I often seem to miss things on the radio so I was pleased to be alerted to a new 8 part series Capturing America: Mark Lawson's history of modern American literature by a piece by Lawson in this week’s Radio Times, and then, just in case I’d missed that, by another longer piece in Saturday's Guardian Review 'The Sense of an Ending'.

The series will focus on some of the great names of ‘Am lit’ (as Lawson likes to call it) from the post-World War II period onwards, and it was only after reading through the article that it dawned on me how influenced I had been in my youth by the likes of Roth, Heller, Vonnegut, Mailer et al (but where were the women I would ask now). The article’s title is a reference to the recent death of J.D. Salinger, which, along with the deaths of Updike, Mailer and Vonnegut over the past few years, Lawson sees as signalling the end of a remarkable era of American literature (although Philip Roth, of course, is still with us). So, I for one am looking forward to a timely new series in which we can re-assess and re-acquaint ourselves with some of the old giants, but also look at some of the exciting new writing from the younger generations, still very much American, but these days coming from a multiplicity of backgrounds.

And I can’t miss this opportunity to give the holdings of our Sound Archive a plug since they contain many recordings of interviews, readings and drama performances by American writers and poets. You can also buy a CD: American Writers - the spoken word.

And finally, regarding 'where were the women?’, well Elaine Showalter has answered that very well in her book A Jury of her peers: American women writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proux, New York: Knopf, 2009 (BL shelfmark YD.2009.a.1993).

[C.H.]