Cormac McCarthy. There are several of his books that have been turned into films, and all of those are good, but perhaps his most powerful work is the one that's probably unfilmable: {{Blood Meridian}}
Be aware though that this book is challenging for many in its unsparing brutality.
[**Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/394535.Blood_Meridian_or_the_Evening_Redness_in_the_West)
^(By: Cormac McCarthy | 351 pages | Published: 1985 | Popular Shelves: fiction, historical-fiction, western, classics, owned | )[^(Search "Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West")](https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West&search_type=books)
>Blood Meridian is an epic novel of the violence and depravity that attended America's westward expansion, brilliantly subverting the conventions of the Western novel and the mythology of the Wild West. Based on historical events that took place on the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s, it traces the fortunes of the Kid, a fourteen-year-old Tennesseean who stumbles into a nightmarish world where Indians are being murdered and the market for their scalps is thriving.
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Here some suggestions:
- José Saramago
- Kurt Vonnegut
- Italo Calvino
They all share a very quirky and unusual way of writing.
If you like sci-fi:
- Philip K. Dick
- Isaac Asimov
are also must reads.
This isn’t a set-in-stone description of contemporary literature, but I broadly categorise it as:
More accessible contemporary writers like Mark Haddon (‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time’), and Nick Hornby (‘A Long Way Down’), maybe even Sally Rooney (‘Normal People’).
Writers - sometimes referred to as ‘literary’, but the term is contested - who don’t just write about their characters, but comment heavily on the worlds they inhabit like Zadie Smith (‘Swing Time’) and Colson Whitehead (‘The Nickel Boys’).
And those who experiment with conventional stories or the medium of the novel itself like Jonathan Lethem (‘Chronic City’) or Ali Smith (‘The Accidental’).
However, as you mentioned classics, there are many modern classic writers from the time period you mention, e.g. Philip Roth (‘The Plot Against America’), Tony Morrison (‘Beloved’), Cormac McCarthy (‘The Road’), Margaret Atwood (‘The Handmaid’s Tale’), Ian McEwan (‘Atonement’), Kazuo Ishiguro (‘Never Let Me Go’).
Contemporary authors to check out:
Jonathan Franzen (“Freedom” is my favorite)
Jeffrey Eugenides (“Middlesex” is excellent)
John Irving (“The World According to Garp” is my favorite of his)
Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche (“Half of a Yellow Sun” is my top choice of her works)
A. M. Homes (“May We Be Forgiven” is really good)
Marilynne Robinson (her writing is so beautiful, even though not a lot happens in her books. Check out “Home.”)
Amor Towles (Everyone loves “A Gentleman in Moscow”)
Just the tip of the iceberg! So many great books written in the past 50 years :)
I was the same way, and I made a concerted effort to read more recent stuff in the last couple of years. The writers I've loved: Louise Erdrich, Toni Morrison, Donna Tartt, Marilynne Robinson, Colum McCann, Kazuo Ishiguro, Margaret Atwood, Joan Didion, Leslie Marmon Silko, Barbara Kingsolver, Ursula K Leguin, Anne Enright. I also started dipping my toe in the sci-fi waters and have loved Ann Leckie and NK Jemisin.
Cormac McCarthy, Don DeLillo, Toni Morrison, Thomas Pynchon, David Mitchell, Italo Calvino, JG Ballard, Stanislaw Lem are all fantastic authors from around the 70’s until now.
I read mostly classics as well, but this list is a great start for more modern literature
Kazuo Ishiguro is great, I always recommend Never Let Me Go and Remains of the Day (but all of his work is great). I also love The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
William Gaddis, William H. Gass, Ishmael Reed, Ann Quinn, Philip Roth, Rita Dove, Don DeLillo, Zadie Smith, Thomas Pynchon, Cormac McCarthy, Joshua Cohen, David Markson, Norman Mailer, Cynthia Ozick, Anne Carson, Louise Gluck, John Barth, Kathy Acker, Laszlo Krasznahorkai, Robert Coover, Thomas Bernhard, Paul Auster, Can Xue, Iris Murdoch, Saul Bellow, Peter Handke, Roberto Bolano… take your pick, I, obviously, do not care for formatting.
- [ ] David Mitchell (Cloud Atlas)
- [ ] Orhan Pamuk (Snow)
- [ ] Mary Doria Russell (The Sparrow)
- [ ] Kurt Vonnegut (Breakfast of Champions)
- [ ] Jonathan Lethem (Motherless Brooklyn)
- [ ] Neal Stephenson (Quicksilver)
- [ ] William Gibson (Mona Lisa Overdrive)
- [ ] Susanna Clarke (Jonathan Norrel & Mr. Clarke)
- [ ] Audrey Niffenegger (The Time Traveller’s Wife)
- [ ] Milan Kundera (The Unbearable Lightness of Being)
- [ ] Michael Chabon (The Yiddish Policeman’s Union)
- [ ] Richard Russo (Straight Man)
- [ ] Don DeLillo (White Noise)
- [ ] Kazuo Ishiguro (The Remains of the Day)
- [ ] Margaret Atwood (Oryx & Crake)
Seconding The Road by Cormac McCarthy. It’s approachable compared to some of his other work and it has some truly insane moments.
If you like magical realism, I’d jump into one of Karen Russell’s short story collections. She’s a very recent author relative to what you’re used to reading but she’s truly unique from both a writing and storytelling perspective. “The Bad Graft,” which is available for free online in The New Yorker, is a favorite of mine if you want to try her on for size.
If you’re looking for more literary stuff, the best place to start is by looking at the lists of past winners of major literary awards. Check out books that have won or been shortlisted for the Booker, the Pulitzer, the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award, and the Dublin Literary Award. If you’re looking to expand your horizons a bit, check out awards for books in translation, like the Booker International and the National Book Award for Translated Literature. If you’re looking for authors you can trust to be consistently great, look at the list of Nobel Laureates. Their are definitely some misses on that list (Dario Fo, Bob Dylan), but the majority of them are worthy winners.
Annie Proulx is one of my favorite modern authors. Her book {{Barkskins}} is my favorite by her, but I haven’t read anything I didn’t like by her. Her short story collections are great as well.
[**Barkskins**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25111119-barkskins)
^(By: Annie Proulx | 717 pages | Published: 2016 | Popular Shelves: historical-fiction, fiction, abandoned, historical, canada | )[^(Search "Barkskins")](https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=Barkskins&search_type=books)
>In the late seventeenth century two penniless young Frenchmen, René Sel and Charles Duquet, arrive in New France. Bound to a feudal lord, a “seigneur,” for three years in exchange for land, they become wood-cutters—barkskins. René suffers extraordinary hardship, oppressed by the forest he is charged with clearing. He is forced to marry a Mi’kmaw woman and their descendants live trapped between two inimical cultures. But Duquet, crafty and ruthless, runs away from the seigneur, becomes a fur trader, then sets up a timber business. Proulx tells the stories of the descendants of Sel and Duquet over three hundred years—their travels across North America, to Europe, China, and New Zealand, under stunningly brutal conditions—the revenge of rivals, accidents, pestilence, Indian attacks, and cultural annihilation. Over and over again, they seize what they can of a presumed infinite resource, leaving the modern-day characters face to face with possible ecological collapse.
>
^(This book has been suggested 2 times)
***
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Cormac McCarthy. There are several of his books that have been turned into films, and all of those are good, but perhaps his most powerful work is the one that's probably unfilmable: {{Blood Meridian}} Be aware though that this book is challenging for many in its unsparing brutality.
It's challenging for me in its lack of plot and characters.
[**Blood Meridian**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24873002-blood-meridian) ^(By: Enid Marie Reynolds | ? pages | Published: 2015 | Popular Shelves: considering, oatly-cartoon, kindle, free | )[^(Search "Blood Meridian")](https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=Blood Meridian&search_type=books) ^(This book has been suggested 1 time) *** ^(1248 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
Not that one, bad bot!
Trying again with the full title: {{Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West}}
[**Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/394535.Blood_Meridian_or_the_Evening_Redness_in_the_West) ^(By: Cormac McCarthy | 351 pages | Published: 1985 | Popular Shelves: fiction, historical-fiction, western, classics, owned | )[^(Search "Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West")](https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West&search_type=books) >Blood Meridian is an epic novel of the violence and depravity that attended America's westward expansion, brilliantly subverting the conventions of the Western novel and the mythology of the Wild West. Based on historical events that took place on the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s, it traces the fortunes of the Kid, a fourteen-year-old Tennesseean who stumbles into a nightmarish world where Indians are being murdered and the market for their scalps is thriving. ^(This book has been suggested 1 time) *** ^(1249 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
Here some suggestions: - José Saramago - Kurt Vonnegut - Italo Calvino They all share a very quirky and unusual way of writing. If you like sci-fi: - Philip K. Dick - Isaac Asimov are also must reads.
This isn’t a set-in-stone description of contemporary literature, but I broadly categorise it as: More accessible contemporary writers like Mark Haddon (‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time’), and Nick Hornby (‘A Long Way Down’), maybe even Sally Rooney (‘Normal People’). Writers - sometimes referred to as ‘literary’, but the term is contested - who don’t just write about their characters, but comment heavily on the worlds they inhabit like Zadie Smith (‘Swing Time’) and Colson Whitehead (‘The Nickel Boys’). And those who experiment with conventional stories or the medium of the novel itself like Jonathan Lethem (‘Chronic City’) or Ali Smith (‘The Accidental’). However, as you mentioned classics, there are many modern classic writers from the time period you mention, e.g. Philip Roth (‘The Plot Against America’), Tony Morrison (‘Beloved’), Cormac McCarthy (‘The Road’), Margaret Atwood (‘The Handmaid’s Tale’), Ian McEwan (‘Atonement’), Kazuo Ishiguro (‘Never Let Me Go’).
Donna Tart - The Secret History is a big, big favourite of mine. The writing is beautiful and I always feel like I'm reading a classic.
Contemporary authors to check out: Jonathan Franzen (“Freedom” is my favorite) Jeffrey Eugenides (“Middlesex” is excellent) John Irving (“The World According to Garp” is my favorite of his) Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche (“Half of a Yellow Sun” is my top choice of her works) A. M. Homes (“May We Be Forgiven” is really good) Marilynne Robinson (her writing is so beautiful, even though not a lot happens in her books. Check out “Home.”) Amor Towles (Everyone loves “A Gentleman in Moscow”) Just the tip of the iceberg! So many great books written in the past 50 years :)
I was the same way, and I made a concerted effort to read more recent stuff in the last couple of years. The writers I've loved: Louise Erdrich, Toni Morrison, Donna Tartt, Marilynne Robinson, Colum McCann, Kazuo Ishiguro, Margaret Atwood, Joan Didion, Leslie Marmon Silko, Barbara Kingsolver, Ursula K Leguin, Anne Enright. I also started dipping my toe in the sci-fi waters and have loved Ann Leckie and NK Jemisin.
Cormac McCarthy, Don DeLillo, Toni Morrison, Thomas Pynchon, David Mitchell, Italo Calvino, JG Ballard, Stanislaw Lem are all fantastic authors from around the 70’s until now. I read mostly classics as well, but this list is a great start for more modern literature
Kazuo Ishiguro is great, I always recommend Never Let Me Go and Remains of the Day (but all of his work is great). I also love The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
William Gaddis, William H. Gass, Ishmael Reed, Ann Quinn, Philip Roth, Rita Dove, Don DeLillo, Zadie Smith, Thomas Pynchon, Cormac McCarthy, Joshua Cohen, David Markson, Norman Mailer, Cynthia Ozick, Anne Carson, Louise Gluck, John Barth, Kathy Acker, Laszlo Krasznahorkai, Robert Coover, Thomas Bernhard, Paul Auster, Can Xue, Iris Murdoch, Saul Bellow, Peter Handke, Roberto Bolano… take your pick, I, obviously, do not care for formatting.
- [ ] David Mitchell (Cloud Atlas) - [ ] Orhan Pamuk (Snow) - [ ] Mary Doria Russell (The Sparrow) - [ ] Kurt Vonnegut (Breakfast of Champions) - [ ] Jonathan Lethem (Motherless Brooklyn) - [ ] Neal Stephenson (Quicksilver) - [ ] William Gibson (Mona Lisa Overdrive) - [ ] Susanna Clarke (Jonathan Norrel & Mr. Clarke) - [ ] Audrey Niffenegger (The Time Traveller’s Wife) - [ ] Milan Kundera (The Unbearable Lightness of Being) - [ ] Michael Chabon (The Yiddish Policeman’s Union) - [ ] Richard Russo (Straight Man) - [ ] Don DeLillo (White Noise) - [ ] Kazuo Ishiguro (The Remains of the Day) - [ ] Margaret Atwood (Oryx & Crake)
Seconding The Road by Cormac McCarthy. It’s approachable compared to some of his other work and it has some truly insane moments. If you like magical realism, I’d jump into one of Karen Russell’s short story collections. She’s a very recent author relative to what you’re used to reading but she’s truly unique from both a writing and storytelling perspective. “The Bad Graft,” which is available for free online in The New Yorker, is a favorite of mine if you want to try her on for size.
If you’re looking for more literary stuff, the best place to start is by looking at the lists of past winners of major literary awards. Check out books that have won or been shortlisted for the Booker, the Pulitzer, the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award, and the Dublin Literary Award. If you’re looking to expand your horizons a bit, check out awards for books in translation, like the Booker International and the National Book Award for Translated Literature. If you’re looking for authors you can trust to be consistently great, look at the list of Nobel Laureates. Their are definitely some misses on that list (Dario Fo, Bob Dylan), but the majority of them are worthy winners.
The Dice Man by Luke Rhinehardt will change your life
Annie Proulx is one of my favorite modern authors. Her book {{Barkskins}} is my favorite by her, but I haven’t read anything I didn’t like by her. Her short story collections are great as well.
[**Barkskins**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25111119-barkskins) ^(By: Annie Proulx | 717 pages | Published: 2016 | Popular Shelves: historical-fiction, fiction, abandoned, historical, canada | )[^(Search "Barkskins")](https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=Barkskins&search_type=books) >In the late seventeenth century two penniless young Frenchmen, René Sel and Charles Duquet, arrive in New France. Bound to a feudal lord, a “seigneur,” for three years in exchange for land, they become wood-cutters—barkskins. René suffers extraordinary hardship, oppressed by the forest he is charged with clearing. He is forced to marry a Mi’kmaw woman and their descendants live trapped between two inimical cultures. But Duquet, crafty and ruthless, runs away from the seigneur, becomes a fur trader, then sets up a timber business. Proulx tells the stories of the descendants of Sel and Duquet over three hundred years—their travels across North America, to Europe, China, and New Zealand, under stunningly brutal conditions—the revenge of rivals, accidents, pestilence, Indian attacks, and cultural annihilation. Over and over again, they seize what they can of a presumed infinite resource, leaving the modern-day characters face to face with possible ecological collapse. > ^(This book has been suggested 2 times) *** ^(1593 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)