(Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme brought to you by The Broke and the Bookish.)
This week’s list is a tricky one: my idea of an under-recognized author could be different from everyone else’s. I also seem to read older authors and novels than a lot of the bloggers I follow, which tends to skew my idea of which authors people know about. With those caveats in mind, here’s my list of authors who I think deserve more recognition.
- Garrison Keillor – I’ve been listening to Keillor’s radio show (“A Prairie Home Companion”) since childhood. He’s been writing about the little Minnesota town of Lake Wobegon for decades, and his stories are some of my favorites. He’s got several books set in that world, but my favorite of his is actually The Sandy Bottom Orchestra.
- Fannie Flagg – A storyteller in the great Southern tradition. Her novels are amazing, well-written, and ultimately heartwarming. She’s written lots (and lots) of books, but my personal favorite is Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle-Stop Cafe.
- Ginny Rorby – I stumbled across Hurt Go Happy by accident, and it was one of my favorite reads of 2012. Rorby is a marvelous writer, and I need to find more of her books.
- Georgette Heyer – Heyer is one of those authors who is probably better-known than I think she is. Her novels are like Austen with a bit more kick — start with The Grand Sophy.
- Pamela Aiden – The author of the only Austen “sequel” I’ve ever liked. I love her character development of Mr. Darcy, Georgiana, and Colonel Fitzwilliam. Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman is a great trilogy.
You guys know these authors…right?
I agree with 1 and 2. 3, 4 & 5, I’m not familiar with, but will check them out. I would put Don Robertson in my top 5. He wrote the trilogy about the coming of age of one Morris Bird III. Begins with The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread, one of my all time fav books. Then, The Sum and Total of Now, followed by the big finale, The Greatest Thing That Almost Happened. The last was made into a pretty bad movie. Should have left it alone, as is the case with most great books. Robertson is a Cleveland native son and there have been some pushes over the years from Ohioans it get him the recognition he deserves. It’s difficult to find copies of these books now, though a re issue of the first came out a few years back (yay!). All of them go for big bucks on online book sites.
I’ve never heard of Robertson, Gloria, but The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread has some pretty glowing reviews on Goodreads and elsewhere. Predictably, of course, my local library does not have a copy. 🙁 Maybe I’ll stumble across a copy at Half-Price Books sometime…