Okay, here we go…
20) Joseph J. Ellis
The Professor of History at Mount Holyoke College is the perfect jumping-off point for anyone who would like to better acquaint themselves with the founding of the United States. Ellis uses scrupulous attention to detail and a strict adherence to certifiable evidence as he chronicles the most important and most criminally mythologized chapter of American history. He educates, he enlightens, but above all Ellis understands that history is a story and is meant be told – and examined – with the infectious gusto of a born raconteur.
Start with: American Creation, 2007
Then try: Founding Brothers, 2000
19) Cornell Woolrich
Just read a bit about his tragic, claustrophobic life, and you’ll never have trouble understanding how Woolrich cemented his reputation as a paragon of hard-boiled fiction. His prose is every bit razor-sharp and haunting as you would want in noir literature. But what separates Woolrich from the rest of the pack is his empathy with evil. He appreciates where our intrinsic wickedness stems from and brings the reader perilously close to the heart of the flame. It’s almost mind-boggling that Hollywood has chosen to plunder his works over and over again. But good look finding his books – most of them are out of print.
Start with: I Married a Dead Man, 1948
Then try: Rendezvous in Black, 1948
18) Haruki Murakami
There’s a reason he has such a large and passionate following here in America. Murakami reflects an Eastern point of view refracted through a prism of Western storytelling. He embodies the best that the Baby Boomers bring to their art: a pronounced streak of empathy and humanism and a keen awareness of the history of media on the culture at large. In one mad, seamless patchwork of genres and styles after another, Murakami personifies the potential of contemporary pop art and storytelling prowess so assured, it crosses all human boundaries and touches anyone and everyone.
Start with: Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, 2006
Then try; Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, 1985
17) Kurt Busiek
Don’t let your prejudices poison you against the possibility that a guy who writes comics can craft rich, moving stories with startlingly nuanced characters. Over his thirty-year career of writing for every company, large and small, in the comic book industry, Busiek has written some of the definitive stories of the icons of the medium. But his crowning achievement is his own title, Astro City. In a world where superheroes are commonplace and often mundane as baristas and mailmen, Busiek weaves an ingenious tapestry of tales about super-humans – with the emphasis being on human.
Start with: Astro City – Life in the City, 1997
Then try; Astro City – Confession, 1998
16) Neil Gaiman
Speaking of comic book writers, here’s one of the best in their long, glorious history. But make no mistake, Neil Gaiman has proven himself equally masterful at writing scintillating, unique novels, short stories, and poetry. After all these years, however, The Sandman remains the greatest testament to his ability. Through the overarching mythology, the larger storylines, and the standalone issues; Gaiman provides us with an (pun alert!) endless and endlessly entertaining collection about the importance of change and an infectious celebration of the joy of stories and storytelling.
Start with: The Sandman – Fables and Reflections, 1993
Then try: The Sandman – Season of Mists, 1991
15) Jim Thompson
It’s fitting that he admired Dostoevsky. Amongst the writers of dark, deep hard-boiled fiction, Jim Thompson went the darkest and deepest. Pick up one of his books and you’ll soon find yourself trapped in a labyrinth where the walls are made of the ugliest, basest aspects of the human condition. Continue through the maze and you’ll find at its center what could very well be the fundamental source of man’s imperfections. It also doesn’t hurt that he populates his books with fascinating characters, dialogue fired from a Howitzer, and stories so tightly constructed they’re likely to choke you. Need more proof? Kubrick hired him to write two of his best movies: The Killing and Paths of Glory.
Start with: Pop. 1280, 1964
Then try: The Killer Inside Me, 1952
14) Arthur C. Clarke
And here’s another writer Kubrick regarded highly enough to collaborate with. Clarke is the perfect example of the science fiction writer who places equal emphasis on the science and the fiction. He never sublimates the craft of writing to the cosmetics of aliens and spaceships. He is a grade-A storyteller who uses his very formidable talents to intelligently pontificate on the ramifications of extraterrestrial contact on the evolution of the human race. That Clarke is able to successfully dramatize its absolute beneficence is indicative of his unique point of view and his standing as one of the giants of the sci-fi genre.
Start with: Childhood’s End, 1953
Then try: Imperial Earth, 1975
13) Philip Roth
Honestly, there are a few examples in Roth’s bibliography where he forgot to tell a story, where he overwrote and neglected his job. But over the course of a fifty-plus year career in which you average a novel every eighteen months – a career, by the way, in which you’ve won practically every major writing award a writer can win (often more than once), it’s bound to happen. But pick up one of Roth’s books at random and you’re likely to find yourself ensconced in a story populated by wonderfully complicated people, stunning insights into what it means to be American, and some of the most beautifully wrought prose you’ll ever read.
Start with: Portnoy’s Complaint, 1969
Then try: The Plot Against America, 2004
12) Sherman Alexie
You’ll be hard-pressed to find a more harrowing representation of the plight of the Americanized alien than in the pages of a story by Sherman Alexie. The Spokane/Coeur d’Alene writer has written a handful of novels, but he is, in my opinion, the best writer of short stories working today. His collections contain a wide array of parables; some moving, some terrifying, and some funny. But all of them are stories of people trapped in a world dedicated to their gradual, agonizing annihilation, stories that are far from fictitious to American Indians like Alexie.
Start with: The Toughest Indian in the World, 2000
Then try: The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, 1993
11) Philip K. Dick
I want my PKD! Not surprisingly, his popularity crested with the rise of the counterculture movement. He was equally critical of and sympathetic to recreational drug use. He filtered the growing concerns of the modern world through the lens of science fiction and, through it, saw the future. Possessing a seemingly boundless imagination, Dick crafted one startlingly original tale after another in which, as we often do, he tried to not only answer the question, “Why are we here?” but the further question, “Are we even here to begin with?”
Start with: Ubik, 1969
Then try: Counter-Clock World, 1967
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