I have been asked to give a talk in our local Library on World Book Day at the end of April – entitled “10 books you must read”. Now that I have said yes (yikes), I need to start working on the list. There is one book that is my all time number one – “Stoner” by John Williams. It might be a great book but it has the one of the worst titles ever. If you have any ideas or suggestions of books you would put on a “10 books you must read” list, please leave a comment below. This is what Morris Dickstein said of “Stoner” in the New York Times book review in 2007. “John Williams’s “Stoner” is something rarer than a great novel — it is a perfect novel, so well told and beautifully written, so deeply moving, that it takes your breath away.” High praise indeed.

One book down and nine to go!

I liked “Stoner” so much that I gave my copy to a ‘friend’ – needless to say I never got it back – you know who you are, so can I have it back now? I didn’t have the edition shown here but I’m not surprised that John McGahern wrote the introduction. I think it’s a book he probably would have loved to have written.

This is the only photograph I could find of John Williams (below right) it was taken while he was teaching in the University of Denver. I wasn’t able to confirm who the photographer was.

Buy it here http://www.amazon.com/Stoner-York-Review-Books-Classics/dp/1590171993