Favorite Author: Jim Harrison

 

There was a time in my late 20s when I gobbled up Jim Harrison's novels like his characters go through brook trout and whiskey. The Road Home is in my permanent Top 10 Favorite Novels list and Harrison will always be high on my list of favorite authors -- probably at the top of a list of Favorite Under-appreciated Authors if I ever made one.

A few of his later books, such as True North and Returning to Earth, didn't "rattle my brainpan" (to use a Harrison expression) like the earlier books did. They were repetitive and a little tired. Still, I enjoyed them the way I enjoy music from a favorite band even if some of the songs sound the same. Variations on a theme can still sound sweet. And his two recent "faux mysteries," The Great Leader and The Big Seven, were much more lively.

Here is the list of Harrison's prose books, from most recent to oldest. I have read them all and am now making my way through a very big book of his collected poetry.

A Really Big Lunch: The Roving Gourmand on Food and Life
The Ancient Minstrel
The Big Seven
The River Swimmer 
The Great Leader
The Farmer's Daughter (reviewed here)
The English Major (reviewed here)
Returning to Earth
The Summer He Didn't Die
True North
Off to the Side: A Memoir
The Beast God Forgot to Invent
The Road Home
Julip
The Raw and the Cooked: Adventures of a Roving Gourmand
Just Before Dark
The Woman Lit By Fireflies
Dalva
Sundog
Warlock
Legends of the Fall
Farmer
A Good Day to Die
Wolf


NOTE

Last updated February 2016.