Bookmarked

The Modern Library ranked the book number eleven on its list of the one hundred Best English-language novels of the twentieth century. In his Bookmarked entry, critically celebrated author David Ryan shows how this modernist masterpiece has affected his life and creative work.

F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby is widely considered to be the greatest American novel ever written, its exploration of decadence, idealism, social upheaval, and excess having been described as a cautionary tale regarding the American Dream. In this entry in Ig's acclaimed Bookmarked series, author Jaime Clarke examines how this seminal novel influenced his writing and life.

"At fifty-nine, I am now the age Virginia Woolf was when she took that final, heavy-pocketed walk into The River Ouse. I am the age at which she killed herself, and I am not going to kill myself, but I was by no means always sure of that." Considered Virginia Woolf's greatest novel, Mrs. Dalloway tells the story of a single day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, a high society woman in post-World War I England. As she is preoccupied with the last-minute details of dinner party, Clarissa is flooded with remembrances of the past, in the process reexamining the choices she has made, as well as looking toward old age. Written in a stream of consciousness style, Mrs. Dalloway is one of the most important novels in literature. In this deeply personal volume, Robin Black writes about Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, a book she returned to again and again when she began writing at nearly forty and found herself gaining a sense of emotional stability for the first time in her life. For two decades, Mrs. Dalloway has been Black's partner in a crucial, ongoing conversation about writing and about the emotional life. Now, Black takes a deep dive into both the craft of the book, what a writer might learn from its mechanics, and also into the humanity to be found on every page.

Set in a small, dusty Texas town, The Last Picture Show is one of Larry McMurtry's most memorable novels, and the basis for the enormously popular movie of the same name. In this volume in Ig's acclaimed Bookmarked series, award-winning author Steve Yarbrough shares with us the importance of this seminal novel on his life and work. Steve Yarbrough is the author of nine novels, including The Realm of Last Chances (2013) and Safe from the Neighbors (2010), both published by Knopf. His 2006 novel, The End of California, (Knopf) was a finalist for the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award for fiction. His 2004 novel, Prisoners of War, was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, and his 1999 novel, The Oxygen Man, won the California Book Award, the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award for Fiction, and the Mississippi Authors Award. His work has appeared in Best American Short Stories, Best American Mystery Stories, and the Pushcart Prize Anthology. In 2010, he won the Richard Wright Award.

A masterly evocation of life in a provincial English community, Middlemarch is considered perhaps the greatest novel of the Victorian era, praised by writers from Emily Dickinson to Virginia Woolf. In the latest volume in Ig's acclaimed Bookmarked series, critically lauded author Pamela Erens talks about how Middlemarch "rescued" her, first as a distressed college student, and then during the tragic events of the global pandemic.

A haunting meditation on love, loss, companionship, and finding one's way through the dark, Raymond Carver's What We Talk About When We Talk About Love is one of the most important and influential short story collections in contemporary literature. In his entry in the esteemed Bookmarked series, acclaimed author Brian Evenson offers his personal and literary take on this classic Carver collection. Brian Evenson is the author of several books of fiction, most recently the story collection A Collapse of Horses (Coffee House Press, 2016) and the novella The Warren (Tor.com, 2016). His 2012 books Windeye and Immobility were both finalists for a Shirley Jackson Award. His novel Last Days won the American Library Association's award for Best Horror Novel of 2009. His novel The Open Curtain was a finalist for an Edgar Award and an International Horror Guild Award. He lives in Los Angeles and teaches in the Critical Studies Program at CalArts.

Slaughterhouse-Five is a seminal novel of contemporary literature, a rumination on war, space, time and the meaning of life and death. In Kurt Vonnegut's existential classic, we meet Billy Pilgrim, a man who has become unmoored in time after being abducted by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore. In a non-linear universe where time has no meaning, we revisit key moments in Pilgrim's life, in particular his harrowing experience as an American prisoner of war during the firebombing of Dresden in World War II. In this first title in the Bookmarked series, author Curtis Smith examines the influence of Slaughterhouse-Five on his life, writing and relationship with his young son. Of the book, Smith writes, "The best books are invitations. They are time machines. They challenge us to think, to reconsider. Behold Vonnegut's time machine, a narrative of a hundred different frames, a splintered perspective that lifts his whirligig contraption from the ground. He fuels his machine with man's weightiest elements--time, war, death--and then mixes an infusion of lightness, the spark of wit and irony. His machine rattles, taking flight with a shambling grace." The Bookmarked series focuses on a famous work of literature that left a powerful impression on an author (hence the name, Bookmarked--a book that left its mark). Each book in the series is a no-holds barred personal narrative detailing how a particular novel influenced an author on their journey to becoming a writer, as well as the myriad directions in which that journey has taken them.

What is it about Elena Ferrante's writing, especially her masterwork “Neapolitan Novels”, that resonates so deeply with millions of readers, making this Italian author who writes under a pseudonym with absolutely no "platform" an international sensation? Brilliantly addressing issues such as class struggle, female friendship, women's autonomy, and literary creation itself, Ferrante's hyperrealist, intense storytelling is a saga of a highly specific place and history, yet somehow also transcends them, resonating on profoundly personal levels with readers of every background. Gina Frangello grew up in poverty in inner-city Chicago two decades after Ferrante's most famous characters, Lenu and Lila grew up in Naples. Despite these geographic and cultural differences, Frangello felt that Ferrante was "writing about my youth, my life, my relationships, my struggles." In the latest volume in the Bookmarked series, Gina Frangello contemplates Ferrante's Neapolitan novels through the lens of memoir, literary criticism, and issues of authorial identity and gender. Should who Ferrante "is" matter? And more importantly, what is it about Lenu and Lila's story that taps into such universal truths that makes readers feel that Ferrante is writing specifically to them?

A collection of four novellas, Different Seasons includes some of Stephen King's most enduring and well-known works, including "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption," which was made into the film The Shawshank Redemption, and "The Body," which was made into the movie Stand by Me. For this entry in the Bookmarked series, Aaron Burch, editor of the literary journal Hobart, will focus on the influence of "The Body" on his life and work.

The Bookmarked series focuses on a famous work of literature that left a powerful impression on an author (hence the name, Bookmarked-a book that left its mark). Each entry in the series will be a no-holds-barred personal narrative detailing how a particular novel influenced an author on their journey to becoming a writer, as well as the myriad directions where that journey has taken them. In the first book in the series, critically acclaimed author and series editor Kirby Gann takes on John Knowles' classic about the tragic friendship between two boys at a boarding school.

George Saunders' Pastoralia is an exaggerated dystopia of late capitalist America, merging the spirit of James Thurber with the world of the Simpsons. In his entry in Ig's acclaimed Bookmarked series, award-winning author Charles Holdefer addresses how Saunders captures the pain and absurdity of the American service sector, and does justice to the dignity of the people who struggle there. Charles Holdefer has published four novels with the Permanent Press. His short fiction has appeared in many magazines, including the New England Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, North American Review, Los Angeles Review, Slice, and Yellow Silk. His story The Raptor won a Pushcart Prize in 2016. Holdefer grew up in Iowa and is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and the Sorbonne. He currently teaches at the University of Poitiers, France.