Saturday, August 8, 2015

Four books that changed Jodi Picoult

Jodi Picoult's many books include the young-adult (YA) novel, Off The Page, which was co-written with her daughter, Samantha van Leer.

One of four books that changed Picoult, as shared at the Sydney Morning Herald:
THE GREAT GATSBY​
F. Scott Fitzgerald

Fitzgerald shows the concept of the unreliable narrator beautifully here and it intrigued me: what if the person telling you the story is lying to the reader? It's a technique I've employed a lot as a result, because it leaves the reader trying to piece together the narrative and separate it from the narrator's motives.
Read about the other books on the list.

The Great Gatsby appears among Joseph Connolly's top ten novels about style, Nick Lake’s ten favorite fictional tricksters and tellers of untruths in books, the Independent's list of the fifteen best opening lines in literature, Molly Schoemann-McCann's list of five of the lamest girlfriends in fiction, Honeysuckle Weeks's six best books, Elizabeth Wilhide's nine illustrious houses in fiction, Suzette Field's top ten literary party hosts, Robert McCrums's ten best closing lines in literature, Molly Driscoll's ten best literary lessons about love, Jim Lehrer's six favorite 20th century novels, John Mullan's lists of ten of the best clocks in literature and ten of the best misdirected messages, Tad Friend's seven best novels about WASPs, Kate Atkinson's top ten novels, Garrett Peck's best books about Prohibition, Robert McCrum's top ten books for Obama officials, Jackie Collins' six best books, and John Krasinski's six best books, and is on the American Book Review's list of the 100 best last lines from novels. Gatsby's Jordan Baker is Josh Sorokach's biggest fictional literary crush.

--Marshal Zeringue