Good Books -- Supposedly

I say "supposedly" becuase I wouldn't know. I have read an embarassingly small number of these.

The NYT asked "a couple of hundred prominent writers, critics, editors and other literary sages, . . . to identify 'the single best work of American fiction published in the last 25 years.' " The results appeared in the Books section of yesterday's paper.

The winner was Tony Morrison's "Beloved." Interestingly, though, the rest of the list was dominated by only three authors: Philip Roth, Don DeLillo and Cormac McCarthy, who together wrote 10 of the 22 books reciving more than one vote (12 of 24 if you count McCarthy's "Border Trilogy" as 3 books rather than 1). Regardless of how you count, Roth takes the "quantity cup" with 5.

The runners up to "Beloved" were:

"Underworld" by Don DeLilo;

"Blood Meridian" by Cormac McCarthy;

The "Rabbit" quadrilogy by John Updike (not really fair since this is really four novels the first three of which all appeared more than 25 years ago); and

"American Pastoral" by Philip Roth

Others that "recived multiple votes" were:

"A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole

"Housekeeping" by Marilynne Robinson

"Winter's Tale" by Mark Helprin

"White Noise" by Don DeLillo

"The Counterlife" by Philip Roth

"Libra" by Don DeLillo

"Where I'm Calling From" by Raymond Carver

"The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien

"Mating" by Norman Rush

"Jesus' Son" by Denis Johnson

"Operation Shylock" by Philip Roth

"Independence Day" by Richard Ford

"Sabbath's Theater" by Philip Roth

"Border Trilogy" by Cormac McCarthy

"The Human Stain" by Philip Roth

"The Known World" by Edward P. Jones

"The Plot Against America" by Philip Roth

I am chastened to admit that I have read only 3 of these -- "The Plot Against America," "The Human Stain," and "The Things They Carried." (I also read the first of the Updike quadrilogy -- "Rabbit Run," -- but that hardly counts since it was published in 1960.) I am downright embarassed to admit that I have never even heard of Cormac McCarthy or a lot of the other writers listed.

I am going to keep this list and try to work through it over the next year. I'll probably start with "White Noise" and "Libra", since I own both of those (gifts from people with better literay taste and awareness than I have, obvioulsy). Any suggestions on where I should go after that?