Author Fatigue?

Martin and Julian and Ian and Ish
Have started to smell just like yesterdays fish,
Get down to the docks, the auction is startin',
Replacements for Jules, Ish, Ian and Martin.

I do rather like this reaction in in verse by misharialadwani to Jean Hannah Edelstein's post on the Guardian blog.

Edelstein's point? There are loads of good young British writers we don't hear much about because the big names like ... well, Jules, Ish, Ian and Martin :

... continue to dominate the shelves and the discourse when it comes to discussing contemporary Brit Lit

I suffer from author fatigue too, I must confess. Groaning under the weight of so many books I want to read but haven't got round to (and many by authors I don't yet know), I find myself (and I'm really ashamed of saying this) groaning when a particularly prolific author adds yet another novel to his oeuvre. Especially if, as so often happens, I still haven't read the last one, or the one before that.

This, in all honesty, was my reaction to the news of Rushdie's latest novel the other day, even though it's probably brilliant and I may well enjoy it.

(I exempt from this, though, my favourites listed in the sidebar ... including Ishiguro and McEwan ... whom I permit to write as much as they like!)