Ten Favorite Vintage International Releases of the 1990s
(In my first year of college, Random House’s Vintage imprint—which now publishes my own paperbacks—was an essential reading gateway for me. I began exploring contemporary American literary fiction when a friend of mine gave me Scott Bradfield’s The History of Luminous Motion as a Christmas present, describing it as his favorite novel, and began exploring contemporary international literary fiction not long after, when I bought Peter Carey’s collection The Fat Man in History on a whim from my neighborhood bookstore. Within weeks I was searching bookstore shelves for the immediately identifiable spines of the Vintage Contemporaries line, which published almost exclusively American authors, and the Vintage International line, which was more cosmopolitan. Some of the authors I discovered this way are still among my favorites. Throughout the 1990s, the books in the series all looked something like this or this. Here are my ten favorite releases from that period, listed alphabetically by author.)
A Death in the Family by James Agee
A History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters by Julian Barnes
And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief as Photos by John Berger
The Fat Man in History: Stories by Peter Carey
Winter’s Tales by Isak Dinesen
Barabbas by Pär Lagerkvist
So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami
Light Years by James Salter
Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson
— January 18, 2021