Conspicuous Consumption Meets Literacy
I know I'm slightly late with this, and that in the 24 hours since it's gone up the original post has received something like ~400 comments, which is insane/amazing, but over at Pajiba we're taking votes on your favorite novels of the past 15 years. Why the past 15 years? Because it's our game, and those are the rules. The goal is to come up with a list of 5-6 books people would most like to see discussed on the site, meaning we'll actually have to read them and then talk about them, so try not assign us anything too horrible. It's tough to limit myself to five, but the timeliness factor helped a little. Here's what I came up with:
1. Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace
2. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon
3. Everything Is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer
4. The Memory of Running, Ron McLarty
5. The Fortress of Solitude, Jonathan Lethem
I know, I'm like a giant walking stereotype of modern twentysomething reading habits. Anyway, we're taking votes for the rest of the week, so feel free to post your own list. I think the results, once tallied, will be pretty interesting.
Comments: 3
• Quite A Year For Plums, Bailey White
• Nice Big American Baby, Judy Budnitz
• Noon (Collected Stories) - this is probably the best collection of short stories I've ever read.
• The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, Dinaw Mengestu
• I Think Of You (Stories), Ahdaf Soueif
I can't really contribute in any helpful or accurate capacity... but I really wanted to participate anyway. The Bailey White book is first because I love it and want other people to talk to me about it. The rest of my list is more 'What I'm Reading Now' than 'Best Books Published In The Past 15 Years'. My brain won't and my heart can't choose favorites:)
Also, I agree with Austin and think that Amy Hempel's collected stories should be given high priority.
Just scanned through the 500 comments and can not believe that no one included Edward P. Jones' The Known World. A remarkable book I've already read twice.
My other four:
The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
The Green Mile, Stephen King
The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon
The Mars Trilogy, Kim Stanley Robinson
Collected Stories by Amy Hempel (Brutally human and amazing short fiction)
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson (it's Firefly good)
Until I Find You by John Irving (knowing the evolution to this novel makes its denouement even more gratifying)
Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon ('cause I roll like that)
Return to the City of the White Donkeys by James Tate (like Amy Hempel but poetry and magnificently strange)
May 16, 2007 10:33 PM