Credit where credit is due

Not too long back, I received a comment from one of my twelve readers telling me that I have helped him discover some new authors. I thought that was a high compliment, but I think it's only fair that I give credit where credit is due. Following is a list of a few authors I have recently been enjoying, and the people who helped me discover them. (Or, in many instances, my first memories of discovering them for myself.)

• Shirley Jackson. This one is all Jessa. I had read "The Lottery" in school, but I had never explored her novels until Jessa wrote a post on Bookslut saying "If you're not reading Shirley Jackson, you should really rectify that." And so I did. (I'm not usually this suggestible; I happened to be looking for something new to read at the time.) And now I'm addicted to collecting her little paperbacks from the fifties and sixties. When I was in Seattle, I found a paperback of Come Along With Me lurking on the floor of a tiny used bookshop in Capitol Hill, and snapped it up. "$2.85? Bargain." "I can charge you more if you want..." My favorite Jackson moment? Apart from her scaring the bejeezus out of me so much so with The Haunting of Hill House that I screamed when a truck rattled a manhole cover outside our apartment, I loved reading her account of giving birth to her third child, smoking in the taxi on the way to the hospital. Ah, the fifties.


• Rupert Thomson. And the award goes to: Maud Newton. If she hadn't raved endlessly about the guy, I might not have noticed Divided Kingdom, which seemed to be unfortunately ignored by the award givers of 2005. And if I hadn't have had her encouragement, I probably would have put down Air & Fire about midway through. But I trust her when she says that it's worth it, and the submarine scene alone was indeed worth it.


• Scarlett Thomas. The End of Mr. Y is the perfect example of what book blogs are capable of in terms of word-of-mouth promotion. I had glanced at books by Scarlett Thomas before, but never felt a real incentive to read one until I heard Ed, Maud, and Mark raving about this one. Good thing I paid attention, too - it was one of the best books I read last year.


• Magnus Mills. In addition to giving me life, my mother also gave me a bus-driver-turned-author named Magnus Mills. She also gave me Rebecca and The Good Earth, along with many others that she's loved and passed along, but Magnus Mills was the one that sticks out, the most bizarre, the one I began to collect. He's also one of few authors that The Husband and I both read on a regular basis. (The Husband, it should be mentioned here, introduced me to two other treats: Patrick Suskind and Adrian Mole.)


• Louis Bromfield. And from the other side of my parentage, I get Louis Bromfield. I have detailed the history of my family's relationship to Malabar Farm here, and Bromfield's books were a permanent fixture on the shelf in the home where I grew up, but I largely ignored this author until we visited the farm a few years back. Dad offered his collection of Bromfield books to borrow from, but I was too afraid to spoil the lovely green leather covers, and so bought an old copy of Pleasant Valley for myself, slowly beginning to answer the question of where I come from.


• Inga Abele. She writes like Marilynne Robinson (I can say that with confidence now, having read Marilynne Robinson), and I've attempted to translate several of her stories, stories originally handed to me by my host mother in Latvia. Sometimes there's nothing better than someone handing you a book and saying not "you must read this" or "this is the best thing ever," but, instead, "I really liked this; I think you might too."

There are authors whose origins are unknown to me. They just appeared on my bookshelf one day, suddenly a part of my life.

• Joan Didion. I'm still trying to figure out how I missed out on reading Joan Didion until just over a year ago. This makes no sense to me. I can even remember owning a copy of Political Fictions, but not ever reading it, and passing it along unread. Isn't it funny, the things that pass right under our noses and we never even realize that they're meant for us?


• Victor Pelevin. All I can remember about my discovery of Victor Pelevin is that I started reading him around the same time my sister accused me of reading only Russians. I don't know where she got that idea, as I had to admit I had only ever read Master and Margarita and a few Gogol stories, but I quickly rectified the situation by devouring every Pelevin novel or short story I could get my hands on, among Lermontov and Tolstoy and Sorokin and Petrushevskaya.


• Haruki Murakami. I read a Murakami story while lying by a pool in L.A. in 2002. I'm convinced I had read a Murakami novel before then, but that moment of reading a Murakami story while lying by the poolside sticks with me more than the discovery of this author.


• David Mitchell. I initially pulled Ghostwritten off the shelves because its cover reminded me of a My Bloody Valentine album cover. Who in turn were introduced to me by a guy named Zack, and who I happen to be listening to as I type this. It makes sense that one of my favorite bands should help me discover one of my favorite authors. Thank you, Mr. or Ms. Cover Designer.

It's interesting to think back on how these authors came into my life. And how different I'd be without having read them. There's something marvelous and exciting about discovering an author for the first time, reading that first paragraph, craving more, and more, and falling head over heels in love.

Today Jessa is on a similar wavelength, writing about sharing books with a friend. She mentions Tatyana Tolstaya (no idea where I discovered her either, though I read The Slynx a few years ago and loved it) and points us to these fantastic Russian covers by the artist Oleg Paschenko, whose other slightly disturbing illustrations can be found here. Tolstaya will be taking part in the PEN World Voices Festival later this month.

Tolstaya is currently being published by NYRB, whose recent offerings have really impressed me. I didn't pay them much attention before, but I certainly will be paying attention now. Tingle Alley also takes note of additions to the list.

One more link? Oh, go on then. A fan of old black and white films makes his own video for my favorite My Bloody Valentine song, "Cigarette in yr Bed." Bonus: the live version, at ULU, 1990.