Description

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Writers’ festivals, TV book shows, radio interviews, book clubs, TED talks— today’s novelists are a travelling roadshow. Meanwhile their books are thrown to the wolves—aka reviewers—to be savaged, praised to the skies, or just ignored. In the midst of all this, how can the bewildered book-lover decide what to read? Is Toni Morrison America’s best novelist? Perhaps it’s Donna Tartt? Is Don DeLillo really a modern Tolstoy, Jonathan Franzen too self-conscious, and Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life worth the hype? And what of the street tales of Junot Díaz? With British fiction, should you dive into the works of Ian McEwan? Hilary Mantel? Kazuo Ishiguro? And what is it about Martin Amis? And then there are all those Irish writers—Edna O’Brien, John Banville, Sebastian Barry, Colm Tóibín, Colum McCann… What about new books in translation, from Italy’s Elena Ferrante to Libya’s Hisham Matar, Morocco’s Tahar Ben Jelloun, Iran’s Azar Nafisi and Israel’s Edna Mazya—not to mention the classic works of Gabriel García Márquez and Mario Vargas Llosa? Then there are New Zealand and Australia. Are Eleanor Catton’s The Luminaries and Tim Winton’s Cloudstreet as good as their prizes suggest? Is Maurice Gee’s fame deserved? What about Peter Carey? And which New Zealand novelist should, in Flynn’s view, be much more famous? Jim Flynn tackles the questions head-on in this racy no-holds-barred book, the sequel to his bestseller The Torchlight List. Readers will be shocked, surprised and sometimes enraged by Flynn’s audacious opinions. Above all you will be inspired to try new authors, and read new work by authors you have loved in the past.

About the Author

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Jim Flynn was emeritus professor at Otago University, an internationally acclaimed expert on IQ, and a favourite guest on media shows and at writers' festivals. Jim's first book in this series, The Torchlight List, is an Awa Press all-time top seller and has been published in the US by Skyhorse Publishing. His TED talk "Why our IQ levels are higher than our grandparents'" has been viewed more than 4.5 million times. Jim Flynn died in December 2020 at the age of 86.

Praise For…

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"Those wanting some starting texts will be informed, and avid readers will enjoy agreeing or disagreeing with his selections . . . a great read, and conversation starter." —Helen Speirs, Otago Daily Times