It is easy enough to identify the great writers of earlier centuries because time has proven their mettle. Even the most casual reader knows about the greats, from the Bronte sisters to Proust. The more difficult task is to identify their modern successors.

That was the premise behind my launch of a book club–A Novel Approach–and over time I have attracted 11 more like-souls. Ten of us are fellow MFA graduates from Queens of Charlotte, two are retired attorneys and inveterate readers. All of us share the odd habit of taking deep-dives into literature that calls to us.

As a personal example, there was the summer I decided I was long-past due in reading Homer’s epic poems, The Iliad and The Odyssey. Over the following three months I labored through the first of these classic Greek works–at home, at dinners out, on a beach trip with friends (who were not at all surprised at my idiosyncrasy). After the slog through The Iliad, I decided I had enough of the Trojan War and could care less about how Ulysses got home.

From our club’s standpoint, we are looking for novels by authors well on their way to eminence; novels that speak to us; that resonate long after we have read them; that are layered with meaning about the human condition; that well may inspire our next “deep dive.”

So how are we doing? We’re off to a good start, with really good literature from a surprisingly broad range of authors, styles, and topics.

• Percival Everett’s novel James, the retelling of the Huck Finn story from the standpoint of the slave Jim, earned him the Pulitzer and National Book Award.
• Irish author of note Sebastian Barry’s latest work, Old God’s Time. A good read although I still am most attached to his earlier work, On Canaan’s Side.
• Nobel Prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro’s best-known work, The Remains of the Day. With its subtle hint of pre-Nazi Germany, it was amazingly modern in theme.
• Booker winner, Orbital by Canadian Samantha Harvey was a quiet study of Mother Earth and the fragility of human life as reflected from a space ship far above.
• Hilary Mantel’s much awarded Wolf Hall was her most important work—a study of Thomas Cromwell, chief advisor to the volatile King Henry VIII.
• Known for her Pulitzer-winning Olive Kitteridge, we tackled Elizabeth Strout’s My Name is Lucy Barton, with its subtle layers of human struggle.
• Paul Harding’s Tinkers earned a Pulitzer for its lyrical treatment of 3 generations of New England men “lost in minor preoccupations,”

We started 2026 with Charlotte Wood’s gentle reverie Stone Yard Devotional (a Booker finalist in 2025 and a favorite of critics) .. . to be followed by a study of prolific writer, Richard Powers—not his Pulitzer-winning Overstory, but his complex Gold Bug Variations.

JONNIE MARTIN