Thomas Pynchon
Author of The Crying of Lot 49
About the Author
Thomas Pynchon was born in Glen Cove, New York on May 8, 1937. In 1959 he graduated with a B.A. in English from Cornell, where he had taken Vladimir Nabokov's famous course in modern literature after studying engineering physics and serving in the U.S. Navy for two years. He worked as a technical show more writer at Boeing for two and a half years. Pynchon won the Faulkner First Novel Award for V. in 1963, and in The Crying of Lot 49 (1966), again his symbolism and commentary on the United States and human isolation have been praised as intricate and masterly, though some reviewers found it to be maddeningly dense. With this book Pynchon won the Rosenthal Foundation Award. Gravity's Rainbow, winner of the National Book Award for Fiction in 1974, is in part a fictional elegy and meditation on death and an encyclopedic work that jumps through time. Pynchon has also written numerous essays, reviews, and introductions, plus the fictional works Slow Learner, Vineland, Mason & Dixon, Against the Day, and Inherent Vice. His title Bleeding Edge made The New York Times Best Seller List for 2013. He is famous for his reclusive nature, although he has made several animated appearances on The Simpsons television series. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: Oyster Bay High School (Oyster Bay, NY)
Works by Thomas Pynchon
Gravity's Rainbow [multimedia] 5 copies
Uncollected Works — Author — 3 copies
La storia di Mondaugen 3 copies
New world writing : 16 1 copy
The Voice of the Hamster 1 copy
The World (This One), the Flesh (Mrs. Oedipa Maas), and the Testament of Pierce Inverarity {story} 1 copy
No title 1 copy
Associated Works
Storming the Reality Studio: A Casebook of Cyberpunk and Postmodern Science Fiction (1991) — Contributor — 248 copies
The Teachings of Don B.: Satires, Parodies, Fables, Illustrated Stories, and Plays of Donald Barthelme (1992) — Introduction — 208 copies
The Graphic Canon, Vol. 3: From Heart of Darkness to Hemingway to Infinite Jest (2013) — Contributor — 147 copies
Fifty Years of the American Short Story from the O. Henry Awards 1919-1970 (1970) — Contributor — 13 copies
Fifty Years of the American Short Story from the O. Henry Awards 1919-1970, Volume II (1970) — Contributor — 5 copies
Mondaugen — Contributor — 1 copy
Aerospace Safety (1960-12 - Vol 16 No 12) — Contributor — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Pynchon, Thomas
- Legal name
- Pynchon, Thomas Ruggles, Jr.
- Other names
- Pynchon, Thomas
- Birthdate
- 1937-05-08
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Glen Cove, New York, USA
- Places of residence
- Glen Cove, New York, USA
Seattle, Washington, USA
Manhattan Beach, California, USA
New York, New York, USA
Ithaca, New York, USA
Aptos, California, USA - Education
- Cornell University (A.B. ∙ 1959)
- Occupations
- technical writer
novelist
short-story writer - Relationships
- Jackson, Melanie (wife)
Taormino, Tristan (niece) - Organizations
- United States Navy
- Awards and honors
- MacArthur Fellowship (1988)
U.S. National Book Award for Fiction (1973) - Agent
- Melanie Jackson
Members
Discussions
Inherent Vice in Pynchon Pandæmonium (August 2022)
Group Read, April 2019: Vineland in 1001 Books to read before you die (May 2019)
The Crying of Lot 49 in Someone explain it to me... (March 2017)
Club Read 2013 : Kesbooks reading plan in Club Read 2013 (June 2013)
Reviews
Lists
Yet another list (1)
Read (1)
War Literature (1)
1980s (1)
Read This Next (1)
Greatest Books (1)
scav (1)
Overdue Podcast (1)
Secret Histories (1)
Books (1)
1960s (1)
E's Reader (1)
1970s (1)
Reading Queue (1)
Metafiction (1)
Pynchon ranked (9)
First Novels (1)
A Novel Cure (2)
Favourite Books (2)
1990s (2)
Magic Realism (2)
Best First Lines (2)
Unread books (6)
Elegant Prose (1)
2022 (1)
Five star books (2)
Franklit (1)
Awards
You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 30
- Also by
- 17
- Members
- 45,334
- Popularity
- #359
- Rating
- 4.1
- Reviews
- 679
- ISBNs
- 411
- Languages
- 27
- Favorited
- 353