The following is a list of writers—poets and novelists—I like both because they write well and because they’re cool. Rank favoritism? Yes. You can click on their latest titles to go to Amazon.com where you can buy their work. Those author names in red are linked to their personal websites. Charlotte Bacon: There is Room for You     (Picador, 2005) Scott Blackwood: In the Shadow of Our House     (Southern Methodist University Press, 2001) Brett Ellen Block: The Lightning Rule     (William Morrow, 2006) Robert Boswell: Century’s Son     (Picador Books, 2003) Kevin Brockmeier: The Brief History of the Dead     (Vintage, 2007) Chelsea Cain: Heartsick     (St. Martin’s Minotaur, 2005) Stacey D’Erasmo: A Seahorse Year     (Mariner Books, 2005) Frederick Dillen: Fool     (Algonquin Press, 1999) Cameron Dougan: Because She Is Beautiful     (AtRandom Books, 2000) Mylène Dressler: The Floodmakers     (Putnam, 2004) Aaron Roy Even: Bloodroot     (Griffin Trade, 2001) Becky Hagenston: A Gram of Mars     (Sarabande Books, 1998) Tony Hoagland: What Narcissism Means to Me     (Graywolf Press, 2004) Thom Jones: Sonny Liston Was a Friend of Mine     (Faber & Faber, 2001) Don Kurtz: South of the Big Four     (Avon Books, 1996) Sue Kwock Kim: Notes from the Divided Country     (Louisiana State University Press, 2003) Kathleen Lee: Travel Among Men     (Center for Literary Publishing, 2002) Kevin McIlvoy: The Complete History of New Mexico     (Graywolf Press, 2005) John McLaughlin: Run in the Fam’ly (forthcoming)     (University of Tennessee Press, 2007) John McNally: America’s Report Card: A Novel     (Free Press, 2007) Antonya Nelson: Some Fun: Stories and a Novella     (Scribner, 2006) Peter Orner: The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo     (Back Bay Books, 2007) Mark Jude Poirier: Naked Pueblo     (Miramax Books, 2006) D. A. Powell: Cocktails     (Graywolf Press, 2004) Michelle Richmond: The Year of Fog     (Delacorte, 2007) Henry Shukman: Mortimer of the Maghreb     (Knopf, 2006) Gregory Spatz: Fiddler’s Dream     (Southern Methodist University Press, 2006) Susan Steinberg: Hydroplane: Fictions     (Fiction Collective 2, 2006) Dao Strom: The Gentle Order of Girls and Boys     (Counterpoint Press, 2006) Amanda Eyre Ward: Forgive Me     (Random House, 2007) Ann Joslin Williams: The Woman in the Woods     (Eastern Washington University Press, 2007) Rachel Zucker: Eating in the Underworld     (Wesleyan University Press, 2003) Brett Ellen Block Chelsea Cain Mylène Dressler John McNally Peter Orner Michelle Richmond Gregory Spatz Amanda Eyre Ward

My top fifty reads in alphabetical order. Before I hear any whining, let me say that these are books that made a big impression on me at various points in my life and that is the criterion I use to measure them by. That’s why there’s a bunch of science fiction—books of my youth! And, yes, the list is very guy. There are lots of authors I love (Louise Erdrich, Russell Banks, Annie Proulx, Michael Chabon, Nadine Gordimer, Walker Percy, Tobias Wolff, and Louis De Bernieres among them) who have not written a novel that stands clearly above their others in my mind, and so they didn’t make this list is spite of their excellent writing. The Monkey Wrench Gang, Edward Abby London Fields, Martin Amis Living to Be One Hundred, Robert Boswell Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury Joe, Larry Brown The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler Disgrace, J.M. Coetzee The Black Company, Glen Cook Mao II, Don DeLillo White Noise, Don DeLillo The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen Donaldson Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald The Hamlet, William Faulkner As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner Attack of the Nazi Frogmen, J. G. Flaxbone Lord of the Flies, William Golding The Heart of the Matter, Graham Greene The Quiet American, Graham Greene Catch-22, Joseph Heller For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway Dune, Frank Herbert Donkey Gospel, Tony Hoagland Jesus’ Son, Denis Johnson Earthsea Trilogy, Ursula LeGuin One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy The Crossing, Cormac McCarthy Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurty Billy Budd, Herman Melville A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller Jr. The Chronicles of Corum, Michael Moorcock The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles, Haruki Murakami The Suffrage of Elvira, V.S. Naipaul The Milagro Beanfield War, John Nichols Going After Cacciato, Tim O’Brien A Good Man Is Hard to Find, Flannery O’Connor 1984, George Orwell The Crying of Lot 49, Thomas Pynchon All Quiet On the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque The Human Stain, Philip Roth Straight Man, Richard Russo Light Years, James Salter The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck Dog Soldiers, Robert Stone The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien Fathers and Sons, Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut All the King’s Men, Robert Penn Warren Miss Lonelyhearts, Nathaniel West Literary Magazines: Mid-American Review New England Review The Paris Review Puerto del Sol Screenwriting: IMDb.com Done Deal iScriptdb.com Screenplays for You Movie-Page.com Screentalk Drew’s Script-O-Rama