Ciao, Sneakers! Welcome to Episode 377 of Sneaky Dragon – the show that is one better than Episode 376!
On this week’s show: they want your money; the video game for tax nerds; Ian’s Mary Poopins; guess the merch; home crafts; procrastinator; problem with the blues; blood types; Ian’s heritage; the spit’s in the mail; the Irish problem; Sneakers answer with their favourite candy bars; Ian’s Karl Lagerfeld joke; butter boy; mean pranks; the legendary john boy; a dollop of Trollope; question of the week and Ian and Dave’s answers; cut books; infections; magical thinking; Ian still doesn’t like Alita: Battle Angel and Dave has some thoughts; and, finally, Ian thinks watching Umbrella Academy inside brings bad luck.
Our question of the week is: What author would you recommend that most people don’t know and why?
Thanks for listening.
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A brother and sister unearth their recently deceased father’s grave as the book opens based on suspicion of something amiss. Boy howdy is it ever, courtesy of the local undertaker. The tale takes off from there rarely taking a breath through the end.
To say more would be to spoil a gripping read.
The book it “Twilight” by William Gay, published 2006.
No, though it unfortunately shares the title, it has no connection whatsoever to the crap books and movies of the same name about vampires for teenage girls.
Gay spins a gripping yarn eminently readable through mixing Southern Gothic, dread horror and your basic human condition.
Not to mention Gay’s beautiful writing. Often I found myself rereading sentence or paragraphs simply to admire their construction and turn of phrase.
Gone now sadly. He lived from 1941 to 2012. Didn’t publish his first book, “The Long Home”, until 1999.
He published three books during his life plus a couple of short story collections. All are worth the time.
Two books, so far, have been published posthumously. Can’t comment on those as I’ve yet to read them.
Start with “Twilight” then move on to the rest.
A true author in the way that we don’t much really have those anymore and an imaginative storyteller. Can’t hardly beat that.
Is “Twilight” and sentences. Should have proofread before hitting submit.
Huh! That’s a tough question for me. There are authors I used to follow, but at some point their books stopped working for me, and I lost interest. There are authors who wrote books I love, but I haven’t read enough of their catalog to endorse their writings as a whole. And there are authors that I like, but I have no idea how known they are to a mass audience.
So… Neal Stephenson, I guess. He’s well known in sci-fi circles, but I don’t think he ever crossed over to the general audience. In particular, I’m a big fan of his Baroque Cycle books, which deal with the emergence of science and finance in the late 1600s and early 1700s, as well as dealings with pirates, alchemists, the Inquisition, spies, and bureaucrats. He’s not for everyone: in particular, he wears his nerdiness on his sleeve (like all the Lord of the Rings analogies in Cryptonomicon, or his kinda creepy fascination with Japan), and he goes on endless digressions that don’t necessarily add to the story. But if you’re fine with that, he writes some great stuff.
(Also, he’s probably too popular, but I have to mention Terry Pratchett. At his peak, he was amazing. He even wrote a screwball comedy about financial crimes and the importance of public utilities, and it was arguably the best book he wrote.)
Here’s an author that may be fairly unknown : Giovanni Guareschi. He was a journalist, I understand, but I know him from the delightful “Don Camillo” series of fiction novels. My mother introduced me to him in the 1980’s, but the Don Camillo books were published in the 1950’s, The three paperbacks I have are early 1960 editions, back when they cost 25 cents! I must have picked these up at a garage sale or used book shop. I recommend checking them out. Wonderful stories… and can be found on Amazon and probably ebay, for sure. I think you, David, would particularly enjoy these, if you aren’t already familiar with them. 🙂
I’m traveling so I’m a week behind on the poddy, but I just wanted to give a shoutout to one of my favourite authors, Matthew Dicks. He’s written 4 novels (I have the latest but not read it yet) but his books all seem to star people who are flawed. Something Missing is about a kleptomaniac who only steals tiny things people won’t miss – a dropper of shampoo, a teaspoon of peanut butter, etc. Unexpectedly Milo stars a guy with OCD who goes on a trip to return a video camera but can’t stop buying jam jars to store in the boot of his car, and various other tics. Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend is about what it says on the cover (you may need tissues) and is about an imaginary friend being separated from his boy (who has aspergers) when the boy is suddenly kidnapped. And I haven’t read the fourth yet. (The Perfect Comeback of Caroline Jacobs. A painfully shy woman travels across the country with her rebellious teenage daughter to confront a childhood friend from 25 years ago.)
I just find his stories unique and I like that his heroes are what you might call clinically impaired.