More fun literary dishing

[tummies]

Did anyone see Entertainment Weekly's list of New Classics? I thought the list was really fascinating, and I felt excited by the sheer breadth of genre, type, popular and less so. I've read fifteen of them, and many more are in my immediate queue. How many have you read?

Comments

[glorioushubris]

I've read fifteen in their entirety and portions of six others (short story collections or novels that didn't hold my interest).

[glorioushubris]

Afterthought: Why bother having a list of "the new classic" videogames of the last 25 years? Essentially the only influential videogames that excludes are Pac Man and Pong.

[faux_teak]

We had fun dishing over this on Saturday waiting for our Shakespeare tix.

I've read 22. That includes the one I'm almost done with now (Cloud Atlas, which I'd highly recommend... to everyone, but especially to you, tummies, if you haven't read it. It's fascinating and reflective on human civilization and covers everything from 19th century Colonialism to the far, post-apocalyptic future... good background reading for your novel.)

The one serious problem I had with the list (and I'm going to email the magazine about it, too) is that Middlesex isn't on it. If there's a book that's opened up a new genre of literature and been near-universally moving, like that one, then it should be there. Oprah picked it this month, for Chrissake!

[theswirtproject]

Agreed, Middlesex was one of my most favorite books ever. It should have been on that list!

[aaaaaames]

I did, indeed! This list provided us much entertainment while waiting in line. And gave me some new ideas for stuff to read.

I'd read 16. Which was your favorite that you read? Which are you excited to read of those that you haven't?

My faves on the list were probably The Corrections and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, though that second one I just finished a couple of weeks ago so I might be in after-book glow still. But I thought it was pretty wonderful.
I'm definitely going excited to read Zadie Smith's On Beauty now. Anyone else read this? I loved White Teeth, like loved LOVED it, but I'd heard On Beauty wasn't great. But reading their blurb on it made me want to read it.

Sidenote: the one I was most thrilled to see on there was Ann Fadiman's The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. Any of you guys read this? It's nonfiction, about a Hmong child in California who has severe epilepsy. The Hmong consider seizures sacred ("the spirit catches you and you fall down" is a translation of the phrase by which they refer to

[faux_teak]

On Beauty is great. I'd highly recommend that one, too. I don't have it to lend, though, since that one's already packed away and gone.

My fave on that list: I'm going to have to go with Cloud Atlas (though The Giver is a book I've re-read over and over and over, and loved every time), but Sandman and Watchmen are the two I was most thrilled to see on the list, because they're both amazing, and I like it when good comic books get included in lists of literature.

What I'm most excited to read: Persepolis, fo sho.

[aaaaaames]

oh! I can trade Persepolis for that other book you're lending me.

[faux_teak]

Done and done!

[theswirtproject]

I've read 9 of them. the one I'm most impressed with myself for reading is A Secret History by Donna Tartt. I think I read that in the 10th grade and my then-best friend made fun of me for it. Ha HA!! Take that.

I just ordered a couple more of these from Amazon. I've been reading this Biography of Frida Kahlo which is massive and slow and painful to read, but I can't stop reading it because then I believe that I will stop loving her art. (yes, makes no sense, I know). But I think I need to read something else in conjunction to the biography to kick start my reading bug, otherwise I may never read anything else again.