When You Were Young: Granta Best of Young American Novelists 2

List-lovers that we are, issue 97 of Granta, featuring their second installment of Best Young American Novelists, is right up our reading alley. As pointed out in editor Ian Jack's introduction, in 1983, when they presented their first list of Young British Novelists, the cut-off age was 40. And that continued for the British lists for '93 and '03 as well as the first American list in '96 (which included Sherman Alexie, Jeffrey Eugenides, and Jonathan Franzen). But, ever in tune with the youthful zeitgeist, the maximum age for the '07 round-up was lowered to 35 (as if I didn't already feel old--in my mind I'll always be 29, but now I guess I'm not even considered "young"). The introduction also explains the new judging process and makes for fascinating reading (why no Dave Eggers?).

Daniel Alarcon
Kevin Brockmeier
Judy Budnitz
Christopher Coake
Anthony Doerr
Jonathan Safran Foer
Nell Freudenberger
Olga Grushin
Dara Horn
Gabe Hudson
Uzodinma Iweala
Nicole Krauss
Rattawut Lapcharoensap
Yiyun Li
Maile Meloy
ZZ Packer
Jess Row
Karen Russell
Akhil Sharma
Gary Shteyngart
John Wray

There are more than a few unfamiliar names (to me) who I'm eager to check out. Husband-and-wife winners JSF and Nicole Krauss seem like natural selections and personally I was thrilled to see Gary Shteyngart, ZZ Packer, Karen Russell, Dara Horn, Gabe Hudson, and Amazon in-house favorite Maile Meloy make the list. What do you think about this list? Any of your favorites make/miss the cut?

--Brad, Amazon Bookstore