Who’s your favorite author that other people are NOT reading? The one you want to evangelize for, the one you would run popularity campaigns for? The author that, so far as you’re concerned, everyone should be reading–but that nobody seems to have heard of. You know, not JK Rowling, not Jane Austen, not Hemingway–everybody’s heard of them. The author that you think should be that famous and can’t understand why they’re not…
Today’s question is a good one – it sent me to my LibraryThing catalog in search of a book I rated highly, by an author I haven’t heard, read, or seen much about in all of the places I do bookish things.
I picked up a remaindered copy of D. M. Cornish’s Foundling on a whim, and found the book to be far more intricate, richly illustrated – both in word and artwork – and thorough than I had anticipated. I happily purchased the second book, in hardcover no less (but with a coupon, of course), shortly after finishing the first in this series, called Monster Blood Tattoo. While both Foundling and its sequel, Lamplighter, are considerable in length and complexity of language, I found them to move swiftly and with great momentum. I’m looking forward to the third installment, and have only found one other reader in my on-line and real world travels who has read these books, as well.
My reviews for both books can be found on my reading challenge post for 2009.
What author do you think deserves more attention than he or she receives from mainstream booksellers, reviewers, and publishers?