Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Top Ten Authors I Wish Would Write Another Book

Hmmm, ten authors. And according to The Broke and the Bookish's weekly meme, the list can include debut authors, authors who have taken an hiatus, and authors who you wished wrote another book before kicking the bucket. Given these parameters, I decided to limit my choices to authors whose previous works I've read in their entirety. It doesn't seem fair (to me at least) to ask for another novel from Dickens (may he rest in peace) when there are so many of his books I haven't yet cracked open the spine.

1. Junot Diaz 
Great writer, but boy is he slow. I love his short stories and his one and only novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.
2. Jhumpa Lahiri
She writes some of the best short stories I've ever read. Her novels are excellent too.
3. Jonathan Franzen
Recently finished Freedom, which came out ten years after The Corrections. I really don't want to wait another decade.
4. Morag Joss
This suspense writer just keeps getting better. I devoured Among the Missing and now I'm hungry for more.
5. Alison Bechdel
Fun House: A Family Tragicomic, her graphic novel, was an emotional roller coaster. I wish she'd write/illustrate another.
6. Eva Ibbotson
This author of amazing supernatural stories for children died in 2010. Last year I read all her novels for the first time and loved them all. When I finished her last, The Ogre of Oglefort,  I was desolate that there would never be another.
7. John Kennedy Toole
I laughed nonstop the first--but not the last--time I read A Confederacy of Dunces, Toole's posthumous novel.
8. Louise Fitzhugh
She died in her prime, and I can't help wondering if she had another great novel in her to match Harriet the Spy.
9. Sarah Caudwell
Her sly, caustic mysteries are a delight to read; each and every one is pitch perfect. What I wouldn't give for one more.
10. Jane Austen
Another who died much too young and in her prime. Imagine what she could have accomplished if she had lived another twenty years. Sigh.

3 comments:

  1. I'm not familiar with several of these authors, but I definitely agree on Jane Austen. I think she's been on 90% of the lists I've seen so far!

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  2. P.D. James and Ruth Rendell. Why don't they write faster? Yes, this is extremely unfair of me since Rendell produces one a year and James one every two or so and they're both of an age when it's a wonder that they're writing at all.

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