In December 2023 I decided to start an alphabetical quest at my local library, sequentially reading one work of fiction by an author from A to Z. I wanted to read books by classic authors I'd not properly read before and to nudge myself out of my usual literary oeuvre. Yesterday I finally finished book number 26, and it went so well I'm now wondering whether I should go round again.
a)Margaret Atwood: I plumped for a compilation of short stories, but should probably have picked one of her more obvious novels instead. b)Iain Banks: About halfway through The Crow Road I decided I didn't have to finish all 26 books, so back to the library it went. c)Agatha Christie: A compendium of Poirot short stories repeatedly confirmed the great lady's devious readability. d)Roddy Doyle: It's perhaps too early to be enjoying pandemic fiction, so I did not enjoy Life Without Children. e)Bret Easton Ellis: American Psycho was a graphic account of backstabbing after hours in Manhattan, well worthy of a warning sticker. f)E.M. Forster: ...whereas Howards End was a more privileged softer world, another country. g)Graham Greene: I did The Human Factor for O Level, but Our Man in Havana is a better period piece. h)Ernest Hemingway: Short stories again, so short that the book contained 49 of them. i)Christopher Isherwood: I picked A Single Man because it had been a film I'd never seen, and now I think I probably should have. j)PD James: I picked The Children of Men because again I've never seen it, and now I think I definitely should have. k)Hanif Kureishi: I wonder if all authors start writing more about old age and frailty as they get older. l)Penelope Lively: Moon Tiger was the first time I picked a Booker winner, and by the end I could see why it had won. m)Ian McEwan: Premature ejaculation and longshore drift fatefully combined, that's On Chesil Beach. n)V.S. Naipaul: In A Free State was my second Booker winner, an intriguing window into another culture and another time. o)Ben Okri: The best I can say is that I think I picked one of his most-dashed-off books. p)Edgar Allan Poe: The entire whodunnit genre plainly has its roots in The Murder In The Rue Morgue (1841). q)Anthony Quinn: There aren't enough books about life in the Callaghan era, so London, Burning was a welcome read. r)Philip Roth: I wouldn't have picked up Everyman if I'd realised it was solid musings on death and mortality. s)Zadie Smith: the NW postcode fizzed to life, so I should tackle Zadie's White Teeth next. t)Colm Tóibín: I picked the thinnest Tóibín on the shelf, and it felt more like showing off than a story. u)John Updike: It was about time I met Rabbit Angstrom and the drab entrapment of the postwar Rust Belt. v)Gore Vidal: Blimey, The City And The Pillar was daring for 1948, a landmark in repressed queer fiction. w)Evelyn Waugh: I thought Scoop was a classic about journalism, but it's actually a classic about Empire. x)Douglas Coupland: Thanks for your recommendation, Alan. Generation X proved that even recent decades are ancient history. y)Richard Yates: From a limited set of Ys I picked eleven illuminating tales of ennui in postwar America. z)Emile Zola: And finally to France for another batch of 19th century short stories, the best of which involved wartime mill destruction.
