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Richard Price's Reading List

The author of "Clockers" and, as Harry Brandt, "The Whites" regrets reading "Sophie's Choice" in 1982: "Never ever read a powerful novel when you're trying to write a novel of your own."

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By the Book: Richard Price (2015)

NYT By the Book column (2015-02-19).

Source: www.nytimes.com

Cover of Red Cavalry
Isaac Babel · Buy on Amazon
"my favorite writer of fiction is Isaac Babel, primarily for one book, "Red Cavalry." I find that book endlessly haunting for its blunt yet somehow elusive style. It's a masterpiece of negative space: Whenever I read this book it invariably leaves me feeling off balance and on edge. And I can't stop rereading it."
Cover of House of Mirth
Edith Wharton · Buy on Amazon
"In fiction, Edith Wharton's "House of Mirth," and at the opposite end of the social spectrum, Henry Roth's "Call It Sleep.""
Henry Roth · Buy on Amazon
"In fiction, Edith Wharton's "House of Mirth," and at the opposite end of the social spectrum, Henry Roth's "Call It Sleep.""
Cover of Go Tell It on the Mountain
James Baldwin · Buy on Amazon
"James Baldwin's "Go Tell It on the Mountain.""
Abraham Cahan · Buy on Amazon
"Abraham Cahan's "The Rise of David Levinsky.""
Cover of The Friends of Eddie Coyle
George V. Higgins · Buy on Amazon
"George V. Higgins, mainly for "The Friends of Eddie Coyle," with its low-stakes streetpolitik and its ear-perfect (and endless) dialogue."
James M. Cain · Buy on Amazon
"James M. Cain for the brutal economy of his prose and the cold fatalism that suffuses his three best books: "The Postman Always Rings Twice," "Double Indemnity" and the lesser-known "Serenade.""
Hubert Selby Jr. · Buy on Amazon
"Hubert Selby's "Last Exit to Brooklyn," read when I was 17. "Last Exit to Brooklyn" showed me how to marry bebop lyricism to the stolid urban realism that I loved so much. These two books, for better or worse, gave me my voice."

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