I read Beloved because I had to for a college course. It wasn't enough to make me explore further with her, but it wasn't horrible either.

I have to confess to a similar prejudice against woman authors.

Steve

What did they write in English after 1923?



For that matter, why does there need to be a book by these authors on there? Wouldn't a better question be "No Crime And Punishment or Heart Of Darkness?"?

you are out of your mind.
toni morrison is brilliant and hardly a "black chick" or just a "chick" author. beloved is brilliant and the story transcends the material aspects of this world and addresses very large, very big moral issues. THEN, technically her writing--sentence structure, descriptive nature--is fascinating and flawless. am willing to bet you have never read a bit of her work, beloved in particular.

i'm not a huge hemingway fan but i do love some of his novels and would never dismiss him as just that macho author. norman mailer's the executioner's song is another brilliant work that everyone should read.

you limit yourself severely and in particularly when you pull out that tired old last white man in america attitude.

yes. the human audience.

Ayah, I wasn't saying she sucked. I've read Beloved, and I admired Morrison's craft. But really I thought the crux of that story was motherhood. Unless you've brought a child into the world it's hard to really relate to the story. I can see why you can relate to this book, and why it means alot to you.

Alot of Hemingway is love and self loathing in my opinion which are experiences shared by most everyone. So as a women I could see you relating more to Hemingway than a white man trying to relate to Morrison. Sorry, but that's the way I see it.

are you there god, it's me margaret? ummm... ok.

there should be some john dos passos on that list- the USA trilogy is fucking brilliant.

good call on 'revolutionary road' though- that's a great book.

I didn't realise all the books were after 1923 since the thread title is "of all time". Oh, and Joseph Conrad wrote his novels in English - his 3rd language.

motherhood is part of it but what about the theme of slavery?
wasn't sophie's choice about motherhood AND genocide?

i just think the book is about many things on many levels. part of what makes a great book great is that they transcend the mere story at hand.

No Steven King?

And where are the Real Estate Novelists?

The list I remember getting a lot of hype was the first one listed below. If I knew a quick way to do it, I wonder how much overlap there is between that and this new Time one:

http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrar ... ovels.html

http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrar ... llist.html

http://www.literarycritic.com/mccaffery.html



This site http://listsofbests.com/ compiles some book, movie, and music lists. It doesn't list rocklist.net though which seems to be the best for rock. I thought the Pitchfork decade lists (2 different ones for the 90s) were interesting.

Well said.

I'm a 38 year old white male, and I definitely think Beloved is one of the best novels of the past century. Like ayah, I would be surprised if Loogar has read it. I'd argue that if you read this book in college, you probably didn't fully appreciate it. Time to re-read. Toni Morrison won the Nobel prize for literature, awarded by non-American/non-black/non-women/non-Oprah's

And for those of you men who can't "appreciate" women authors(a load of horseshit, IMO), I'd suggest The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood (on the list) and Bell Canto by Ann Patchett.

I'd disagree with The Corrections being on this list. Where are Bonfire of the Vanities, Last Orders or I Know This Much Is True? All far better than Franzen's book.

Surprised not to find anything by Robertson Davies. I admit that I don't read a lot of *literature*, I recognize that the likes of David Lodge, PG Wodehouse, Bernard Cornwell, Nigel Tranter, Patrick O'Brian, Kinky Friedman, etc. don't rate as "great novels", but damn, if Davies didn't write some of the best stuff of the 20th century.

Amen, brother. I scored a big cinco on this, and I think four of those were for school at one level or another.

Not a high percentage of have-reads for me, and I at least USED to think of myself as fairly well-read. I mean, before the Internet and shit. Was nice to see a Walker Percy selection. And discouraging not to find one Peter Matthiesson novel.

I've picked it up, and am familiar with the material enough to know I don't give a flying fuck about her craft. Yngwie Malmstein is a great guitarist, but I don't wanna listen to it.

The fact that non-American/black/women etc awarded her an award does nothing to quell my notions that people name check stuff like this BECAUSE she's a black woman. You know, gotta have someone represent.

And you can keep you opinion on whether or not me liking female authors being bullshit, because they just don't write what I like to read.

AND, lastly. Don't name check a Tom Wolfe novel. I love him, but I swear he suffers from Chrichtonism. And affliction in which you write a good book, only to come up with the stupidest, most fuckwitted ending and completely ruin the entire experience.

i definitely felt this about A Man In Full. he was also a bit nutzo on bill maher this weekend. weird dude.

Yeah, he's a psychopath conservative in the Buckley mold. People just think he's not cos he wrote about Spector and Kesey and LSD. Also, from Richmond.

That list is too long fro me to bother really going through. I picked up two books last weekend though:

Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
The Man With The Golden Arm by Nelson Algren

haven't read either of 'em yet, but they look good.

Catch 22 is fucking awesome, and probably my fave on that list. I couldn't get through Man with the Golden Arm...or The Wild Boys. Algren's one of those guys that doesn't really bother mentioning what character is talking or doing something for a few pages, so me get confused.

Where the fuck is Lonesome Dove or SOMETHING by McMurtry?

“Where is the Tolstoy of the Zulus? Show me the Proust of the Papuans and I will read him.” - Saul Bellow 1988

Not validating this. Just some of the conversation in this topic made me think about that Bellow interview.

Steve

Cool. If you seriously believe that there isn't a single female author worth reading, then that's your loss.

As far as keeping my opinions to myself, no fucking way. You certainly don't hesitate to spew your shit all over this board, regardless of how ridiculous you sound at times.

Lastly, I'm not "name-checking" Morrison. I've actually read the novel, unlike you, and in my opinion, it is one of the best novels of the last 82 years. I'm also not name checking Wolfe---I read that one too. BOTV should by no means be on this list. My point was that it should be there before The Corrections should be.

No way I'd take that bet. Made it through about 600 pages, and probably deserve a medal (or a slap upside the head).

I guess name check is the wrong phrase. I just like Wolfe's journalism so much more than the novels it grates when people mention his novels as being good. Especially because they ARE good...and then shit the bed.

As for female authors, I've read enough in my time to know what I do and don't like. I mean, Bobby Ann Mason or even the aformentioned Atwood or Barbara Kingsolver write some OK stuff...but it's just not really my bag. It's like music, why should I try to convince myself I like Boards of Canada, when lord knows I'd rather be rocking the fuck out to Johnny Thunders.

That's cool. And I agree with you on the Lonesome Dove call---that should definitely be on this list before many others that made the cut.

I haven't read Wolfe's most recent (can't even remember the name). I heard that it was terrible. Any thoughts?