What Writers Read This Year

The Millions is running their fantastic annual feature called “The Year in Reading,” where authors recommend books they’ve read in 2011. So far the list of writers includes Jennifer Egan, Colum McCann, Benjamin Hale, Chad Harbach, and, most recently, Nathan Englander.

Englander, whose story “The Reader” is available in Electric Literature no. 6, chose a classic from Orwell that, sadly, still rings true nearly 80 years later. According to Englander, “everything Orwell says reads as deeply current and bitingly accurate — that is, ‘everything’ if you leave out all the parts about the Jews, the Arabs, the Irish, the Italians, the Russians, or, well, anyone who doesn’t look like what Orwell sees in the mirror every morning.”

Click here for more from The Millions.

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 — Benjamin Samuel is the Online Editor of Electric Literature. The best book he read this year was Breaking Bad.