As we prepare to wrap up our 2012 season of Just Desserts meetings and look forward to 2013, we are faced with that inevitable question -- what authors should we read and discuss as a group in the next year?Harlan Coben, our October 2012 selected author, is the 67th author we've tackled thus far. Our goal for the past 6+ years has been to not repeat an author if we could possibly help it. Here are the other criteria we've used when choosing past authors/titles:
- For the first several years of Just Desserts, we've alternated between "classic" authors and "contemporary" authors. We ended that practice after we ran out of "classic" authors for whom the library had sufficient copies to meet the group's needs.
- The libraries need to own at least 12 to 15 copies of whatever title we select, preferably in a variety of formats, including audio and/or downloadable.
- We've tried to avoid those authors that everybody already seems to be reading (such as Evanovich and Patterson), and focus on picking authors that may be new to a large percentage of the group's members.
- We've tried to alternate tone and writing style -- including a mix of cozies, police procedurals, amateur detectives, noirish P.I.s, forensic detectives, various time periods, etc.
- We've had some success with picking a few authors for whom we didn't select a specific title -- instead recommending that participants read whatever novel(s) they could for those authors (Louise Penny and Suzanne Arruda). We are certainly capable of trying this again! This makes for unusual discussions, as we try to discuss generalities rather than specifics of individual titles.
With all of these considerations in mind, what authors do you suggest that we consider for Just Desserts gatherings in 2013? Leave your suggestions as a comment to this blog post -- and feel free to elaborate on why you recommend particular authors in your comments!
Scott C. / Just Desserts coordinator
Here's a link to the Just Desserts archives, so you can see an entire list of all the authors we've used in the past.
The following list of suggested authors was sent in by e-mail by group member Vera:
I have some suggestions for reading. First choice is Peter Robinson, English author, who writes a series about Inspector Banks In a Yorkshire setting. He is an excellent writer; the series contains 20 books; York is a change of setting rather than often being in London. I have read only two of his books, but intend to read more. The problem is the number of copies available. Perhaps we could try a modified version of when we read Louise Penney.
Second choice is Donna Leon with her Inspector Brunnetti series set in Venice. They are elegantly written about a calmer culture than ours. Same problem with copies, but she too has written about 20 novels in the series and we could apply the same solution as for Robinson.
Perhaps Jo Nesbo would be a possibility. I didn’t check on availability of copies but since he is a “current rage” there might be enough.
Linda Fairstein is another suggestion. I like her New York settings.
A humorous read would be the Anne Purser series with the cleaning lady who solves mysteries Agatha-style.
One more suggestion. It is not labeled a mystery but it is: Jodi Picoult’s “The Tenth Circle”. The library did have a lot of copies but may not now.