Acclaimed novelist Salman Rushdie has come to the aid of guests who check into a trendy Manhattan hotel with nothing to read. He selected 13 celebrated books by American authors that the hotel will stock in every room. You can read the entire article here. (Thanks to my blog reader John Grabowski for sending me this article.)
Rushdie is very influential in the writing world; he is the chairman of this year’s PEN festival, which brings together more than 100 writers from 40 nations. The list he came up with is very interesting.
In the Salman Rushdie reading list, other than Walt Whitman, all the authors are from the 20th century. Only 23% are women and only 7% are people of color. Perhaps Rushdie was trying to match the demographics of the hotel’s clientele. Of course, reading about people who’ve had different experiences than we have is one of the most rewarding aspects of reading fiction.
Here is the Salman Rushdie reading list:
Walt Whitman: Leaves of Grass
William Faulkner: The Sound and the Fury
F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby
Eudora Welty: The Collected Stories
Bernard Malamud: The Complete Stories
Saul Bellow: Humboldt’s Gift
Philip Roth: Portnoy’s Complaint
Flannery O’Connor: Everything That Rises Must Converge
Kurt Vonnegut: Slaughterhouse-Five
Thomas Pynchon: V.
Joseph Heller: Catch-22
Toni Morrison: Beloved
Michael Chabon: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
What do you think of the Salman Rushdie reading list? I wish he had included some more of the outstanding novels by women and people of color, authors such as Virginia Woolf, Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin, Alice Walker, and Harper Lee, just to name a few.
If you were to come up with a list of thirteen novels that people might not want to miss, what would you include? As always, I’d love to hear from you.
P.S. I’m an ex-shrink who writes award-winning novels. Check out my books here.
I’ve never quite understood all the fuss over Gatsby. I understand the historical context and all, but I find the actual novel to be a bit…flat.
He could not have included Virginia Woolf, by the way, because she’s not American. I’m surprised there’s no Richard Yates, someone not well-known to the general public but highly regarded among other writers.
And speaking of Ginny Woolf, have you ever heard this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKwQ8kBMuJw
Very different from Nicole Kidman’s take in The Hours.
Yes, of course, Virginia Woolf is English, not American. Wishful thinking I guess….
Ooh, American authors. Good point. I was about to suggest someone Scottish.
My favorite American author is John Irving, so I would have included something by him. Maybe *Son of the Circus.* Not his most popular, but it might be my favorite. Of course, *Cider House Rules* or *The World According to Garp* would be more recognizable picks. Jonathan Frazen’s *The Corrections* is another favorite of mine. If a collection of essays could find its way onto the shelf, definitely I would select David Sedaris’s *Me Talk Pretty One Day.*
Alas, I have not selected any women or people of color! Although Sedaris is gay…
Thanks for your comment, Sonja. Jonathan Frazen’s been criticized for writing about things women tend to write about, i.e. family sagas, so maybe that counts as something, too. Have a great weekend!
Here’s a vote for Rebecca Eisenberg: American, woman and a great writer.
> Jonathan Frazen’s been criticized for writing about things women tend
> to write about, i.e. family sagas.
Franzen, Joseph O’Neill, Jonathan Dee, David Foster Wallace, Steve Martin, Scott Fitzgerald, José Saramago, William Travor, Richard Yates, Richard Ford, John Grabowski…I wonder when they’ll stop this stereotyping. Would anyone dare say Toni Morrison writes about “black things”?
Can’t believe that on a list of 13 American writers that Henry James, Willa Cather, Edith Wharton, Ernest Hemingway, or Truman Capote would be left off. And if you’re gonna include poets (as he lists Walt Whitman), Robert Frost.
Great additions, folks! I was thinking of Willa Cather, too, Jo, and if I were to add an American poet it would be Wendell Berry, my current favorite.
Meanwhile, I wonder what lists will look like of writers and works in the 21st century. Maybe some of those writers haven’t even been born yet….
After I posted, I immediately thought of Mary Oliver. Don’t know how I could have forgotten her. I guess to be accurate, or should I say precise, we should be naming individual books or poems by these specific authors and poets rather than just naming names. I think I will work on that and submit again. Right off though I can be specific and say:
“The Portrait of a Lady” by Henry James.
“My Antonia” by Willa Cather.
“The Grass Harp” by Truman Capote.
“To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee.
“The Swan” by Mary Oliver–an individual poem, not her new collection.
Excellent suggestions! Yes, Mary Oliver is an amazing poet. I would be hard pressed to pick a favorite. However, The Swan is indeed exquisite. Thanks for commenting, Jo!