The OF Blog: 2008 Reading Discoveries

Thursday, November 27, 2008

2008 Reading Discoveries

I was browsing through a few forums tonight before resuming my work on my new exercise bike and I thought I would list authors that I read for the first time in 2008 that I found to have written some really good works. I'll highlight those whose debut efforts came out in the U.S. this year:

Steve Erickson

Milan Kundera

Brian Evenson

Toby Barlow

Taha Muhammad Ali

Ma Jian

Naguib Mahfouz

Fernando Pessoa

Kay Kenyon

Barth Anderson

D.M. Cornish

Francie Lin

Amanda Michalopoulou

Etgar Keret

Jo Graham

Maurice Dantec

Sarah Hall

Joe Abercrombie

Thomas Ligotti

Holly Phillips

Felix Gilman

Jeanette Winterson

J.M. McDermott

Peadar Ó Guilín

George MacDonald

Thomas M. Disch

Brian Francis Slattery

Paolo Bacigalupi

John Langan

Javier Negrete (not available in English translation)

Elias Khoury

Susan Palwick

Antonio Orlando Rodríguez (not available in English translation)


There are still quite a few newish works I'm reading and some of those will involve debuts. I'll elaborate on the 2008 debut authors late in December. But does anyone else have any of their "discoveries" that they'd like to share here, in hopes of sparking discussion and/or people trying those authors on for size?

6 comments:

Charles said...

John Grant
Rob Rogers
Zoran Zivkovic
Adrienne Kress
Brian Evenson
Christopher Golden
Graham Joyce
Ekaterina Sedia
Joe Hill
Laird Barron
Paolo Bacigalupi
Paul Tremblay
Robert Freeman Wexler
Theodora Goss
Tim Pratt
Darrel Schweitzer

Larry Nolen said...

Rogers I have, but for some reason I've passed him over despite an interesting blurb and some good reviews elsewhere. I'll have to correct that as well. I can't remember if I read Sedia's The Secret History of Moscow just before or just after the New Year's; I did buy it in 2007, so that's why I didn't include her on the list. Joyce, Živković, Goss, and Pratt are also excellent writers whose first fictions I read in previous years. Will have to investigate the others!

Tia Nevitt said...

I have a whole blog full of discoveries! However, there were a few debut authors on your list that I didn't recognize right off, so thank you! I may have covered them, but it's more likely that I missed them.

Brian Lindenmuth said...

These are all authors that I read for the first time this year. I'll bold the debut authors.

These I read as prep for the panel I moderated at Bouchercon:

Alan Jacobson
Michelle Gagnon
Jonathan Hayes

Books by these authors made my year end long list:

John Brandon
Monica Drake
Austin Williams

Books by these authors have made my year end list:

Steve Mosby
Joe Meno
Conrad Williams
Toby Barlow

And some others:

Tyler Knox
Brian Hodge
Brian McNaughton

Mihai A. said...

I discovered this year quite a few authors. And I'll say here
Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Bill Hussey
Peadar O Guilin
Brian Ruckley
Joe Hill
Peter V Brett
Patrick Rothfuss.
This list is for now.

Anonymous said...

Larry, I just posted my personal list on PWT:

http://verbeat.org/blogs/pwt/2008/11/my-2008-reading-discoveries.html

2008 was my personal enlightenment year. I can hardly wait for what 2009 has to offer.

 
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