Reading the Author Challenge

Reading the Author 

What author? Well, that’s up to you. How many books? That’s pretty much up to you as well but I’m going to make this a shortish challenge – beginning in September and lasting through December. Read as many books by a single author as you like, but to make things somewhat official I’ll put the minimum at 3. I’ll do a few posts throughout the challenge on my own reading but also on what the different participants are thinking as they get to know their particular author. And finally, in December, I’ll do an author recap with a meme, for those who are interested. 

If you’d like to participate, put a comment here on this page with the author you’re planning to read. As you start reading, feel free to link in with your reviews or thoughts.  

Here are a few buttons, feel free to choose one. If none of these suit you, please submit a button to verbivoresbooks@gmail.com – I’m rather new at this button creating thing! 

 

 

 

 

So, without further ado, my author will be Alice McDermott. I’ve already read two of McDermott’s six novels (That Night and Charming Billy) and I’d like to see what I make of the other four. I get the sense that she often gets sidelined for ‘louder’ American writers who write bigger, more extraordinary stories but in my opinion McDermott is an incredible writer with a unique approach to perspective and a particular talent for understatement. Her quiet stories are often bursting with emotion and insight. Here is her complete bibliography:

A Bigamist’s Daughter (1982)

That Night (1987)

At Weddings and Wakes (1992)

Charming Billy (1998)

Child of My Heart (2002)

After This (2006)