you've read everything they've written

[jsgoddess]

I've read every book by quite a few authors: Sayers, Hillerman, Austen, Christie (took a while!), L'Amour (took even longer!), and others.

Have you read everything any author has written?

One of my quirks is that I can't read all the books by a living author. I'm terrified I'll read one and it will turn out to be the last one the person writes and I won't have savored it appropriately. I've only violated that for Hillerman, and that was a mistake.

I have two books on my shelf by Colin Dexter that I was saving. Now that he's pulled his stunt with Morse, my desire to read them is almost nil.

Does this all sound crazy?

Julie

[eplovejoy]

Dear Julie,

Hmm. This is a dilemma.

If I answer and you read it and it turns out to be the last thing I post and you decide you didn't savor it enough, then I'll have accidentally caused you some discomfort.

I wouldn't want to do that, so PLEASE DON'T READ THIS.

But there are some authors whose work I've read all of, I think:

Ethan Canin; Patricia Nell Warren; Toni Morrison; Gore Vidal; Norman Mailer and some others.

I think that if one of them dies and I decided that I didn't sufficiently appreciate their last work, I'd just read it again.

Best wishes,
Peter

[Grouch]

I've managed to keep up with a couple of my favorites who are still alive:

Lewis Nordan
Welcome to the Arrow-Catcher Fair
The All-Girl Football Team
Music of the Swamp
Wolf Whistle
The Sharpshooter Blues
Sugar Among the Freaks
Boy With Loaded Gun


Richard Ford
A Piece of My Heart
The Ultimate Good Luck
The Sportswriter
Rock Springs
Wildlife
Independence Day
Women With Men

As for dead folks, I've read every syllable of Flannery O'Connor and Raymond Carver. I've read a majority of Dickens (unread includes: Barnaby Rudge, Bleak House and The Mystery of Edwin Drood, plus most of his journalism--I keep telling myself "someday soon, someday soon").

Living guys whose canons I haven't completed: Stephen King, John Irving, John Updike. Someday, when I'm deserted on the desert isle and that trunk full of their complete works washes up on shore, THEN I'll finally "get around to it."

[jsgoddess]

Originally posted by eplovejoy

If I answer and you read it and it turns out to be the last thing I post and you decide you didn't savor it enough, then I'll have accidentally caused you some discomfort.

Peter,

How could I not savor every word that trickles from thy silvered keyboard?

:p

Julie

[hadassahchana[$]]

Julie,

I admire your restraint! When I find an author I love, I go through every book I can find, usually as quickly as I can read them. Then, I go back and read them properly i.e. slowly enough to savour.

Cindy

[mshawpyle]

Oh, God.

Lewis (yes, including the Lit Crit), Tolkien (ditto), and Williams. Sayers, Marsh, and Allingham (and again, not just the 'tec fiction). Ambrose, Keegan, Tuchman. Dobie, Fehrenbach (not just the Texana), Webb, and Bedichek. Manchester. GKC (including the poetry and the journalism). Winston (even the novel, which is ghastly). If I've missed any WFB, it won't be much (sailing and spy novels assuredly included). Anthony Price. Twain (how to reduce MSP to helplessness? Read aloud the 'Literary Sins of Fenimore Cooper.' Damn near pee myself every single time). Barbara Pym. Lindsey Davis. Trollope. Burke. Dr Johnson. A. A. Milne, mystery novel included (no, I'm serious). John McPhee, of course. Byron Farwell. Xenophon. Plutarch. Aristotle. Montaigne. And so on.

Near misses: Christie. Ellis Peters (all the Cadfael works). P. D. James. McMurtry. Annie Dillard. Parkman. Vergil. McCullough (David, obviously). Eudora, Flannery, and Bill (Faulkner). Bud Robertson. Peter Kreeft. Erasmus. Aquinas. Tey. And Lord, a list longer'n a whore's dream, as we say down here.

Thanks a lot. I'll be up all night now, running through lists in my head. Pffft.

[jsgoddess]

Originally posted by mshawpyle
A. A. Milne, mystery novel included (no, I'm serious).

The Red House or something similar?

Julie

[mshawpyle]

That's the one.

[jsgoddess]

Originally posted by mshawpyle
That's the one.

It's been too long since I read it. Any good?

Julie

[mshawpyle]

Arid and mannered. Typical 'Silver Age' second-rater.

Try this:
These are the titles of Harlan Ellison I can name just off the top of my pointy little head:

Web of the City, Gentleman Junkie, Run for the Stars, Spider Kiss
Love ain't Nothing but Sex Misspelled,Approaching Oblivion, Strange Wine, Alone Against Tomorrow, Deathbird Stories, Ellison Wonderland, The Deadly Streets, Partners in Wonder, An Edge in My Voice, Angry Candy, Stalking the Nightmare,
The Beast Who Shouted Love at the Heart of the World, Shatterday, MindFields, Memos from Purgatory, The Illustrated Ellison, Mefisto in Onyx, Slippage, Repent, Harlequin!, Said the Ticktockman, I Have No Mouth, and I must Scream, Paingod, and other Delusions...

The problem is, he's had over 2,000 novels, novelettes, novellas, short stories, articles, and essays in print, it's hard to keep up.
Somehow I manage...

--Micheal

[hadassahchana[$]]

A. A. Milne, mystery novel included (no, I'm serious)

Uh-oh! And I thought I'd read everything. Off to Powell's now.

Cindy