I am generally not into the whole “trapped, sad wife in olden times” genre. Edith Wharton is the only writer who has managed to make that story palatable for me, and it’s on the strength of her writing and the fact that her female characters are generally decent people or very entertainingly terrible people (see Undine … Kamouraska – Anne Hébert
I love magical realism. I discovered Borges and Calvino in college and fell in love with them. I saw Arenas’ book on a list of magical realism novels somewhere and looked for it for ages, and I was so excited when I found it at a used bookstore. This book was so disappointing. The thing … The Doorman – Reinaldo Arenas
This was my fourth Kawabata book – the other three were Thousand Cranes, Snow Country, and House of the Sleeping Beauties. As a writer, he snuck up on me. I enjoyed Thousand Cranes, but I didn’t necessarily intend to read a lot of his work. Over the years I’ve purchased his books when I see them at used bookstores, and I’ve … The Sound of the Mountain – Yasunari Kawabata
John Cheever died a few years before I was born. Prior to his death, he was extremely well-regarded, particularly as a short story writer. His collected stories volume was a bestseller, as was his novel Falconer. But since his death, Cheever has basically disappeared from the literary map. According to this 2009 New York Times … The World of Apples – John Cheever