Resolution Reading List: Top 6 Authors to Kick off the New Year

I’m always looking for new authors to put on my ever-expanding reading list, which I refer to as The List in an attempt to simplify its exponential growth. Needless to say, The List expands every time I walk into work at the bookstore. At this point, I’m not even sure if I’m making more money than I’m giving back to the company. The most I can hope for is breaking even. (Not that I’m complaining!)

However, the New Year is the perfect time to reduce The List to something concrete and achievable. It was a long and hard process to narrow it down to just a few that I’d most like to read in the coming year, and since many of these authors tend to write super long novels/series, I figured I’d keep the list relatively short. But hey, with the official, Mayan-predicted Apocalypse counting down, I figure 2012 will be the ideal year to get some reading done!

So before you start popping champagne bottles and partying like it’s 2013, take a look at my simplified List of some of the most exciting authors of late, who I’d absolutely LOVE to ride out the Apocalypse with.

1.    Jeffrey Eugenides

Ever since Eugenides’s groundbreaking novel The Virgin Suicides came out in 1993, the world has recognized the author as a master of storytelling, blending innovative perspective with themes of guilt and judgment. Pulitzer Prize-winning Middlesex was a tour-de-force identity novel, questioning the possibility of distinctly gender-specific writing, as do books like Winterson’s Written on the Body. Now, The Marriage Plot (pub. January 1, 2011) follows a love triangle in a modernized world so unlike the world of Austen and Eliot it compares the romances to. I like Eugenides’s works because they offer fresh perspectives on the snares of the modern world.

2.    Umberto Eco

Eco is famous for his 1994 novel The Name of the Rose, a murder mystery set in 1300s Europe. The details of the Italian history professor-turned-author’s writing are so precise, you can almost hear the church bells in the distance. But what really differentiates Rose is Eco’s creative infusion of philosophy, mystery, and history. His newest, The Prague Cemetery, is the story of the fictional document of Jewish conspiracy, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which later influenced Nazi philosophy. This story of intense political conspiracy and evil masterminds will leave you wondering, what if?

3.    Haruki Murakami

Murakami is an author well known for blurring the lines of reality and the supernatural in the dream-like prose of his sprawling novels. His popular Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is a good place to start; the reader may relate to his account of a man who mourns missed opportunities to better his relationship with his wife. He goes in search of her missing cat, only to realize he is also searching for her as well. As the search continues, Murakami pushes the limits of reality, infusing the man’s journey with spiritually quirky characters and unearthed mysteries from WWII. Although not all of his novels have a psychedelic touch to them (try South of the Border, West of the Sun), his newest, 1Q84, brings his sense of other-worldliness to 1984 Tokyo. While 1Q84 (the Q stands for the “question mark”, the unknowing that pervades this new world) is a clear reference Orwell’s dystopia, it expands the horrifying dystopian realities to include yin-yang themes of duality. Though it’s a behemoth, 1Q84 is nothing less than a masterpiece.

4.    Walter Isaacson

Isaacson won instant fame for having written the most-anticipated biography of the year, October 2011’s Steve Jobs. Isaacson brought one of the most innovative minds of our time to light with brutally honest accounts of his character, his competitors, and the business empire he built from the ground up. Jobs cooperated with the biographer in the months before his death to bring forth some of the tougher decisions he had to make as a leader to achieve the ultimately inspirational story of his company and his life. Isaacson clearly knows innovation; he’s written biographies of pioneering minds such as Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, and Henry Kissinger. He presents a more sprawling look at the most influential minds in books like The Wise Men, and American Sketches.

5.    (the) Suzanne Collins

Collins is my YA pick for the year for one main reason: her originality in a fully saturated (in my opinion) mess of YA dystopias and paranormal romances. But originality goes a long way in my book. Plus, Katniss’s hardships are a lot bigger than the cliché Which suitor should I choose? But besides the obvious and overwhelming success of The Hunger Games trilogy, Collins’s debut series, Underland Chronicles, is similarly creative and definitely intelligent enough to stand out. In the first, Gregor the Overlander, an eleven-year-old and aptly named Gregor falls through a laundry room grate into the shadowy Underland, located deep beneath New York City. It is there that Gregor finds out that he has a crucial role to play in the delicate balance of peace between the humans and the life-sized insects and bats that inhabit the Underland. Clearly, Collins isn’t one to disappoint!

6.    Jim Butcher

I’ve heard nothing but good reviews about this sci-fi author and his Dresden Files series. Taking place in a Chicago not unlike the one in our present world, Harry Dresden is a private detective with noble intentions that end up getting him in a lot of trouble. But Harry is also a wizard, and he’s the only private eye in the city specializing in paranormal investigations. Storm Front is the first in the very long series (most recently featuring #13, Ghost Story), introducing readers to the timeworn detective and his unique role in the gloomy paranormal doings of Butcher’s world.

And so, I’m off to start making headway on The List! I wish you all the best in your New Year’s resolution reading lists!