J.M. Coetzee is probably less well known than he deserves to be because he deliberately avoids publicity and keeps a low profile. But he is one of the most acclaimed living writers in the English language, having won the 2003 Nobel Prize in literature after previously winning the Booker Prize twice and the CNA Literary Award… Continue reading J.M. Coetzee’s “Waiting for the Barbarians”
Author: Jay Ruud
Mary Karr’s “Obscenity Prayer”
A.E. Housman’s “Terrence, This Is Stupid Stuff”
Amiri Baraka’s “Preface to a 20-Volume Suicide Note”
Lewis Carroll’s “The Walrus and the Carpenter”
Agatha Christie’s “Murder on the Orient Express”
Agatha Christie does not appear on most “100 Greatest Novels” list, which seems something of an oversight. Her plaudits are myriad: In 1955, the Mystery Writers of America awarded her its inaugural Grand Master Award. Her novel And Then There Were None, having sold more than 100 million copies, is the best-selling mystery novel of all… Continue reading Agatha Christie’s “Murder on the Orient Express”
Raymond Chandler’s “The Big Sleep”
Dorothy Sayers, a crime novelist herself, famously wrote that the detective story “does not, and by hypothesis never can, attain the loftiest level of literary achievement.” Thus the “hard-boiled’ detective fiction of Raymond Chandler and his peers like Dashiell Hammett and James M. Cain whose novels inspired the film noir of 1940s American cinema, was traditionally considered… Continue reading Raymond Chandler’s “The Big Sleep”
Michael Chabon’s “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay”
I must admit once again that it took me way too long—fifteen years, I reckon—to finally read Michael Chabon’s brilliant tour-de-force, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. But I freely admit that once I did I was so astonished by every aspect of the novel that I resolved there and then to become a Chabon completist,… Continue reading Michael Chabon’s “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay”
Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is a book that captures your imagination when you first read it as a child of ten, and continues to stir your delight and your intellect when you read it for the last time as a senior citizen of 99. There are very few books in English that appeal to such a… Continue reading Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”
A.S. Byatt’s “Possession”
A.S. Byatt’s Possession: A Romance won the 1990 Booker Prize for Fiction. It appeared on Time Magazine’s list of the 100 greatest novels since 1923, and came in at #49 on the BBC’s list of the 100 Greatest British Novels. And for me, Byatt’s novel comes in at #15 (alphabetically) on my own list of the “100 Most Lovable… Continue reading A.S. Byatt’s “Possession”