What resources do you use to discover good new writing?

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Kind of a dry question, but aside from The New Yorker and Granta and the like, are there any other reliable and consistent resources (online, even?) for finding out about new authors, or even reading fresh criticism on old authors?

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Monday, 12 January 2004 06:03 (twenty-two years ago)

personally i've gotten into the habit of following presses like record labels. at this point i buy books published by the new york review of books or new directions pretty much on sight. i look very closely at books published by black sparrow (rip), verso, david r. godine and da capo. i usually tend to browse Norton imprints (new press, verso, etc) very closely.

this was much easier to accomplish on the other side of the counter since i could pretty much browse books for 40 hours a week. but i'm sure you don't have to be a bookseller to develop the habit - i'm not sure why label culture hasn't gotten to books yet but it's been useful for me.

― vahid (vahid), Monday, 12 January 2004 16:53 (twenty-two years ago)

also all of the book awards have websites with bios on the long list nominees. so that's like 20 new authors a year for fiction if you just bookmark the booker page (that's we beat barnes&noble and borders to the punch on good literary fiction)

― vahid (vahid), Monday, 12 January 2004 16:56 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm straying more towards military history at the moment, and am finding Cassell (publishers) hard to be disappointed by. I used to be in the habit of reading pretty much anything with the white Picador spine, but then I started to realise how godawful they all were. My rule of thumb as far as fiction is concerned is, if it's an old orange Penguin paperback, you can't go wrong.

Avoid reviews by any journal or publication, online or otherwise. The easiest thing to do is just browse. Most bookstores, large and small, tend to have a few couches or chair floating about the place, so just grab a stack of titles and skim through them. The difficulty that arises here is the mood you're in. I have many volumes on my shelves that I absolutely adore and read at least once or twice every year, but if I'm not in the right mood, I can't stand them. Bookstore browsing is a tricky business indeed, because one minute you'll love one thing and the next minute you'll hate it.

Hence we're back to the old orange Penguins. Since they're about a dollar each at the exchange, you can get twenty or thirty for the cost of a single new title in a bookstore, and even if you hate fifteen of them you've come out ahead.

― writingstatic, Monday, 12 January 2004 22:55 (twenty-two years ago)

The Bookslut website, with its lurid url and all, is a pretty solid place to look. http://lit.konundrum.com/features/carters_howto1.htm

― B. Michael Payne (This Isnt That), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 00:28 (twenty-two years ago)

It's on hiatus right now, but: mobylives.com

― mookieproof (mookieproof), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 01:34 (twenty-two years ago)

I data mine amazon.com, I have Publisher's websites bookmarked, you name it, I do it. I would also recommend looking places like Publisher's Weekly and Library Journal. The Fall and Spring annoucemnent issues of PW use to be excellent sources, however the last few years the number and quality of the ads and listings seems to have dropped. Kirkus Reviews has a website but I think that is
by subscription.

― Steve Walker (Quietman), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 01:53 (twenty-two years ago)

Add Dalkey Archive Press to those mentioned above (as well as their publications - CONTEXT and the Review of Contemporary Literature). I have discovered a few writers via literary journals both online (e.g. Failbetter, the Barcelona Review, DIAGRAM, etc) and off (e.g. Prairie Schooner, Ploughshares, Conjunctions, etc), as well as in the Pushcart anthologies. The Booksense 76 lists, RAINTAXI, Webdelsol, the ConstantCritic, and the annual "best of" Science Fiction books are also helpful. For good old writing I turn to Wood's Lot, Project Gutenberg, best of and awards lists, and the seemingly endless web of lists on Amazon among other places.

― Ryan McKay (Ryan McKay), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 12:38 (twenty-two years ago)

three months pass...

Gee, I use ILB.

― pepektheassassin (pepektheassassin), Thursday, 22 April 2004 17:56 (twenty-two years ago)

Amazon, ILB, New York Times.

― Fred, Friday, 23 April 2004 16:12 (twenty-two years ago)

TLS, NYTRB, NY Times, NPR, Amazon, but most of all, my friends.

― Michael White (Hereward), Friday, 23 April 2004 17:06 (twenty-two years ago)

st3ph3n tr0ussé, obv.

― cozen (Cozen), Saturday, 24 April 2004 00:51 (twenty-two years ago)

I could be the odd one out here but I allow myself an hour in my favourite book store, I greedily peruse all those eyecatchingly obvious or significantly understated jackets, I take a peek in looking for the story that suits the mood - then I rush home and put a hold on the chosen one via the excellent services of the TAS state library

― sandy mcconnell (sandy mc), Saturday, 24 April 2004 10:42 (twenty-two years ago)

I rarely seek out particular books and writers: I love the interaction and partial randomness of browsing secondhand bookshops and seeing what I find - I've never had a shortage of stuff to read. There are loads of factors that might make me pick up a writer I've not read: publisher might catch my eye (e.g. Picador are so often good), might have seen a review in the Guardian that sounded my kind of thing, someone might have recommended them (either in a way that made them sound good or just because I'd largely trust the person), might have seen them compared to someone I like in promising ways. Occasionally a title or spine or author name will catch my eye and I'll read the blurbs. Banana Yoshimoto caught my eye just from her name, and I loved the book that I felt compelled to try - Kitchen. Oh, and I'm in a Modernist/Postmodernist Yahoo group, and there is lots of talk there that adds to my list.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 24 April 2004 12:09 (twenty-two years ago)

Just bought used copies of The Dalkey Archive, The Hard Life, & At Swim-Two-Birds yesterday at the bookstore. Thanks for the tip, ILX! (ILE AND ILB)

― scott seward (scott seward), Saturday, 24 April 2004 13:36 (twenty-two years ago)

I use ILB, and every periodical I read seems to reference books, and then I go to the library and see if a title leaps out from the new fiction (or non fiction) section that I remember wanting to read from reading about it. Then I decide that I have to start keeping lists of books to read, especially those that are cross referenced with good reviews from reputable places. Then I decide that my latent OCD is kicking in and I should probably be reading something classic that gets referenced all the time. Then I go home and watch reruns of "Law and Order".

― aimurchie, Sunday, 25 April 2004 00:09 (twenty-two years ago)

The Times Literary Supplement (TLS) is the one book review publication I could not do without. Less inflammatory than either the NYRB or the LRB, and always surprising with the books it chooses to review. It's expensive but well worth it.

― Mark Rose, Monday, 26 April 2004 21:35 (twenty-two years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.