Live from the Back Stacks
Over the last three months, ever since Derringer Award-winning Detroit author Patti Abbott first suggested that bloggers who cover the world of literature begin reminiscing on Fridays about “books we love but might have forgotten over the years,” the close of each business week has opened up new opportunities for readers. Participation in this project remains high, with contributors unearthing older favorites from all over the belletristic spectrum.
Just today, for instance, suggestions of novels that deserve to be rediscovered include The Sweet Second Summer of Kitty Malone, by Matt Cohen, Lockout, by Lillian O’Donnell, Kate Vaiden, by Reynolds Price, Control, by William Goldman, Portrait in Smoke, by Bill Ballinger, and No Human Involved, by Barbara Seranella. That last choice, by the way, comes from January Magazine’s sister publication, The Rap Sheet, which has tapped a succession of different writers to pick their favorite “forgotten books.” Seranella’s 1997 novel, for instance, was chosen by Louise Ure, the author most recently of The Fault Tree (2008). Previous installments of The Rap Sheet’s Friday blog series have been penned by Mike Ripley, Kirk Russell, Tony Broadbent, David Corbett, and others. So far, at least, there has been surprisingly little overlap with The Rap Sheet’s first-anniversary “one book project,” which invited more than 100 crime novelists, book critics, and bloggers from all over the English-speaking world to choose the one crime/mystery/thriller novel that they thought had been “most unjustly overlooked, criminally forgotten, or underappreciated over the years.”
Every Friday, Abbott (who, by the way, is the mother of Edgar Award-winning novelist Megan Abbott) posts a list of that week’s participating blogs at her own site, Pattinase. If you’re a blogger and are interested in adding your own selections to the growing “forgotten books” roster, contact Abbott at aa2579@wayne.edu.
Remember, the newest books aren’t always the best ones. And a little dust never hurt a good story.
Just today, for instance, suggestions of novels that deserve to be rediscovered include The Sweet Second Summer of Kitty Malone, by Matt Cohen, Lockout, by Lillian O’Donnell, Kate Vaiden, by Reynolds Price, Control, by William Goldman, Portrait in Smoke, by Bill Ballinger, and No Human Involved, by Barbara Seranella. That last choice, by the way, comes from January Magazine’s sister publication, The Rap Sheet, which has tapped a succession of different writers to pick their favorite “forgotten books.” Seranella’s 1997 novel, for instance, was chosen by Louise Ure, the author most recently of The Fault Tree (2008). Previous installments of The Rap Sheet’s Friday blog series have been penned by Mike Ripley, Kirk Russell, Tony Broadbent, David Corbett, and others. So far, at least, there has been surprisingly little overlap with The Rap Sheet’s first-anniversary “one book project,” which invited more than 100 crime novelists, book critics, and bloggers from all over the English-speaking world to choose the one crime/mystery/thriller novel that they thought had been “most unjustly overlooked, criminally forgotten, or underappreciated over the years.”
Every Friday, Abbott (who, by the way, is the mother of Edgar Award-winning novelist Megan Abbott) posts a list of that week’s participating blogs at her own site, Pattinase. If you’re a blogger and are interested in adding your own selections to the growing “forgotten books” roster, contact Abbott at aa2579@wayne.edu.
Remember, the newest books aren’t always the best ones. And a little dust never hurt a good story.
posted by J. Kingston Pierce at 6:41 PM
1 Comments:
Thanks, Jeff. I can use some new volunteers to get us through the summer.
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