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

[wendybeth]

Originally Posted by 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.

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]

Originally Posted by Eliza Hodgkins 1812

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 Auster

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

[Not Afraid]

Originally Posted by wendybeth

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 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

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]

Originally Posted by Prudence

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

Add me to the list.