As usual, the gang at Syntax of Things has done an exceptional job with their 2006 Underrated Writers Project. Go by and see what dozens of your favorite bloggers (including us - we hope) have to say.
To that end, just as we did last year, we've polled over 20 of "you" who fill your time by hanging out in those dusty corners. We asked those readers to name writers they feel aren't getting the attention they deserve, those writers they feel are "underrated"—however they choose to define it.
The results, as with last year, are delightful, in the most literal sense of the word. We have writers from almost every continent, poets from the past, essayists who are concerned for the future, and novelists desperate to understand the now. Only two writers were nominated only twice, which tells us we asked the right group of people to give us as broad a list as possible. Thanks to those contributors you'll find listed down along the left-hand side. Please visit their little corners of the web and thank them yourself.
I'll take a deeper look at the lost later, but sadly I see it's YET ANOTHER no mention for Simon Ings. _The Weight of Numbers_ was by far the best novel I read in 2006 and it didn't make one mention in anyone's 'best of' list. I thought Lionel Shriver would nail it, as she had early praise for it, but didn't.
it's not out in the US until Spring, so hopefully it will hit some people’s radar then.
Ings initially wrote science fiction but 'Weight' is a stellar, non-SF book. Read it.
Posted by: Jay | December 20, 2006 at 06:50 AM
A kind of funny list. There are some starkly good selections, such as Edward Falco, Laird Hunt and then some just plain silly selections: Tao Lin, Elizabeth Ellen, Benjamin Fuckin' Kunkel (?) Fine writers as they are, these writers are so new that the cellophane is still clinging to their teeth. The genre of unappreciated writers I think must include years, nay, decades of neglect after publication. I'm thinking of the likes of Zora Neale Hurston, John Okada, James Pudy, William Faulkner prior to the Portable Willam Faulkner -- Benjamin Fuckin' Kunkel? Juezz.
Posted by: Josh Kendell | December 20, 2006 at 11:24 AM
Ian Banks is under-represented in the US? I had no idea; I learn something new about market preferences every day. Here in Canada you can't throw a stone without hitting a dozen volumes. His books occupy whole shelving units in our big box stores, like some kind of British John Grisham.
Posted by: August | December 20, 2006 at 12:45 PM
August: I have a number of Iain Banks volumes in my stacks. Most of them were given to me or came to me used. And at least in San Francisco, the man simply ain't getting bookstore representation.
Posted by: ed | December 20, 2006 at 04:57 PM
What Josh said. Some of those names included on the list (the ones with cellophane still clinging to their teeth) seems to demonstrate that the blogosphere is every bit as prone to buddy-buddy logrolling as our traditional media friends. Tao Lin? Seriously. This guy is going to reveal himself as an Ann Coulter-style postmodern exaggeration of a "writer" any day now.
Posted by: may barber | December 21, 2006 at 04:42 AM