Richardson and Ernest Hemingway's short marriage in Paris. The starving artist living in Paris is romanticized for a reason, and McLain's research made The Paris Wife one of my favorite books of the year.

4.  Mary Roach (Stiff)
Roach has several other non-fiction books I now can't wait to read - Packing for Mars, Spook, and Bonk. She tackes off-beat subjects with a wonderful humour. Imagine enjoying a book about everything imaginable that could be done to a dead body.

5.  Inger Ash Wolfe (The Calling)
Another start to a new mystery series. This one is set in Canada, with a middle aged female detective. The mystery here was particularly gruesome, but the supporting police were likeably off-beat. Inger Ash Wolfe is a pseudonym for Michael Redhill, but I hadn't read him either.

6.  Alice Hoffman (Green Angel)
A modern day type of fairy tale, Hoffman wrote a sweet tale with some magical touches that could easily be seen as a story about New York and 9/11 . It's about grief, and recovery, and getting on with life. I know that Hoffman is often recommended for fans of Sarah Addison Allen, and vice versa.

7.  Marian Keyes (Watermelon)
I need a somewhat chick-lit author writing books set in Ireland to take the place of my beloved Maeve Binchy. Watermelon was cute enough, and there are more books about the Walsh sisters. I don't want it everyday, but sometimes cotton candy is just what you want to eat!

8.  Erin Morgenstern (The Night Circus)
 Debut author. The Night Circus was so vividly imagined, so magically amazing, with characters I wanted to know more about, that I can't wait to see what Morgenstern writes next.

9.  Allegra Goodman (Intuition)
 Goodman was one of those authors that I had never heard of, and then was recommended to me by 1morechapter. She knew me well, because I quite enjoyed this science research based novel that evenly showed many issues and sides. Kind of like Jodi Picoult, but less emotionally manipulative.  Almost at the same time, Cookbook Collector showed up on Librarything as book I would like. On the list for next year!

10.  Ernest Hemingway (A Moveable Feast)
Hemingway on my list? This is the most surprising new author for me. I've always avoided Hemingway (too much testosterone and boy stuff) but after The Paris Wife, which described the experiences that Hemingway had before he wrote his books, and this, his non-fiction account of his time in Paris, I really want to read one of his novels. A Moveable Feast gave insight into how Hem (I feel like we are buds now, that we might have a drink together) wrote, and the innovative way he tried to write.

I left off some great Canadian authors like Esi Edugyan (Half-Blood Blues), Patrick deWitt (The Sisters Brothers), Lauren B Davis (Our Daily Bread). Also, books by Julie Otsuka (The Buddha in the Attic), Tina Fey (Bossypants), and Karin Altenberg (Island of Wings) delighted me in other ways. I read a lot of great new authors this year!


2 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'll have to look into some of these authors. Watermelon sounds like it might be right up my alley. As for Morgenstern's The Night Circus, I finished it yesterday and it wasn't for me. Her writing is beautiful, but nothing happened in the novel. There was too much description and too little action.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for commenting, so nice of you to visit.

(I'll try without the letters for a while - so please dont be a spammer! Let's try no anonymous users)