What are the best novels of the last 25 years?

[Equinoxe]

I think I need to check out "The Things They Carried". I've heard a lot of good things about it.

I would definitely recommend it.

I t's soooooo good. It's poignant as hell without a drop of sentimentality. Makes you hurt in your bones.

I have to agree, it is wonderfully poignant and moving without resorting to overdone formulae or feeling like it's constantly playing with the reader's emotions.

 

[Adrenaline]

I have just started "Tess of the D'Urbervilles", the firt book on my summer list.

I think I need to check out "The Things They Carried". I've heard a lot of good things about it.

Never heard of it, but this is my usual state when reading most things in the NYTBR.

I've read "Tess" and always meant to read more Hardy. I have "Far From the Maddening Crowd" (also a new Penguin) lying around here somewhere. Right now I'm in a Hammett and Neuroscience phase, so I'm reading "The Thin Man" and "Phantoms in the Brain" by V.S. Ramachandran.

 

[sweet soft kiss]

"The World According to Garp" by John Irving needs to be on this list.

I would rather see "A Prayer for Owen Meany" on the list if John Irving is represented.

 

[Adrenaline]

Yeah, the current edition of Portnoy is an obnoxious bright yellow, but if you get past that you'll find it tremendously funny and almost impossible to put down.

I'm biased, though, since I'm a psychiatrist and it's a narrative of a highly-neurotic obsessive Jew in psychoanalysis. I've heard "The Breast" also deals with a lot of Freudian sexual themes, but I haven't read it.

It's interesting how much the cover design can effect your book-buying decisions, though, isn't it?

Also "The Breast" is supposed to be funny! I believe it's why I want to read "Sabbath's Theatre" too because it has something to do with sex and is funny...

I know that it does influence my book shopping, however shallow that may be. Which is why I adore Penguin's Classics because it strokes my aesthetic hot spot very very well.

http://www.themillionsblog.com/2006/01/penguin-classics-deluxe-editions.html

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v451/Fimbrethil/chrisware.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v451/Fimbrethil/charlesburns.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v451/Fimbrethil/MarquisDeSade.jpg

The Voltaire and the Portable Dorothy Parker are en route to my greedy little hands.

 

[TWB]

I would rather see "A Prayer for Owen Meany" on the list if John Irving is represented.

I don't know why, I never could get into it. I tried three times, never getting past the first third of the book.

 

[Hester]

I don't know why, I never could get into it. I tried three times, never getting past the first third of the book.

i had the same problem, and i tend to like irving

 

[sweet soft kiss]

I don't know why, I never could get into it. I tried three times, never getting past the first third of the book.

I think it's one of those either or books. A person either loves it or hates it. I loved it, But I can't read anything by Tolkien, after 50 pages I give up.

 

[Wrong Element]

My favorite American novel of the last 25 years is probably American Tabloid, but that's obviously not the sort of book that's going to show up on this sort of poll.

Kind of a shortage of women on that list--none other than Morrison, in fact. If they had done the same poll 10 years ago I bet The Color Purple would have been listed, but it seems to be held in less esteem these days.

 

[SweetSurrendered1]

Of those listed, I've only read Rabbit, Run, A Confederacy of Dunces, and The Things They Carried, all of which I liked. Oddly enough, I've never read Beloved.

Beloved was wonderful and should definitely be put on your list of must reads. Morrison really has a way of drawing you into her worlds.

 

[MakersandIce]

Round Rock by Michelle Huneven

 

[LadyFunkenstein]

Early this year, the New York Times' Book Review's editor, Sam Tanenhaus, sent a letter to a couple of hundred prominent writers, critics, editors and other literary sages, asking them to please identify "the single best work of American fiction published in the last 25 years."

THE WINNER:

Beloved, by Toni Morrison (1987)

THE RUNNERS-UP:
Underworld, by Don DeLillo (1997)
Blood Meridian, by Cormac McCarthy (1985)
Rabbit Angstrom: The Four Novels by John Updike
'Rabbit at Rest' (1990)
'Rabbit Is Rich' (1981)
'Rabbit Redux' (1971)
'Rabbit, Run' (1960)
American Pastoral, by Philip Roth (1997)

THE FOLLOWING BOOKS ALSO RECEIVED MULTIPLE VOTES:

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole (1980)
Housekeeping, by Marilynne Robinson (1980)
Winter's Tale, by Mark Helprin (1983)
White Noise, by Don DeLillo (1985)
The Counterlife, by Philip Roth (1986)
Libra , by Don DeLillo (1988)
Where I'm Calling From, by Raymond Carver (1988)
The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien (1990)
Mating, by Norman Rush (1991)
Jesus' Son, by Denis Johnson (1992)
Operation Shylock, by Philip Roth (1993)
Independence Day, by Richard Ford (1995)
Sabbath's Theater, by Philip Roth (1995)
Border Trilogy, by Cormac McCarthy
'Cities of the Plain' (1998)
'The Crossing' (1994)
'All the Pretty Horses' (1992)
The Human Stain, by Philip Roth (2000)
The Known World, by Edward P. Jones (2003)
The Plot Against America, by Philip Roth (2004)

Beloved - wow, such a good great book. Deserving to be number 1.

Confederacy of Dunces - wow, someone put that book in my hand in the early nineties. I stayed up all night to finish it , and never laughed so hard over a novel.

Philip Roth I am sick of, long story.

Where I'm Calling From - hot damn! gritty short stories at their best. I have written a lot of short stories in which I know I emulate him... same as many people who read that collection when it first came out. My short story "The Feeder" while of a totally different subject matter, directly ripped off his style I am sad to say.

Now I must think about this list and add to it...

 

[Xelebes]

I have not read a single book in that list?

Are the literature teachers at it again?

 

[incognito]

What, no Harry Potter???

 

[restlessnights]

Never heard of it, but this is my usual state when reading most things in the NYTBR.

I've read "Tess" and always meant to read more Hardy. I have "Far From the Maddening Crowd" (also a new Penguin) lying around here somewhere. Right now I'm in a Hammett and Neuroscience phase, so I'm reading "The Thin Man" and "Phantoms in the Brain" by V.S. Ramachandran.

I've only read "Return of the Native", so I thought I should read something else. But I'm already concerned about this novel. I'm too emotional to read very sad books.

I love Hammett.