Context N°13
We asked our academic and bookstore advisors across the country to respond to a number of questions. The following lists were compiled from their responses.
BEST LITERARY REVIEW SOURCES
Our advisors were asked to name the literary review sources in which they have the most confidence, based on dependability, editorial aptitude, and consistency in point-of-view. With the exception of CONTEXT and the Review of Contemporary Fiction, which have been omitted due to a conflict of interest, the results are ranked according to the number of votes they received.
Times Literary Supplement
Bookforum
London Review of Books
Village Voice Literary Supplement
Library Journal
Harper’s Magazine
Washington Post Book World
World Literature Today
Complete Review
Bookworm
Los Angeles Times
Booklist
New York Review of Books
New York Times Book Review
Electronic Book Review (www.electronicbookreview.com)
New Yorker
Boston Book Review
NPR
Baffler
San Francisco Chronicle
Bloomsbury Review
Iowa Review
Barcelona Review
San Diego Union-Tribune
Southword
Dublin Review
Bust
Scissorkick (www.scissorkick.com)
Quill & Quire
New Republic
Bitch
Rain Taxi
Publishers Weekly
Review: Latin American Literature and Arts
Cork Literary Review
Criticás
Threepenny Review
Estonian Literary Magazine
Bouillon de Culture
American Book Review
Ruminator Review
Salon (www.salon.com)
Women’s Review of Books
Chromos, Felipe Alfau
Locos, Felipe Alfau
Another Country, James Baldwin
Giovanni’s Room, James Baldwin
Silk, Allessandro Baricco
Revenge of the Lawn/The Abortion/So the Wind Won’t Blow It All Away: 3 Books in 1 Volume, Richard Brautigan
The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins
62: A Model Kit, Julio Cortázar
The Gift of Stones, Jim Crace
Days between Stations, Steve Erickson
A Man’s Place, Annie Ernaux
Simple Passion, Annie Ernaux
A Woman’s Story, Annie Ernaux
Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me, Richard Fariña
Under the Frog, Tibor Fischer
Kalimantaan, C. S. Godshalk
Dream Boy, Jim Grimsley
Winter Birds, Jim Grimsley
Let’s Fall in Love, Carol De Chellis Hill
Corregidora, Gayl Jones
Blood Lake and Other Stories, Jim Krusoe
Okla Hannali, R.A. Lafferty
The Age of Wire and String, Ben Marcus
The Conversions, Harry Mathews
Canone Inverso, Paolo Maurensig
Diana of the Crossways, George Meredith
The Last Life, Claire Messud
Lost in Translation, Nicole Mones
The Octopus: A Story of California, Frank Norris
A Prayer for the Dying, Stewart O’Nan
The Journal of Albion Moonlight, Kenneth Patchen
Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
Titus Alone, Mervyn Peake
Titus Groan, Mervyn Peake
Aliens of Affection, Padget Powell
Edisto Revisited, Padget Powell
Typical, Padget Powell
The Radetzsky March, Joseph Roth
Perfume, Patrick Suskind
The Insult, Rupert Thompson
Kristin Lavransdatter, Sigrid Undset
The Temple of My Familiar, Alice Walker
A Hard Time To Be a Father, Fay Weldon
The Passion, Jeanette Winterson
Terraplane, Jack Womack
All Patrick Chamoiseau
All William H. Gass
All Jean Giono
All Milan Kundera
All Cormac McCarthy that is not the Border Trilogy (esp. Suttree)
All Iris Murdoch
All Anna Maria Ortese
All Richard Powers
All Christina Stead
All Robert Stone except Damascus Gate
All Alexander Theroux
All Robert Walser
Great Expectations, Kathy Acker
LETTERS, John Barth
Labyrinths, Jorge Luis Borges
The Death of Virgil, Hermann Broch
The Anatomy of Melancholy, Robert Burton
Three Trapped Tigers, G. Cabrara Infante
Auto-Da-Fé, Elias Canetti
The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., Robert Coover
62: A Model Kit, Julio Cortázar
Palinuro of Mexico, Fernando del Paso
Bleak House, Charles Dickens
The Leopard, Giuseppe di Lampedusa
The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Foucault’s Pendulum, Umberto Eco
Middlemarch, George Eliot
E. Luminata, Diamela Eltit
A Fan’s Notes, Frederick Exley
Absalom, Absalom!, William Faulkner
Go Down, Moses, William Faulkner
The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner
Tom Jones, Henry Fielding
The Flower Beneath the Foot, Ronald Firbank
Terra Nostra, Carlos Fuentes
JR, William Gaddis
The Recognitions, William Gaddis
The Tunnel, William H. Gass
Makbara, Juan Goytisolo
The Tin Drum, Günter Grass
The Blind Owl, Sadegh Hedayat
A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving
The Wings of the Dove, Henry James
Finnegans Wake, James Joyce
Ulysses, James Joyce
Raintree County, Ross Lockridge, Jr
The Same Embrace, Michael Lowenthal
Under the Volcano, Malcolm Lowry
Ancient Evenings, Norman Mailer
Take Five, D. Keith Mano
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers
Moby-Dick, Herman Melville
Ada, or Ardor, Vladimir Nabokov
At Swim-Two-Birds, Flann O’Brien
The Journal of Albion Moonlight, Kenneth Patchen
The Book of Disquiet, Fernando Pessoa
A Dance to the Music of Time, Anthony Powell
A Glastonbury Romance, John Cowper Powys
The Crying of Lot 49, Thomas Pynchon
Gravity’s Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon
V., Thomas Pynchon
Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
The Great Fire of London, Jacques Roubaud
The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie
A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
Mulligan Stew, Gilbert Sorrentino
The Making of Americans, Gertrude Stein
The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
Tristram Shandy, Laurence Sterne
Darconville’s Cat, Alexander Theroux
War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
The Lizard’s Tail, Luisa Valenzuela
Conversation in the Cathedral, Mario Vargas Llosa
Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace
The Custom of the Country, Edith Wharton
Voss, Patrick White
Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
The Waves, Virginia Woolf
