Annie Proulx’s The Shipping News
John Updike’s Rabbit is Rich
Anne Tyler’s Breathing Lessons

Can’t think of any others right now.  Maybe that’s it.

Went through an Anne Tyler phase in the 80s, John Updike in the 90s, and more recently Annie Proulx.  All Updike’s Rabbit books are great.  I read the last one first, Rabbit at Rest.  Saw a preview in a copy of Penthouse, a great scene on the golf course, Angstrom and his buddies talking politics and lipping out putts.  Hooked me for life.  I knew those Penthouse days would be good for something other than going blind.

Does All the President’s Men  count? I saw the movie…

This is interesting, I looked them up (the internet can be great):

http://www.pulitzer.org/cgi-bin/catquery.cgi?type=w&category=Fiction&FormsButton5=Retrieve

and here’s what I’ve read:

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (I only like the short stories)
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron
The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever
Ironweed by William Kennedy (but I wasn’t as thrilled with it as everyone else seemed to be)
The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields (we have to read this in Canada, it’s a law)
Independence Day by Richard Ford (not as good as The Sportswriter, but very good)
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon (I couldn’t finish it)

For me, only Richard Ford comes close to Elmore Leonard. But there are a few others on the list I think I’ll get to soon.

Really, though, The Hot Kid is as good as anything on here. Can’t wait for Up in Honey’s Room.

Scrum - 27 February 2007 02:41 PM

Went through an Anne Tyler phase in the 80s, John Updike in the 90s, and more recently Annie Proulx.

Have you tried Bobbie Anne Mason? In Country was turned into a movie, but don’t let that put you off.

Elmore is a great admirer of Bobbie Ann Mason’s work.

Haven’t read Bobbie Anne Mason.  I have a hard time breaking into a new author, but I will on a recommendation.  Thanks.

My Hemingway phase was in high school.  For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Sun Also Rises.  Don’t think I’ve read The Old Man and the Sea.  It’s been so long I really don’t remember much about Hemingway’s style.

I did read To Kill a Mockingbird, required sophomore year English in HS.  Did Catcher in the Rye win the Pulitzer?

Also, the National Book Awards are interesting:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Book_Award

Even if just for Tim O’Brien’s excellent, Going After Cacciato, and I think Robert Stone’s Dog Soldiers is on both lists.

I have read John Kennedy Toole’s “A Confederacy of Dunces” It was really good…