(Yay, a book list!)
Here is an interesting list of recent books. The list is made in an effort to suggest a common canon, books that most everyone would have read. Sound good? Here it is:
The Road - McCarthy
Fight Club - Palahniuk
Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao - Diaz
The Beach - Garland
White Teeth - Smith
Infinite Jest - Wallace
New York Trilogy - Auster
Million Little Pieces - Frey
Ender's Game - Card
Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius - Eggers
How many of them have you read? I've read two of them ('Ender's Game' and 'Oscar Wao') though there are three others of them on my shelf waiting. I've at least heard of them (except the 'New York Trilogy'). But does that mean that this list represents books that most people would have read? No, of course not.
Because we live in a fractured culture. We don't listen to the same music, watch the same TV, go to the same movies or read the same books anymore. That's just how it is.
By the way, they also included a list of additional books that almost made the cut:
The Giver by Lois Lowry (1993)
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (2002)
Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts (2003)
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss (2005)
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden (1997)
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen (2001)
Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling (1997 – 2007)
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon (2000)
Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer (2003)
Aha! Take a look! The Harry Potter books by Rowling are probably the closest that we come to something that most everyone would have read. That's it. (And now that I think of it, the 'Twilight' books might have taken their place.)
One other thing of note, how many of the twenty books here have you heard of solely from the movie adaptation? That's probably the other route to a shared culture. The book has to be good enough, get enough attention and then be turned into something shared.
(Or . . . you can get some promotion on Oprah . . .)
3 comments:
I did not know that Fight Club was a book. It's an awesome movie. With a cult like teenage following. And the only book I've read on there? Million Little Pieces. I tried Memoirs of a Geisha, but couldn't get through it. No Harry Potter for me.
I'll second your opinion on 'Fight Club' the movie, haven't read the book. How was 'Million Little Pieces'? I only know it through the controversy.
I loved 'Geisha;' found 'The Corrections' to be forgettable; have several on my 'to read' list & though 'The Road' was overrated....
But there are too many books in this world, & no where NEAR enough time!!
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