About

Dave Astor
Montclair, New Jersey

Bio: I'm an avid reader who started the weekly "Dave Astor On Literature" blog in 2014. Since then, I've written thematic pieces on all kinds of fiction-related topics. Also, I'm the author of a 2017 book called "Fascinating Facts About Famous Fiction Authors and the Greatest Novels of All Time: The Book Lover’s Guide to Literary Trivia." And I'm the author of the 2012 memoir "Comic (and Column) Confessional," the writer of the award-winning weekly "Montclairvoyant" topical-humor column for Baristanet.com, and a National Society of Newspaper Columnists board member. But I'm not related to the rich Astors!

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14 thoughts on “About”

  2. Hi Dave,

    I’m from Montclair, NJ! A student gifted me your book last year, and I enjoyed staying up too late reading the first 50 pages. I was distressed, however, to note the lack of racial and gender diversity of the authors you chose.

    When you make a claim about the “greatest novels of all time,” and the reader then finds that the vast majority of those were written by white men of European descent, you are upholding white and male supremacy.

    I suspect that this oversight is entirely unintentional, so I offer these thoughts in the spirit of “if it were me, I would want someone to mention this so that I could learn and grow,” and I hope you will take them in that spirit.

    I have learned (on my own journey towards antiracism) that intentionality is necessary when trying to be actively antiracist, instead of simply just “not racist.” (I highly recommend Ibram X. Kendi’s _How to Be an Antiracist_ –it really helped me understand some of these issues!)

    For instance, the next time you set out to write this type of book, you might assemble a list of authors from your head, and then create a spreadsheet: how many women? How many people of the global majority? And then you could actively work to balance the numbers.

    Perhaps you would find that your arbitrary (so you note in your Introduction) restriction of *dead* authors makes it challenging to create a balanced list by race/gender, and then you might decide instead to feature “20th century novels” or whatever you need to create a balanced list.

    I hope you have a wonderful holiday!

    Warmly,
    Holly

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    • Thank you for your comment, Holly.

      Because I chose to focus on deceased authors to keep the book manageable, I was indeed faced with choosing from the unfortunately larger percentage of white male authors published back in the day, as you alluded to. But I have to dispute your feeling that my literary trivia book was not diverse enough.

      The authors of color and the authors who are women featured in my book are plentiful. They include Louisa May Alcott, Jane Austen, James Baldwin, Jorge Luis Borges, Anne Bronte, Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, Fanny Burney, Octavia E. Butler, Willa Cather, Miguel de Cervantes, Kate Chopin, Agatha Christie, Colette, Alexandre Dumas, Harriet Doerr, George Eliot, Janet Frame, Elizabeth Gaskell, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Nadine Gordimer, Alex Haley, Patricia Highsmith, Zora Neale Hurston, Shirley Jackson, P.D. James, Billie Letts, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Daphne du Maurier, Mary McCarthy, Carson McCullers, L.M. Montgomery, Elsa Morante, Flannery O’Connor, Dorothy Parker, Ann Radcliffe, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Dorothy L. Sayers, Mary Shelley, Murasaki Shikibu, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Rabindranath Tagore, Edith Wharton, and Richard Wright.

      Various living female/of-color authors, such as Alice Walker, were also mentioned in passing.

      I was very conscious of diversity while researching and writing the book over a six-year period, and didn’t need a spreadsheet to be so. 🙂 I literally counted the number of female authors and authors of color I included before the publishing process began in 2017.

      Also, there’s a woman as well as a man of color on the three-person cover. The cover artist first came up with an all-male cover; I firmly declined.

      Finally, my weekly blog here is quite diverse — I very, very often discuss authors who are women and authors of color.

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  3. This is so amazing! You have such amazing credentials behind you I am jealous! Also I found it very awesome that you are from New Jersey because so am I! Well, originally I am British but you get the point! Great talking with you and I look forward to hearing more about your upcoming book!

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    • Thanks so much, RedHeadedBookLover!

      Well, I’ve been alive long enough to have had the time do a few things. 🙂

      Great that you’re from New Jersey, too! My town (Montclair) actually has quite a few people from the UK — several of whom are friends.

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      • Montclair is such a beautiful town! I have been there many times and loved it. My town is Princeton! And I have to say that that is really interesting that you have so many UK people living in Montclair. I guess I was not the only one who immigrated when I was 17!

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        • Princeton is a great place, too!

          I’m not sure how many people moved to Montclair from the UK, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was at least 100 or so families.

          Seventeen was a very nice to age to change countries, though I imagine it was a bit of a culture shock.

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          • That is still quite a fair amount of people! Sometimes living in New Jersey I feel like I am the only British person living here because I never ever seem to come across another British person it is so bizarre!

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          • It was not a huge culture shock because I moved to New Jersey because my husband is American so by this age I was already used to the American accent, culture and his huge American family! I still consider myself so lucky to be here. I am actually in the process of becoming an American citizen which is very exciting! All I need to do is make sure I pass the test!

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