One of the great things about going to book festivals and author visits is hearing what authors are reading and recommending. Who are the fellow writers they rate? Then you can add the names to that ever expanding list of books you may not really want to read but which you fervently wish you had already read.
When Ian Rankin visited last year he named Lanark as one of his favourite books and Alasdair Gray as one of the writers of his generation.
I’d never heard of it, and was compelled to seek it out only to find that Rankin is not alone in his authorly admiration, Iain Banks and Anthony Burgess both liked it as well.
It is extremely hard to summarise; its sub-title is A life in four books but it begins with book three; it’s set partly in twentieth century Glasgow and partly in a strange other world, it’s political as well as fantastic and you probably just have to read it really. But even if you don’t the nice new edition we recently received at the library is worth reserving just to have a look at the cover, drawn by Gray himself.
Nick Hornby is a much admired author who has recently followed the trend for adult writers like Michael Chabon and Sherman Alexieto pop out a Young Adult book. On his American book tour for Slam Hornby has been talking up Paul Zindel’s The pigman, a true YA classic first published in 1978.
31 January 2008 at 2:04 pm
I recently finished Slam and thought it was a good first YA novel, looking at the fallout from an unplanned teenage pregnancy from the perspective of a young guy, whose own parents were also teenage parents. The relationships between the characters are believable, and interesting, and I have already recommended it to several other adult friends.