What Have You Read Lately?

A literary agent I admire said recently, "I'm interested in knowing what the author reads for pleasure and also who their literary inspirations and influences are. It's very impressive when you get an approach from someone who has read a lot of contemporary fiction and can really place his or her work within a literary context."

I read a lot for pleasure. Just as I like to write, so I like to read. This blog includes a few mentions of literary inspirations and influences: Peter Matthiessen and Julio Cortázar, for example. They are old friends. But, what about some of my new friends? In other words, to paraphrase Janet Jackson, "What have you read lately?"

Below is a curated list of books I've read in the past few years. The categories are: contemporary fiction, not-so-contemporary fiction (before 1990, let's say), historical research, and plot and character inspiration. Books are listed in order of publication or copyright, most recent to most distant.

CONTEMPORARY FICTION
2001 to the Present
Hari Kunzru, Gods Without Men, 2012
Steve Lawhead, The Spirit Well*, 2012
Charles Frazier, Nightwoods, 2011
Umberto Eco, The Prague Cemetery, 2011
Don DeLillo, Point Omega, 2010
Isabel Allende, Island Beneath the Sea, 2009
Stieg Larsson, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest*, 2009
Kate Mosse, Sepulchre, 2008
Jeffrey Hantover, The Jewel Trader of Pegu, 2008
Charles Frazier, Thirteen Moons, 2006
Luis Alberto Urrea, The Hummingbird's Daughter, 2005
Salman Rushdie, Shalimar the Clown, 2005
Neil Gaiman, American Gods, 2001

1991-2000
Robin Hobb, Assassin's Quest*, 1997
Tony Hillerman, Dance Hall of the Dead, 1991

*Each of these is the third in a series: Bright Empires (Lawhead), Millennium (Larsson), Farseer (Hobb). I've also read Books One and Two in these series.


NOT-SO-CONTEMPORARY FICTION
Louis L'Amour, The Haunted Mesa, 1987
Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Mists of Avalon, 1983
Mark Helprin, Winter's Tale, 1983
Louis L'Amour, The Lonesome Gods, 1983
Louis L'Amour, The Californios, 1974
Ursula K. LeGuin, A Wizard of Earthsea, 1968
Zane Grey, Lost Pueblo
Robert Louis Stevenson, Kidnapped, or, The Lad with the Silver Button, 1886

HISTORICAL RESEARCH
Patrice Chaplin City of Secrets, 2008
Lynn H. Gamble, The Chumash World at European Contact, 2008
Ian Record, Big Sycamore Stands Alone, 2008
Luis Alberto Urrea, The Devil's Highway, 2004
Brian Fagan, Before California, 2003
Daniel Richter, Facing East from Indian Country, 2001
Vine Deloria, Red Earth, White Lies, 1997
Keith Basso, Wisdom Sits in Places, 1996
Jerry Mander, In the Absence of the Sacred, 1991
Vine Deloria, Custer Died for Your Sins, 1988
Thomas Blackburn, December's Child, 1980
T. C. McLuhan, Touch the Earth, 1971


PLOT AND CHARACTER INSPIRATION
Catriona MacGregor, Partnering With Nature, 2010
Peter Coyote, Sleeping Where I Fall, 1998
Paul Shepard, The Others: How Animals Made Us Human, 1996
Ronald Chepesiuk, Sixties Radicals, Then and Now, 1995
David Korten, When Corporations Rule the World, 1995
Russell Means, Where White Men Fear to Tread, 1995