5 Authors I’m Hooked On!
Nothing gets rid of the “I love this author and I don’t want this book to end blues” faster than realizing there is another book out there by this same author in the Book Universe you haven’t read yet! Here are five authors I’m completely hooked on & would recommend any and all of their books…
Frederik Backman
When it comes to new book releases, there are few authors I would stand in line for just to get it right when it hits the shelf. Fredrik Backman is one of them. Backman is a genius at deeply exploring human emotions, leaving the reader with lasting impressions of his characters. He only keeps characters in his stories who feel real to him by putting a small piece of a person he cares about in real life into each one of them. Start your reading with A Man Called Ove, and go from there. Be prepared to ugly cry, feel compassion for, empathize with, and fall in love with the people who live in Backman’s books. His new book, Those Who Run Towards Fire, will be released near the end of 2021!
WATCH: A Man Called Ove the Swedish adaptation of this wonderful book. (Tom Hanks is set to produce and star in an American adaptation of the book) You might also like Beartown (Bjornstad) based on another of the author’s books now streaming on HBO.
Rachel Joyce
I’ve read four of Joyce’s novels and they have all been WINNERS in my book! She writes about people who consider their lives “painfully ordinary”, and feel they are “going through life unnoticed.” You will be falling in love with and rooting for Harold, Queenie, Frank, and Miss Benson. Joyce’s stories are tender, kind and sad, yet also joyful. There are many profound life lessons to be learned throughout all of her novels. One reviewer called them “subtle self-help books.” Prepare to get cozy and get lost in these achingly beautiful stories that all end leaving you feeling deeply touched and with a strong sense of hope and peace. Her latest book, Miss Benson’s Beetle, was released this year.
WATCH: Pair The Music Shop with the French Film Chocolat. In Joyce’s The Music Shop, Frank, the owner of a vinyl record shop, is able to connect his lost and lonely customers with just the right song they need to hear. In the movie Chocolat, Vianne has the ability to unravel her customers’ longings and desires to choose just the confection they need.
(And exciting news! Jim Broadbent is soon set to star in the movie adaptation of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry.)
Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice is a very dear book to me. My twice a month trips to the library with my mother were a beloved tradition we followed from kindergarten through high school. This book was her favorite book of all time, and this was before an emerging from the lake in a soaking wet shirt Colin Firth came along, considerably boosting awareness and popularity of this beautifully told classic. Austen revealed her beliefs about domestic life and relationships through her storytelling, and also what she thought of the social and political issues of her day. She was ahead of her time. My mother used to call me her “little instigator, just like Elizabeth Bennett”. It was a beautiful gift sharing my love of books with my mom, and Pride and Prejudice became my favorite too along with Sense and Sensibility. I’ve loved every one of Austen’s books and have just finished the last one, Lady Susan, a short epistolary novel. I’ll just have to read them all again!
WATCH: Pride and Prejudice of course- the BBC MINISERIES VERSION! Colin Firth IS Mr. Darcy, The BBC also does a masterful job of adapting Sense and Sensibility to the screen in the 2008 miniseries with Dan Stevens.
Marlena DeBlasi
If you like romance, incredible food, and adventuresome travel, and you haven’t discovered de Blasi yet, please consider doing so! I finished reading her first memoir, A Thousand Days in Venice, while I was traveling through the Cinque du Terre nearly 20 years ago. I was making my way to Venice and had picked up a copy in Florence. Right away I was pulled into this “love at first sight’ romance when Fernando first sees Marlena across the Piazza San Marco and knows one day they will be together.
De Blasio is a born storyteller who gets carried away with her descriptions of just about everything. I found it fun and exhilarating to read this fairy tale come true. Her detailed descriptions of Venice, the people, the traditions, and the stratas of local culture are fascinating and informative. You will smell the roasted garlic reading her recipes, and you will want to catch the next plane to Venice. De Blasi wrote two more memoirs taking place in Tuscany and Umbria and two standalone books that chronicled her real life experiences in Sicily and a remote province in the hills of Western Tuscany. Pour yourself a glass of prosecco or San Pellegrino, and let your minds, hearts, and bodies be nurtured by these books full of delicious, practical, and philosophical gems.
WATCH: Pair A Thousand Days in Tuscany, de Blasi’s second memoir, with Under the Tuscan Sun, a movie adaptation of the book by Frances Mayes. Romance, food, gorgeous scenery, and strong women can be found in both.
Geraldine Brooks
The fabulous Geraldine Brooks has written five novels, one of which is March that won the Pulitzer Prize. She is said by many critics to write “peerless historical fiction” as she explores the meaning of faith and religion in ordinary lives throughout her books.
I’ve read three of her novels, Year of Wonders, March, and People of the Book, all of which are absolutely brilliant! I read them long ago, but I find them newly relevant. Year of Wonders is a pandemic novel covering the Bubonic Plague in 1665. March talks about racial injustice. Mr. March, the father of the four girls in Little Women, takes a journey as chaplain in the Union army during the Civil War toward an understanding of the “toxic residue of slavery”. People of the Book explores Jewish continuity as the book traces the history of the rare illuminated manuscript of the Sarajevo Haggadah, with the Muslims saving the book twice during wars and exile.
WATCH: Pair Brooks’ March with Little Women, the movie adaptation of Louisa Alcott’s book. It will introduce you to Mr. March and his family during the time he was serving in the Union Army. I recommend all three movie versions of Little Women wholeheartedly. (1949, 1994,and 2018) All three have stellar casts and are beautifully shot.
