- Annie Proulx, Postcards, novel
- Daisy Johnson, Sisters, novel
- Jiles, Paulette, News of the World, novel
- E.M. Forster, A Passage to India, novel
- Daisy Johnson, Everything Under, novel
- Margot Livesey, The Boy In The Field, novel
- Scott Spencer, A Ship Made of Paper, novel
- Andrew Sean Greer, Less, novel
- Michael Parker, Prairie Fever, novel
- Jonathan Lee, High Dive, novel
- Alexander Maksik, Shelter in Place, novel
- Jessica Shattuck, The Women in the Castle, novel
- Salvatore Scibona, The Volunteer, novel
- Adam Haslett, Imagine Me Gone, novel
- Susan Straight, Take One Candle Light A Room, novel
- Esi Edugyan, Washington Black, novel
- Jamel Brinkley, A Lucky Man, stories
- Deborah Eisenberg, Your Duck Is My Duck, stories
- Louisa Hall, Trinity, novel
- Joan Silber, Improvement, novel
- Melanie Finn, The Gloaming, novel
- Rebecca Lee, The City is A Rising Tide, novel
- Rebecca Lee, Bobcat, stories
- Robin Romm, The Mother Garden, stories
- Peter Carey, Oscar and Lucinda, novel
- Moshin Hamid, Exit West, novel
- Maud Casey, The Man Who Walked Away, novel
- Jeremy Gavron, Felix Culpa, novel
- John Le Carré, A Perfect Spy, novel
- Dominic Smith, The Last Painting of Sara de Vos, novel
- Jenny Erpenbeck, Go, Went, Gone, novel
- Cara Hoffman, Running, novel
- Marisa Silver, Little Nothing, Mary Coin, novels
- Magda Szabó, The Door, novel
- Suzanne Joinson, The Photographer's Wife, A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar, novels
- Anthony Doerr, All The Light We Cannot See, novel
- Lucy Wood, Weathering, novel
- Leonard Gardner, Fat City, novel
- Justin Cartwright, Other People's Money, novel
- Michael Parker, All I Have In This World, novel
- Elizabeth Gilbert, The Signature of All Things, novel
- Aharon Appelfeld, Suddenly, Love, novel
- Kenneth Koch, The Year of Living Dangerously, novel
- David Bezmozgis, The Betrayers, novel, Natasha and Other Stories
- Jim Shepard, The Book of Aron, novel
- Marilynne Robinson, Lila, novel
- Helen Humphreys, The Evening Chorus, The Lost Garden, novels
- Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend, The Days of Abandonment, novels
- Liam Callanan, Listen, stories
- Jenny Offill. Department of Speculation, novel
- Nathan Poole, Father, Brother, Keeper, stories
- Eleanor Catton, The Luminaries, novel
- David Haynes, A Star In the Face of the Sky, novel
- Ian McEwan, Black Dogs, novella
- Paul Harding, Tinkers, novel
- Pat Barker, Border Crossing, novel
- Alice Mattison, In Case We're Separated, linked stories
- John Gahern, Amongst Women, novel
- Jane Gardam, Old Filth, The Man In The Wooden Hat, Faith Fox, Flight of the Maidens, novels
- Margot Livesey, The Flight of Gemma Hardy, novel
- Carol Birch, Jamrach's Menagerie, novel
- Lan Samantha Chang, All is Forgotten, Nothing is Lost, novel
- Elizabeth Tallent, Time With Children, story collection
- Pat Barker, Another World, novel
- Pat Barker, Regeneration, novel
- Michael Cunningham, By Nightfall, novel, Specimen Days, linked novellas
- Liam Callanan, Cloud Atlas, novel
- Michael Parker, The Watery Part of the World, novel
- Kathyrn Harrison, The Seal Wife, novel
- Eric Ambler, The Light of Day, novel
- Shirley Hazzard, 3 novels: The Transit of Venus, The Great Fire, The Bay of Noon
What I'm Reading
Book discussions with a focus on the writer's craft
Writers' Toolbox
- Defining character through dialogue (2)
- Using the structures a character creates as a window into the character (2)
- Writing about a sibling relationship (2)
- Preparing for the extraordinary by evoking the mundane (1)
- Sustaining a core mystery (1)
- Changing the point of view to add emphasis (1)
- Witholding information to create a magnetic character (1)
- Using objects to create time markers in a fluid timeline (1)
- Staging a surprise ending (1)
- Using backstory to enhance the reader's empathy for a character (1)
- Avoiding sensationalism in a novel about the abuse of boundaries (1)
- Giving the reader more information than the protagonist has (1)
- Connecting different characters through the unifying element of shared disorder (1)
- Maintaining two narrative timelines (1)
- Making a character come alive through visual details (1)
- Rising action leading to a climactic scene (1)
- Retelling the Oedipus Myth in a gender-fluid and time-fluid story (1)
- Using a flat character to add momentum to a narrative (1)
- How extended dialogue can prepare for a moment of decision (1)
- Developing a strong narrator presence through tone (1)
- Balancing a novel's emotional terrain through character (1)
- Using plot to create false assumptions about what will happen. (1)
- Withholding the novel's intention (1)
- Creating a guide character (1)
- The long approach: Opening a novel with a sweeping introductory vision (1)
- Creating a shadowed life: the slow trickle of an unsettled past (1)
- Using an object to reveal and distinguish a character (1)
- Setting up a reversal (1)
- Using a first person voice to drive the narrative (1)
- Using a small space to build tension between two characters (1)
- Setting a performance within a novel: what it can achieve (1)
- Hiding the narrative design (1)
- Planting a seed of disorder within each character to grow into a believable chaos (1)
- Using mystery to define the limits of a character's experience (1)
- Using an image to show what the character is feeling (1)
- The Ticking Clock: Using the calendar to escalate tension (1)
- Building a novel around a single theme (1)
- Achieving transparency in scene and dialogue to reveal emotional turmoil (1)
- Fictionalizing an historic figure (1)
Recent Discoveries in Fiction — Highly Recommended
Posted on Nov 22, 2020
Page & Story
Enjoy this post? Get the next one by email!
In this monthly newsletter for writers and readers I focus on a novel or short story I love and show how the elements of story craft make it a compelling read.