Em W. shares her New 20 list:

1)Castle Freeman, Jr., “Go with Me” — a slim, really lovely suspense novel about an independent, fearless young woman who stands up to the local blackheart with the help of a crew of Vermont country boys who hark back to Steinbeck’s “Cannery Row.”
2)Chuck Hogan, “Prince of Thieves” — boyhood pals grow up to become a gang of pro bank robbers in Boston in this terrific crime novel, Hogan writes like he was to the manner born.
3)Brian Hodge, “Wild Horses” — Vegas & parts west, funny, fast, well done fugitives-on-the-run novel.
4)Elizabeth George, “Write Away” — one of the literary masters of detective novels on her craft.
5)June Casagrande, “Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies” — didn’t you want clarity on when it’s “lie” and when it’s “lay,”  with fun and snide remarks about grammar pedagogues thrown in?
6)Betsy Carter, “Swim to Me” — young woman joins Weeki Watchi, FL underwater mermaid synchronized swim show.
7)WH Hudson, “Green Mansions” — because it’s about Rima, the bird-girl.
8)Antonya Nelson, “Nobody’s Girl” — wry, intelligent, beautifully written novel about a young teacher’s affair with a senior student in one of her classes, funny and so smart, not at all smarmy.
9)Denise Mina, “Slip of the Knife,” — okay, she’s not new to me, but she IS the best Irish female crime writer I’ve discovered.
10)Helen Humphreys, “Afterimage” — novel by a lauded Canadian about Victorian maid pursues photography.
11)Rory Stewart, “The Places in Between” — young British journalist walks across Afghanistan.  During the war. And lives to tell the tale.
12)Michelle Richmond, “The Year of Fog” — really scarey, haunting novel about a young woman who’s fiance’s 6-year old daughter is kidnapped from her care at Ocean Beach.
13)Daniel Woodrell, “Give Us a Kiss” — country tough, hillbilly wily southern gothic crime noir, a writer whose prose will sometimes stand right up on the page and dance.
14)Inger Ash Wolfe, “The Calling” — mystery/thriller
15)Jane Gardam, “The People on Privilege Hill” — short stories by a writer whom I consider the finest living female literary novelist in Great Britain, sardonic, sharp and just wonderful, cause I’ve read all her novels.  Like the inimitable “Bilgewater,” or “God on the Rocks.”
16)Pun Plamondon, “Lost from the Ottawa” — memoir by former White Panther and one-time resident on the FBI 10 most wanted list.  Michigan boy!
17)William Sutcliffe, “Whatever Makes You Happy” — three British women decide to move into their three 30ish son’s flats/homes to fix up their lives.  Every boy’s nightmare, every mother’s dream.
18)Galway Kinnel, “The Essential Whitman” — because I really can’t get myself to read Hemingway, and because of “the beautiful uncut hair of graves..” or “Is this then a touch? quivering me to a new identity…” and so forth.
19)Loren Estleman, “Frames” — this is a new detective series set in L.A. by one of America’s champion, most under-appreciated pulp noir detective crime writers, more of a wordsmith than Elmore Leonard, more of a poet than Dennis Lehane.
20)Charles Bukowski, any novel — cause Charlie H. recommends him.     

What I love about this list is that other than Mr. Bukowski I havent read a single one of these authors.  I have some research to do.

Thanks, Em.