Toni Morrison

I know I'm a little slow on the uptake, but I just finished The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen and was quite impressed. An excellent read.

freakonomics

This was a great read, but I don't think it is what he is looking for.

i dunno, i found it pretty insightful and moving. of course my spiritual side is a cold, dead vestigial organ.

I´m also really into Hesse.

Another author that I read over and over again and get the same feeling of amazement from is Annie Dillard. If you´re looking for books that change the way you see the world pick up her ´Pilgrim at Tinker Creek´ It usually comes as a set with two other works. All of them are great.

Also I would suggest reading Bryce Courtenay´s ´The Power of One.´ Great stuff.

My sister sent me a link to this one, and apparently the NY Times gave it a good review... sounds interesting.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/de ... s&n=507846

I enjoyed this, but as a recent economics major, it was annoying how dumbed down it was. I just wish he could have gone a bit more in depth and left out a lot of the rudimentary explanation out. But then it wouldn't appeal to anyone who didn't know economics.

Dude, it was titled freakonomics, not geekonomics.

I know, I really am a total economics geek. I should have read a text book or something.

i just finished "even cowgirls get the blues" and am moving on to "another roadside attraction." this tom robbins kick is a good one to be on.

contemporary writers i find as strong as the names you mention above:
- j.m. coetze (definitely)
- maybe ha jin
- toni morrison (definitely)
- jose saramago's blindness is brilliant but i'm not a huge fan of his other books
- maybe rick moody

quite honestly i think one of the last great american novels written was beloved and that's from the 80's.
some people might say de lillo...i say no way. it's good but not great.

you should pick up the latest issue of the atlantic. it's the fiction issue and there's contemporary fiction as well as an interesting article by mary gordon on "moral fiction."

dear god, i'm rambling.

I'm a big George Saunders fan. His first two are collections of shorter works and are both great, Civilwarland in Decline is the first and then Pastoralia.

His layest, The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil, just came out about a week ago. Haven't read it yet, but plan on grabbing it this weekend.

He's usually mining the satire/distopyian terrain, so if that doesn't appeal, it may not be for you. But, what he does, I think he does better than anyone else out there these days, by far.

If you are into that sort of thing, Matthew Derby's Super Flat Times is good as well.

I don't know if I'm quite a fan yet, but Ian McEwan's descriptive qualities and pacing remind me a bit of Steinbeck, though he certainly doesn't paint in quite as vivid colors as Steinbeck did. Much murkier. He employs a few devices that have kept me interested...