AMERICAN AUTHORS CHALLENGE 2022 General Discussion

Welcome to Year Nine of the American Authors Challenge. This is a loosely structured endeavor, with lots of room for readers who want to jump in, branch out, participate or spectate. Join us for a month or two, or all twelve, or just do the theme months, or the one that really grabs you...or pick a Wild Card 12 times....whatever you like. But please share. It's all about sharing.

Here is the line-up for 2022, which includes 8 authors and 4 theme/category months:

JANUARY Graphic novels, comics and/or non-fiction
Here is a link to January's thread

FEBRUARY Tess Gallagher

MARCH Bernard Malamud

APRIL Jennifer Finney Boylan

MAY 19th Century American Author of your choice

JUNE John Dos Passos

JULY Gish Jen

AUGUST Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

SEPTEMBER Pulitzer Prize Winners

OCTOBER John McPhee

NOVEMBER Native American authors, themes and history

DECEMBER Martha Gellhorn

WILD CARD SUGGESTION: A book written about or set in the state, province, city, etc. where you now live. (Or anything else you feel like substituting.) There's even a thread for that.

This thread can be for any American Author related chit chat or news that you'd like to share, not specifically related to the month at hand, etc. Eventually it will be where we bat around names and topics for next year. And I will try to remember to add links for the individual monthly threads as I put them up.

Here are some useful links for newcomers:

The 2021 Discussion thread The 2021 list of authors and themes is in the introductory post on that thread.

A list of all selections from 2014 through 2020 can be found here.

Oh, yeah...about that banner. There is a quiz on-line that purports to assess your American Literature IQ, and you can find it here. I thought it was pretty easy, but American Lit is my bread, butter AND jam, when it comes to reading, so...

Several new to me authors there Linda.
Malamud is a favourite of mine and Dos Passos is someone I have a few books on the shelves already.

Thanks for setting this up - I will join in wherever I can.

Here is a link to January's thread, for those eager to get started!

>2 PaulCranswick: That's great, Paul. I've been meaning to get around to Dos Passos myself for a long time.

Linda, I'm planning on dipping in and out of this. Definitely in for January. Thanks for setting it up.

This, the Wild Card, and January threads are now on the group wiki!

The February thread for the American Authors Challenge is now open. Our author this month is Tess Gallagher.

Having actually read the monthly "State of the Thing" LT newsletter this month, I will share this news for those who didn't.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg's personal library (or some of it, at least) was auctioned off in January, and LT was given permission by the family and the auction house to list those books here as a Legacy Library. Fun to peruse, and to see what books we share.

>8 laytonwoman3rd: Thanks for that!

A few of the 38 books I share with RBG:

Reinventing Bach by Paul Elie
One more time : the best of Mike Royko by Mike Royko
1791, Mozart's last year by Howard C. Robbins Landon
"Our crowd" : the great Jewish families of New York by Stephen Birmingham
Orley Farm by Anthony Trollope
My own words by Ruth Bader Ginsburg
My beloved world by Sonia Sotomayor
The secret chord by Geraldine Brooks
The Caine mutiny, a novel of World War II by Herman Wouk
The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy
Team of rivals : the political genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin
The elements of style by William Strunk
Beloved : a novel by Toni Morrison

>9 kac522: My total was 42. I wish it were higher!

Mine was 59.

A New Yorker profile of Wendell Berry, whom we featured in 2020. It may be behind a paywall, but sometimes they give you a free article or two if you're not a subscriber.

>12 laytonwoman3rd: Thank you Linda. Yay, a new non-fiction from WB this year.

The March thread is up. Please join us for Bernard Malamud.

Malaprops in Asheville, NC, is hosting a virtual event featuring Wiley Cash and Adele Myers, on March 2nd. The link takes you to a sign-up form, if anyone should be interested in attending.

I attended a ZOOM event with Wiley Cash, Jon Clinch, John Searles and Jean Kwok last week, which was hosted by The Back Room, a venue operated by authors Karen Dionne and Hank Phillippi Ryan. Each of the featured authors was asked, in the opening session, to recommend a book to the participants. Adele Myers's The Tobacco Wives was Cash's pick.

I enjoyed the Back Room event immensely. After the introductory opening, the group was divided into four "breakout rooms" for chats with the individual authors (they rotated through at 15 minute intervals). I was especially chuffed because Jon Clinch recognized my name. (I follow him on Facebook, and have had a couple e-mail exchanges with him in the past, requesting a photo for posting on LT, etc.) Not surprisingly I ended up ordering a copy of the book he recommended, This is Happiness by Niall Williams.

He and Wiley Cash were very congenial, and I could have spent the entire hour allotted to interactive chat with either one of them. I was one of only two or three participants who actually asked questions. There was a moderator in the chatroom to keep things flowing. The other two authors were unknown to me, and I did not get the impression that I would care for their work. I might explore the hosts' output, though, as they both write suspenseful stuff that might appeal when I'm in the mood.

The Back Room's spring schedule is on their website, linked above, and the events are free. If you like this sort of thing, check out who's coming up.

Thanks for bringing The Back Room to my attention, Linda. Very cool. None of the spring panels appeal all that much, but I've followed them on Twitter so can keep abreast of what they're doing.

I met Wiley Cash at a Booktopia event in Asheville several years ago. He was great.

>16 katiekrug: I was sorry not to see anyone on the schedule that appeals to me (or even very many that I recognize!), but it's a wonderful thing they're doing, and I'm all for it, whoever the panelists may be. We had a wonderful event here in Scranton for a couple years, called Pages and Places, which I volunteered for, and which brought some fine names to town, including Jay Parini (well, he's sort of local) and Howard Norman, among others. I was so disappointed when it fizzled out after the second year. The woman behind it decided to run for Mayor, lost, and then moved away. I thought it was quite successful, but our only independent bookstore went out of business shortly after that too, so maybe it was just a doomed enterprise.

Casting back to 2018, when we featured Walter Mosley, I'm thrilled to see Samuel L. Jackson will portray Pitypapa in an Apple TV adaptation of The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey, which begins on March 11th, for those who subscribe to that service. I will keep my fingers crossed for wider distribution onto platforms that I have access to.

Here's a nifty article about 2 high school students who got an interview with Cormac McCarthy (He doesn't DO publicity.)

Gearing up for April, the Jennifer Finney Boylan thread is up.

Will the May thread be available soon?

>21 fuzzi: Yes, and thanks for your enthusiasm!

The graphics on this one slowed me down, but *drumroll* The 19th Century Author of Your Choice thread is now live.

For fans of James Lee Burke and/or Wiley Cash, the two will have a discussion tomorrow, May 24th, at 7:00 p.m. EST, (US and Canada) which you can join via ZOOM by registering here. Burke has a new novel debuting tomorrow, in the Holland Family Saga.

>23 laytonwoman3rd: Burke is really showing his age, in a physical sense. But he always has something to say worth hearing. I enjoyed the short webinar with Wiley Cash last night. I don't know that I will read the current novel; I read the first of his Holland Family Saga entries, but didn't post a review. I believe I decided not to follow that trail, and haven't read a Robicheaux since Creole Belle. I think Burke did his best work before Hurricane Katrina and the Gulf oil spills set him off on an even darker track than he had already been traveling.

For everyone who will miss Roger Angell, I commend you to this reflection by the marvelous Holly Wendt. They write about other things too, and you could do much worse than to follow that newsletter of theirs.

The June thread featuring John Dos Passos is up.

My "near" daughter (real daughter's college and grad school bestie), the amazing Holly Wendt has a sporty novel in the pipeline. I knew they would one day, and I'm thrilled. Some of you will love it, I'm sure.

The August thread for Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is live now.

Here we go into September, and the American Authors Challenge features Pulitzer Prize Winners. Let's see how many of them we can check off.

>1 laytonwoman3rd: Weird, for some reason I thought Denis Johnson was on the list, and had a couple of his novels to hand...oh well, I'll read them anyway.

>31 Caroline_McElwee: Johnson was a finalist twice, Caroline, for Tree of Smoke and Train Dreams, so those count.

>32 laytonwoman3rd: Train Dreams is very good.

Goodnight Moon turns 75:

https://www.npr.org/2022/09/03/1120007415/goodnight-moon-has-comforted-kids-at-b...

>32 laytonwoman3rd: >33 RBeffa: I read then reread Train Dreams in the same year I liked it so much. I have Tree of Smoke but not sure if I can easily put my hand on it.

The October thread, for John McPhee awaits you.

Thank you for all your great work on AAC again Linda. I have been less than a sterling participant again this year. I have started a few books, but for one reason or another not finished them. There are a couple I would like to finish.

A suggestion for next year if you are up for continuing with the reins is Percival Everett, whose The Trees I read this month. Black humour/satire with serious underpinning, and he has a large back catalogue.

>39 Caroline_McElwee: Thanks, Caroline. I've been contemplating whether to continue the challenge into 2023. I hate to give it up, but participation is definitely down lately. Percival Everett is a good suggestion.

Our great American chronicler Ken Burns has a new book of photographs out. You can see some examples and listen to him talk about it here. Thanks to Kathy @kac522 for posting this elsewhere, and bringing it to my attention.

>40 laytonwoman3rd: That looks like a beautiful book Linda.

>40 laytonwoman3rd: I do hope you stick with it, Linda. You have introduced a number of authors to me these last couple of years who I was not overly familiar with and the challenge has become one of the "anchor tenants" of the group!

>39 Caroline_McElwee:, >42 PaulCranswick: I appreciate your encouragement, Caroline and Paul. I'd love to hear from other participants about intentions for next year. If it looks like people want to continue in 2023, I'll start a new discussion thread after Thanksgiving. What say you all?

I'm in for 2023, for what that's worth. If you keep the challenge going, I'll even try to review/comment on the books I read for it.

>43 laytonwoman3rd: If you're here, I'm here. I may not do every month, but I'll do my best, especially when I have a relevant selection on my TBR.

I would love to have American authors in my reading mix for next year. I don't always get to each month's selection (so many books, so little time!), but it does get new authors on my radar for the future.

I would continue to follow and participate as able.

Have you featured Richard Powers and Benjamin Alire Saenz?

Well, there is some interest in continuing, so over the weekend, I will start a new discussion thread for choosing 2023 authors.

The introduction to the December thread for Martha Gellhorn is unavoidably delayed, due to a power outage that kept me from posting or even doing the research necessary to compose the post. I have commitments in the next couple days, but will try hard to complete that introductory post over the weekend as well. Meanwhile, there is a thread under construction.

>49 laytonwoman3rd: I picked up a lovely looking Gellhorn bio last month Gellhorn : a twentieth-century life I also obtained The face of War and if that isn't enough, Beautiful Exiles about her and Hem. I have too much to finish by the end of the year!

I think our list is done for 2023, so if you haven't visited the link in >51 laytonwoman3rd: yet, please check it out!

I see today that one of my favorite columnists, Leonard Pitts of the Miami Herald, is "retiring". Actually he's going to be writing full time, but no longer doing the commentary. I did not realize he has written 4 novels, and I will be checking into those very soon.

>53 laytonwoman3rd: Pitts is one of my favorites, too! His books look great, too. I will have to look into them! Thanks!

Karen O

>54 klobrien2: My library has two of his novels, and I've just put one on hold.