David Mitchell

Researchers have found that good literary fiction improves connectivity and function in our brains and helps strengthen imagination too. So, David Mitchell must have read a tremendous amount of very good literary fiction because his brain and his imagination are honed to a sharpness that sees him creating both stand alone novels for their own sake, including obscure period pieces, and themed sequential works with interconnecting characters that travel through his novels to reward readers of his entire catalog.

Add to this a touch of what is commonly called "magical realism" (but what I prefer to call 'magical spiritualism in the demi-monde', don't ask me why I've not the space here to elucidate:) and its effect upon every day travails of the characters. Then mix this with stories that take place in various times, from pasts that actually occurred to futures yet arrive, presented in ascending and then descending segments in the same book (I don't know if he pioneered the form, but he is definitely the master of it) - and you get something truly magnificent.

His most famous work, if Hollywood be the arbiter, is Cloud Atlas, which was made into a movie with Tom Hanks and Halle Berry. I can recommend the book wholeheartedly and can't wait to see the movie.

My favorite work by David Mitchell is Black Swan Green, as it is my favorite young man's coming of age story I have ever read. The protagonist is a middle-class English boy of the same generation as Mr. Mitchell and I are, and I suppose there must be a great amount of autobiographical material mined for the character as his concerns of his time (cold war, bands, etc) are spot on. Though I grew up in the USA, I have lived in England as an adult for years and having two sons who are growing up there now, so the characters feel so real to me that I wrote Mr. Mitchell with tears in my eyes the moment I finished reading it.

Often short listed for the Man Booker prize, and having received numerous other prizes, this English author now living in Ireland, is often overlooked for what many say is the Man Booker committee's reluctance to award its highest prize to anything that hints of 'sci-fi'. Mitchell doesn't seem to care, even mixing satire in the form of commentary on the modern literary scene into one of his books, while continuing to write amazing works that are appreciated across genres. A novelist of the highest order, and one whose next work is already top of my desired list without my even knowing yet what it is.