With this many new authors, no one can accuse me of being in a rut! I really have too many new favorite authors to list; you’ll see them next year and in the years beyond. I discovered I despise Roth and Banville, and the good part of that is that I won’t have to waste my precious reading time on them in the future. The only exception will be Roth’s Pulitzer winner, American Pastoral. I don’t expect I’ll ever have this many new-to-me authors again in a single year, but it was fun discovering these in 2007. I have all the great challenges and fellow book bloggers to thank for it!
1. Angle of Repose**** by Wallace Stegner
2. The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency****1/2 by Alexander McCall Smith; Tears of the Giraffe****
3. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan***** by Lisa See
4. Atonement***1/2 by Ian McEwan
5. Peace Like a River****1/2 by Leif Enger
6. The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane****1/2 by Kate DiCamillo; The Tale of Despereaux
7. The Birds**1/2 by Arisophanes
8. Silas Marner****1/2 by George Eliot
9. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde***** by Robert Louis Stevenson
10. To Kill a Mockingbird***** by Harper Lee
11. Walking Across Egypt **** by Clyde Edgerton
12. The Woman in White****1/2 by Wilkie Collins
13. Heart of Darkness***** by Joseph Conrad
14. The Book Thief ***** by Markus Zusak
15. The Echo Maker**** by Richard Powers
16. The Road ****1/2 by Cormac McCarthy
17. The Myth of You and Me***1/2 by Leah Stewart
18. Everyman* by Philip Roth
19. Inkheart**** by Cornelia Funke
20. The Giver****1/2 by Lois Lowry; Number the Stars**** ; Gathering Blue****1/2 ;Messenger**** ;Gossamer****1/2
21. Grendel** by John Gardner
22. March ***1/2 by Geraldine Brooks; Year of Wonders
23. The Princess and the Goblin****1/2 by George MacDonald; Phantastes****
24. The Inheritance of Loss***1/2 by Kiran Desai
25. The Memory Keeper’s Daughter****1/2 by Kim Edwards
26. The Translator**** by Leila Aboulela
27. Eat, Pray, Love**** by Elizabeth Gilbert
28. The Handmaid’s Tale ****1/2 by Margaret Atwood; The Blind Assassin ***1/2
29. The Stone Diaries****1/2 by Carol Shields
30. Amos Fortune, Free Man**** by Elizabeth Yates
31. Broken for You**** by Stephanie Kallos
32. The Color Purple**** by Alice Walker
33. My Sister’s Keeper**** by Jodi Picoult
34. The Eyre Affair**** by Jasper Fforde
35. A Severe Mercy**** by Sheldon Vanauken
36. A Wrinkle in Time**** by Madeleine L’Engle
37. Wide Sargasso Sea **** by Jean Rhys
38. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell****1/2 by Susanna Clarke
39. Coraline****1/2 by Neil Gaiman; Stardust****
40. The Bone People**** by Keri Hulme
41. Wild Swans****1/2 by Jung Chang
42. The Sea** by John Banville
43. The Door in the Wall**** by Marguerite de Angeli
44. The White Stag**** by Kate Seredy
45. The Higher Power of Lucky**** by Susan Patron
46. The Top Ten: Writers Pick Their Favorite Books***1/2 by Peder Zane
47. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
48. The Secret Life of Bees****1/2 by Sue Monk Kidd
49. Stargirl**** by Jerry Spinelli
50. A Death in the Family****1/2 by James Agee
51. We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
52. The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint Exupery
53. O Pioneers!**** by Willa Cather
54. The Known World**** by Edward P. Jones
55. Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis
56. Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller
57. The Bookseller of Kabul **** by Asne Seierstad
58. The Travels of Marco Polo
59. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
60. Wednesday Letters***1/2 by Jason F. Wright
61. Half of a Yellow Sun****1/2 by Adichie
62. Complete Tales of Nikolai Gogol, Vol. 1
63. Mad Shadows by Marie-Claire Blais
64. Never Let Me Go by Ishiguro
65. The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
66. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
67. Buying a Fishing Rod for my Grandfather by Gao Xingjian
68. The Xanadu Adventure by Lloyd Alexander
69. The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells
70. The Hours by Michael Cunningham
71. Mr. Ives’ Christmas by Oscar Hijuelos
72. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
73. Ishmael by Daniel Quinn
74. Last Evenings on Earth by Roberto Bolano
75. The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx
76. The Wreath by Sigrid Undset
77. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
78. Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
79. Queen of the Tambourine by Jane Gardam
I believe I read 96 New-to-Me authors! I’m astounded! It was so much fun meeting them.
Wow, Joy, that’s incredible!
Wow, it must have been an exciting adventure to meet so many new authors through their works in one year. I am going to add a couple of these writers to my to be read list.
What an amazing list of books! I’ve enjoyed many of them! I didn’t count up how many authors I read this year that are new to me… I just might have to go back and figure that out.
[...] year I read 79 new-to-me authors. I never, ever dreamt I’d have more this year! I’ll be adding more to this list as [...]