GEOFF SCHUMACHER'S LAS VEGAS

News, Music, Movies, Books and More

Schumacher Literary Hall of Fame

Here is a list of fiction writers who are among my personal favorites (with a representative book listed alongside). These are not the usual suspects, but some of the lesser-known writers I like. Richard Yates, "Revolutionary Road"; John Fante, "Ask the Dust"; Nelson Algren, "The Man with the Golden Arm"; Frederick Exley, "A Fan's Notes"; Charles Portis, "The Dog of the South"; John Williams, "Stoner"; Patrick Hamilton, "Hangover Square"; Richard Russo, "Empire Falls"; Richard Ford, "The Sportswriter"; Don DeLillo, "White Noise"; Jim Harrison, "True North"; Raymond Carver, "Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?"; Willy Vlautin, "The Motel Life"; Michael Chabon, "The Wonder Boys"; Ian McEwan, "Atonement"; Colson Whitehead, "John Henry Days"; Orhan Pamuk, "Snow"; Junot Diaz, "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao"; Avram Davidson, "Vergil in Averno"

Recent reading: recommended fiction

The Secret of Lost Things (2006), Sheridan Hay; Absurdistan (2006), Gary Shteyngart; Five Skies (2007), Ron Carlson; Citizen Vince (2005), Jess Walter; On Chesil Beach (2007), Ian McEwan; We're in Trouble (2005), Christopher Coake; Returning to Earth (2007), Jim Harrison; The Lay of the Land (2006), Richard Ford

My profile

Geoff Schumacher

What's a dogsbody?

It's British slang for "a worker who has to do all the unpleasant or boring jobs that no one else wants to do."

July 2007



Out on a limb with Al

Tue, 07/31/07 10:03 P GMT-08
This is either a prediction or wishful thinking: Al Gore will be the next president. Gore, as of today, is not running, though he can't get through a television interview without being asked if he is. Yet Gore is clearly the strongest candidate i
Comments/Trackback (1-0)

Potter continued

Mon, 07/23/07 12:31 P GMT-08
Finished the seventh book at 1 this morning. Tired today. But as the saying goes, I couldn't put it down. The series is not really literature, though it has literary elements. But it's well written, with carefully drawn characters, engrossing

Potter

Sun, 07/22/07 1:40 P GMT-08
We bought the Harry Potter book about 12:02 a.m. Saturday. We were the fourth or fifth party to secure the book at the Barnes and Noble on West Charleston. A Channel 13 camera was aimed at us as we paid. We arrived home about 12:25 a.m. and began rea

Autodidactic reading frenzy is officially over

Thu, 07/19/07 9:57 P GMT-08
Several years ago I consciously decided that I had failed miserably as a reader of serious things during the first, oh, thirty-five years of my life. I was reading maybe twenty or twenty-five books per year, and this was woefully insufficient to beco
Comments/Trackback (2-0)