What the critics are saying

"..It's like tranferring to a strange school and finding the one kid who's obsessed with all the same stuff you are."
-- David Kipen, Book Editor
San Francisco Chronicle

"...Not only do the fine young critics in the Salon.com Reader's Guide filet their subjects with finesse and wit, but this erudite and bitchy collection of profiles, reviews, bibliographies and writers' reading lists also makes for compulsive reading."
-- Vanity Fair

"Salon Guide: Dish with a side of sass
There are many guides to literature. What sets the Salon guide apart is its tone. While some of the entries are adoring (see J.R.R. Tolkien, Graham Swift), others are blistering (see Alice Walker)."
-- USA Today

"Overwhelmed...? This mini-encyclopedia may be just the inspiration you need."
-- Washington Post Book World

"Many guides to authors and literature tend to be dry; the biographies of even the most lively writers are often delivered stiffly. 'The Salon.com Reader's Guide to Contemporary Authors' is a refreshing departure; its essayists aren't afraid to display irreverence or zeal, and the book's essays and reviews are filled with insight and original observations. Especially useful are recommendations in each entry of work by other, similar authors."
Carolyn Alessio
-- Chicago Tribune

"The profiles are brief and well written, packed with career details and judgments about individual books. They conclude by directing readers to related authors. Ann Beattie is 'the first writer for whom divorce and remarriage were a given, deployed without explanation.' Minnesota's Louise Erdrich is hailed for her 'original imagery and flawless dialogue.' David Bowman, a novelist from Racine, Wis., is said to write 'brazenly, without shame -- the way a toddler runs in circles though the sprinkler, gleefully naked and free -- about subjects that lesser, more timid writers wouldn't even broach on the analyst's couch.' Then, in an adjoining segment, Bowman offers his picks for five contemporary noir classics and introduces them this way: 'You know what noir is. I do too. Noir is a gun and a bottle and a girl racing out of the city at midnight in a stolen sports car driven by a gambler wincing from a bullet hole in his left side, the wound bandaged by a money belt full of guilt, sex and bad karma.' Other features like that abound: Calvin Trillin names five books that made him laugh; Ian McEwan picks five novels about the world of work; Joyce Carol Oates names five favorite documentary-style novels."
-- Minneapolis Star Tribune

"... a juicy (and meaty) review of 225 contemporary fiction writers called The Salon.com Reader's Guide to Contemporary Authors. Claiming that most reviews are 'anemic' at best, Miller and her coterie of reviewers examine the writers and their works, blemished and all. Salon.com's praise is hearty (on Michael Chabon's 'The Mysteries of Pittsburgh,' 'an impossibly young writer published an impossibly elegant novel') and their criticism is a bit daunting ('John Grisham writes beach novels, and not just because it's easier to squint past his clunky prose and cartoon characters if you're wearing sunglasses...'), but their no-holds-barred approach offers the reader a rare clarity. Especially helpful are the sections on recommended reading, many writers' lists of favorites (like 'Books That Made Me Laugh' by Calvin Trillin) and critical essays (like 'Every Novel is a Lesbian Novel' by Dorothy Allison). A laugh-out-loud read of merit, Miller and Begley's book is one no fiction lover should be without."
-- Publishers Weekly

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