The New Lifetime Reading Plan

Below we list, with brief comments, one hundred twentieth-century authors—primarily novelists, but also poets, playwrights, and writers of nonfiction—whose works we think will be of interest to readers of The New Lifetime Reading Plan. Like any such list, this one is subjective, idiosyncratic, and open to challenge. We expect that both critics and lay readers will quarrel with our selections. (Where is C. S. Lewis? Where is Lawrence Durrell? The list could be expanded indefinitely.) So be it: Readers should feel free to augment our suggestions as they wish.

The authors discussed below fali into at least three subgroups. First are acknowledged modern masters: Musil, Rilke, Greene, and others. Second are writers whom we believe are of the first rank but who so far have not had the widespread recognition they deserve; among these would be Pym, Lodge, and Davies. Third, and perhaps most controver- sially, are writers of the post-war period whose books—for many of them, only one key book—helped to define the literary and intellectual terrain of our time; among them are Kerouac, Salinger, and Irving. There is no way to know how many of these authors will still be read in fifty or one hundred years; "some, but not ali," is the best one can do. Meanwhile we regard them as "temporary classics," a deliberate oxy- moron intended to emphasize that these books have been important in our own time, if not forever.

The authors are listed below in alphabetical order; we have no rec- ommendations for the order in which they should be read. For most we mention only a book or two; some of these writers, though, have been very prolific, and readers who enjoy their work will want to explore it further.

J.S.M.

Richard Adams (1920- ) served with the British armed forces in World War II, took a degree at Oxford, and became a civil servant, writing children's books on the side. He won widespread notice with Watership Down (1972), written as a children's book but widely read by adults as well. It is a gripping and beautifully written alle- gorical tale of rabbits driven from their native warren and forced to find a new home elsewhere; it deserves its enduring popularity. Try also his The Girl in a Swing (1980), a beautiful and shocking love story written for a decidedly adult audience.

Kingsley Amis (1922-1995) is regarded as one of the foremost of the "Angry Young Men," iconoclastic British writers of the post- WWII period (he denied the affiliation). He cultivated a supercil- ious and curmudgeonly persona that resonates strongly in the gen­eral tenor of his books. Lucky Jim_y his best-known novel, portrays the unruly life of a loutish but engaging provincial professor; it is a savagely funny book.

Sherwood Anderson (1876-1941) was a prolific and influential writer of novйis and short stories, but he is deservedly best known for his first novel, Winesburg_y Ohio (1919). It is a loosely linked series of stories and sketches about the emotionally shrunken lives of the citizens of a small Ohio town, seen through the eyes of a bril- liantly realized narrator persona, a callow local newspaperman.