Contemporary American Authors rate the Best Books of the Past 25 years

[Not Afraid]

As reported on NPR. (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5420172)

Toni Morrison's 1987 work Beloved is the best American novel of the past quarter-century. That's according to a vote of writers and critics who were invited to weigh in with their choices by The New York Times Book Review. The 124 literary lights who responded to the Times invitation gave multiple mentions to five Philip Roth novels -- especially American Pastoral. Cormac McCarthy has four books on the list: Blood Meridian plus his Border Trilogy. John Updike also has four: each of the novels in his Rabbit Angstrom series, which began with 1960's Rabbit, Run, but stretches into the 1990s.


The 'New York Times' List

The New York Times asks authors to weigh in on the Best Work of American Fiction of the Last 25 Years.

WINNER

Beloved
Toni Morrison

RUNNERS-UP:

Underworld
Don DeLillo

Blood Meridian
Cormac McCarthy

Rabbit Angstrom: The Four Novels
John Updike
Rabbit at Rest
Rabbit Is Rich
Rabbit Redux
Rabbit, Run

American Pastoral
Philip Roth

ALSO RECEIVING MULTIPLE VOTES

A Confederacy of Dunces
John Kennedy Toole

Housekeeping
Marilynne Robinson

Winter's Tale
Mark Helprin

White Noise
Don DeLillo

The Counterlife
Philip Roth

Libra
Don DeLillo

Where I'm Calling From
Raymond Carver

The Things They Carried
Tim O'Brien

Mating
Norman Rush

Jesus' Son
Denis Johnson

Operation Shylock
Philip Roth

Independence Day
Richard Ford

Sabbath's Theater
Philip Roth

Border Trilogy
Cormac McCarthy
'Cities of the Plain'
'The Crossing'
'All the Pretty Horses'

The Human Stain
Philip Roth

The Known World
Edward P. Jones

The Plot Against America
Philip Roth

[Prudence]

Am I the only person on the planet who didn't like "Beloved"?

[Gemini Cricket]

Am I the only person on the planet who didn't like "Beloved"?
Nope.
:raises hand:

[wendybeth]

Am I the only person on the planet who didn't like "Beloved"?


Nope. But then, we're not black and thereofore lack the understanding of the black experience, or so I was told.:rolleyes:

American fiction has sort of sucked these past few decades.

[Eliza Hodgkins 1812]

I liked Beloved but I LOVED Song of Solomon, which I think is a superior work.

I actually think there is a rather large selection of wonderful Contemporary American writers. so I'll have to respectfully disagree with Wendybeth.

I highly recommend Ray Bradbury, Kelly Link, Aimee Bender, Paul Auster, Audrey Niffennegger, Craig Clevenger, Chuck Palahniuk, Shirley Jackson...just to name a few.

[Not Afraid]

I also don't see my beloved TC Boyle on the list.

[Prudence]

I thought "Beloved" was too self-consciously trying to be "literature." Annoyed me greatly.

Ray Bradbury is amazing. Just amazing. One of my newest favorite contemporary American authors is Tananarive Due. Although I've only read one work of hers so far, so I don't know if that really counts. No James Tiptree, Jr., on the list either, although I think her best work was before their cut-off anyhow so I'm not surprised.

In general, though, I've not been a huge American lit fan.

[€uroMeinke]

I've read Winter's Tale and own a copy of Confederacy of Dunces - I guess I don't read the right stuff

[Eliza Hodgkins 1812]

I've read Winter's Tale and own a copy of Confederacy of Dunces - I guess I don't read the right stuff

A Confederacy of Dunces is well worth the read. I was pretty blown away by it.

[Ghoulish Delight]

The NPR report noted that the top 5 authors were all born in the 30s. The 30s happen to be one of only two decades (the 1810s being the other) in which no US President was born. The guy who conducted the survey admitted he was just speculating, but didn't consider these 2 facts coincidence. With people born in the 30s coming of age in the 50s, an era marked by its lack of public expression, he surmises that the kind of ambition that would normally lead to political aspirations in a lot of people instead was turned inward, producing people who expressed themselves in the much more private forum of writing.

[wendybeth]

I liked Beloved but I LOVED Song of Solomon, which I think is a superior work.

I actually think there is a rather large selection of wonderful Contemporary American writers. so I'll have to respectfully disagree with Wendybeth.

I highly recommend Ray Bradbury, Kelly Link, Aimee Bender, Paul Auster, Audrey Niffennegger, Craig Clevenger, Chuck Palahniuk, Shirley Jackson...just to name a few.


I was referring to the list printed in the OP. I love Shirley Jackson, Eudora Welty, Ray Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Robbins, Tom Wolfe, Edgar Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, etc. I just thought the NPR list rather sucked- we are not putting out much great lit these past few decades.

Except here, of course.;)

[Matterhorn Fan]

I liked Beloved but I LOVED Song of Solomon, which I think is a superior work.I have to agree, but I also have to admit that I remember more of Beloved because I had to read it for a class. So I couldn't say why Song of Solomon was better, but I do remember enjoying it very, very much.

Paul AusterI really ought to finally read the second half of The Invention of Solitude. The first half was amazing. Has Auster written fiction?

[Not Afraid]

I just thought the NPR list rather sucked- we are not putting out much great lit these past few decades.


Just for clarification purposes, it was reported by NPR but it was a New York Times compilation project.


Although this list does not speak from this advid readers point of view, I found it interesting to see what was chosen by 124 American writers. I wonder if some the literary lights of my generation will appear on a list of this sort. Of course, so many of my own favorites are members of the world population and not necessarily American born.

Also, when thinking about who is missing, I kept coming up with fantastic American poets - Plath, Ginsberg, Bukowski, William Carlos Williams - to name just a very few.

[Alex]

Commentary (http://www.slate.com/) on why Beloved is beloved (by someone who who somewhat disagrees).

I didn't care for it but am mostly just indifferent to it. Since I haven't liked and Don DeLillo or Philip Roth I've read it is obvious that the tastemakers putting this list together have wildly different tastes than I. But then I mostly stopped reading non-genre fiction a decade ago (and rarely read genre fiction these days).

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Add me to the list - Beloved is another book I was forced to read and I disliked. It's the only book on that list that I've read. I don't read much in novels anyway.

[Scrooge McSam]

Beloved? On top? Err OK :eek:

CP: Confederacy of Dunces - I think you'd enjoy it. Plus there's the interesting little side story of its publication.

[Alex]

I enjoyed Confederacy of Dunces more than any other book mentioned but I've never understood why people like it so much as they do.

That said, I would argue it shouldn't be mentioned at all since it was written before 1964 (42 years ago), though it wasn't published until
1980. The author wasn't even alive within the 25 year window (killing himself in 1969). It may have been published in the last 25 years (if by 25 you mean 26) but it is a product of a different era of writing.

[Stan4dSteph]

Am I the only person on the planet who didn't like "Beloved"?Add me to the list.