Designed by Emily of Emily’s Reading Room

Today’s genre topic in Armchair BEA is “literary fiction.” I’m not sure there’s an official definition for this term, but I use it as a snobby code word for general, non-genre fiction that’s particularly well-written. Classics and historical fiction also tend to get lumped into this category.

My favorite classic literary fiction (since I didn’t write a separate post on this topic earlier this week) would include works by Jane Austen, the Brontës, Anthony Trollope, Charles Dickens, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Willa Cather, Louisa May Alcott, and Mark Twain.

Among more modern literary fiction, I’d highlight books by Barbara Kingsolver, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Amy Tan, Nicole Krauss, Michael Chabon, Fannie Flagg, Jane Smiley, Marilynne Robinson, Sandra Cisneros, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Brunonia Barry.

What do you think? Any favorite authors of literary fiction you think I should sample?