Rating: 
Summary: Nice reference and great caricatures
Review: I have really found this book to be exceptionally well written and honest - it does not try to hide the fact that authors such as Grisham and King are more or less commercial writers and not truly what we would or should consider contemporary authors.After finishing, or in the middle of a novel, I usually read the authors bio in this reference guide. I also really enjoy at the end of each bio there is a section that mentions what authors are similar and/or describe what other authors were influenced based of his/her work. By the book if you are interested in reading.
Rating: 
Summary: Salon.com Reader's Guide To Contemporary Authors
Review: In true Salon.com form, this book offers readers wonderful insight into contemporary literature. A great resource, a wonderful guide for any book lover! The folks at Salon continue to amaze me with their irreverant, wonderfully fresh writing. I challange anyone to find a better content site. More importantly, Salon writers, lead by Ms. Miller, translate beautifully from web to print, as seen in The Salon.com Reader's Guide to Contemporary Authors.
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Summary: Is Richard Ford really a Massachusetts boy?
Review: It is troubling to buy a book like this, look up the author Richard Ford, and find that he was supposedly born in Jackson, Massachusetts. How good is the rest of the information in the book?
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Summary: It's fun, and it takes Tolkien seriously
Review: It's as almost as fun to read this nitpicking reviews as it has been to read this book.-Of course some of your favorite authors will be left out!-Some of mine were. Get over it.-This book definitely comes down on the playful (with a rapier wit) side than on the ominous tome side.-But here's what you do if you want a serious, comprehensive guide to every serious (or even not so serious) writer in the past half century: Go to the reference desk at your local library and ask the bespectacled fellow there to direct you to the TCLC (Twentieth Century Literary Criticism). There, you will find, in somewhere around a hundred volumes, anything you want to know that's been said about your favorite author(s).-Didn't you guys learn all this in high school?.....Anyway, so the first reason to recommend this book is that it's fun and full of dash and likes to skewer where skewering is due...The SECOND REASON to buy this book is that, to my everlasting delight and surprise, it takes Tolkien seriously! It's wonderful to finally see one of the finest English stylists of the past half century as well as a cultural force beyond calculation taken seriously in a collection of modern reviews.. As Gary Kamiya proclaims, "The philologist Tolkien (that dusty discipline's greatest gift to literature since Nietzsche) employs a superbly flexible style, moving from the vernacular to majestic King James cadences without ever sounding inflated or quaint." And Michael Korda's, "I cry every time I read the end. What more can you ask from fiction?" reaches a paragon of personal, heartfelt non-academic reviewing unmatched anywhere!-Ahem, you won't find anything like it in the TCLC.-Hmmmm, looking back over what I've just written, my review seems just as idiosyncratic as this book!....Good!
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Summary: Be Prepared to be Astonished
Review: Laura Miller is one of the most witty and exciting writer's around (see Miller's weekly column(s) in the NY Times and Salon.com), with a gift for the written word that will leave you in awe. Here Miller edits and indeed contributes, along with an impressive array of critics and reviewers, to this reader's guide. This opinionated book will "inform, captivate, delight, and stir debate". Most of all it is fascinating and will leave you browsing for hours on end, and will encourage heated discussion among your friends. Writer's like Salman Rushdie, Raymond Carver, Carl Hiaasen, Kazuo Ishiguro, John Irving, PD James, Ian McEwan, Alice Munro, Michael Ondaatje, Barbara Kingsolver, Stephen King, Margaret Atwood, Anne Tyler, Peter Carey, Jonathan Franzen, Bret Easton Ellis, Don DeLillo, Toni Morrison, Philip Roth, Michael Chabon, JM Coetzee, Ken Kesey, Charles Bukowski, Saul Bellow, Pat Barker, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Amy Tan among many others are all in here. The joy of this book is that an essay is given about the author and his or her works and in addition, there is also a recommended reading list if you want to pursue any other work, as well as essays on literary topics that can be provocative but fun nonetheless. I recommend this if you aren't sure what to read next, or have an interest in all things literary. It's a big book of about 450 pages and it's well worth the price. Be prepared to be astonished at the elegance of the writing here.
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Summary: Now, if they would just get a copyeditor...
Review: Like any "guide" this expansive, there are plenty of omissions and controversial assessments; that's the point. You are allowed to agree or disagree or argue with the choices. But what's shocking are the number of typos contained in this supposed reference book. There seems to be at least one error per page, from A.M. Homes' age (they've added ten years) to Brett Easton Ellis with two t's to retitling the new Denis Johnson book "The Name of the Word." (It's actually The Name of the World.") I don't blame the editors; the fault lies with the publisher and their staff I would guess. Otherwise, this is a lot of fun.
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Summary: Teriffic way to discover your next favorite book
Review: Like most inveterate readers (especially readers trained as librarians), I collect lists of books and authors and I'm a fanatical reader of book reviews. For that reason, I collect recommendary volumes intended for reading groups and book clubs. The Salon web site (Miller was one of its founders) is opinionated and juicy, always worth browsing, and this fat volume maintains that course. Coverage is limited, more or less, to post-1960 authors writing in English, mostly "literary," but also including including writers like John Grisham, Stephen King, and Amy Tan. All their works are listed, the more important ones are discussed in some depth (by more than eighty reviewers), and there's a useful "See also" list at the end of each essay. And there are a number of sidebar book lists by the writers themselves. And an excellent introductory essay by Miller on the recent course of English-language literature. My copy is already filled with marginal notes and checkmarks.
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Summary: Fun and Opinionated
Review: One of the most enjoyable reference works I know of. Some of its opinions are quite strongly stated -- "Without Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal, American literature in the second half of the twentieth century would not exist; without everyone else in this book it would" -- but, for me, this was a plus. And unlike at least one other reviewer, I didn't find the book "politically correct" or anti-straightwhitemale. (Although its longest -- and probably worst -- piece is titled "Every Novel Is a Lesbian Novel.")
Rating:
Summary: Fun and Opinionated
Review: One of the most enjoyable reference works I know of. Some of its opinions are quite strongly stated -- "Without Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal, American literature in the second half of the twentieth century would not exist; without everyone else in this book it would" -- but, for me, this was a plus. And unlike at least one other reviewer, I didn't find the book "politically correct" or anti-straightwhitemale. (Although its longest -- and probably worst -- piece is titled "Every Novel Is a Lesbian Novel.")
Rating:
Summary: Fun and Opinionated
Review: One of the most enjoyable reference works I know of. Some of its opinions are quite strongly stated -- "Without Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal, American literature in the second half of the twentieth century would not exist; without everyone else in this book it would" -- but, for me, this was a plus. And unlike at least one other reviewer, I didn't find the book "politically correct" or anti-straightwhitemale. (Although its longest -- and probably worst -- piece is titled "Every Novel Is a Lesbian Novel.")
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