Books We Need a List of Lists
posted by on June 23 at 15:00 PM
Apparently, Entertainment Weekly published its thousandth issue this week, and the entire magazine is devoted to “New Classics,” or the best, um, entertainment in the last twenty-five years. There are 100 new movie classic lists and 100 new music classic lists, but, being the book guy, I’m mainly interested in the 100 new books classics listl. It looks much more reasonable than EW’s list of 100 albums that are new classics, which Jeff Kirby has already ripped on over at Line Out.
You know, there’s a lot of good here: there’s a nice mix of genres and mediums (I’m glad that they included Jimmy Corrigan by Chris Ware, which has to be one of the best books I’ve ever read, and they’ve also inserted other ((way too?)) obvious comics choices like Sandman and Maus.) I’d put Wind-Up Bird Chronicle inside the top ten list, and I’d completely remove Cold Mountain (of which I only remember two horrifying words, used to describe a vagina: bewhiskered notch).
The Tipping Point belongs nowhere but a Fortune 500 CEO’s bathroom, and, since the very funny and very Irish Angela’s Ashes, Frank McCourt has diluted his own work to the point of obscurity. And The Da Vinci Code and America (The Book) belong nowhere near any list with the name ‘classic’ at the top. (One is the stupidest book I’ve ever read, the other won’t age well at all.) But on the whole, it’s a decent list full of entertaining books, both highbrow and mindless fun. You could do a lot worse than check it out before hitting up the library.
Entertainment Weekly presents: another list that shows we're all ignorant overpaid assholes!
Da Vinci Code is stupider than "I will fear no evil?"
I'm so glad to see someone else saying in public what we're all thinking: that Malcolm Gladwell is a complete hack.
Richard Posner's dismemberment of "Blink" is awesome.
Also, "The Da Vinci Code" is fluff, but at least everyone knows it's fluff. People think Gladwell's a real author. Worse, Gladwell apparently thinks he's a real author.
You’re right; it’s a surprisingly good list. I would replace “America” with “Lipstick Traces” by Griel Marcus, ditch “The Poisonwood Bible” for “The Siege of Krishnapur” by J.G. Farrell and scrap the mediocre David Foster Wallace for the gorgeous “The World Doesn’t End” by Charles Simic. Then you could replace the shitty “Da Vinci Code” with the not-quite-as-popular-but-still-a-bestseller “Einstein’s Dreams” and “Underworld” has got NOTHIN’ on James Ellroy’s “The Cold Six Thousand.” But in all, it’s not a bad place to start.
@3: Have you talked to actual Da Vinci Code fans? One of them asked me if the Holy Grail was really kept in the Louvre. No, they don't know it's fluff.
At least it got some of them to travel somewhere ...
Some very odd choices on there...and if you're going to have a Harry Potter, why the fuck would you pick Goblet of Fire?
Every one knows, Prisoner of Azkaban is the best Potter book...
Dumb shits.
You have to grudgingly admit that a thousand issues in a week of Entertainment Weekly is kind of an accomplishment, after a fashion. All those poor entertainment "journalists", already in Hell, churning out acres of celebrity inanity like demons being forced to eat their own shit forever...
It's good to see Adrian Nicole Leblanc's Random Family on that list It's really a staggering example of new journalism at its best, and definitely deserves to be higher than Nickel and Dimed.
@ Gurldoggie: You are my new commenter hero. And I love your blog, too.
@ sad panda: Random Family is rad.
And @ vooodooo84: I enjoyed reading I Will Fear No Evil more than I enjoyed reading The Da Vinci Code. If I had to choose one to read over again, though, I would pick The Da Vinci Code because it was much shorter.
I subscribe to EW only because a nephew was selling mags for school and I had to pick one. (side note: Will this country ever see the f'ing day when our school system is sufficiently funded and our kids don't have to whore themselves out all year?)
I saw the EW music list and figured it would be the list that, based on my own personal experience, I would have the best ability to judge on the merits. After scanning it, I assumed the creators were A) not really serious, B) not really credible, or C) paid off. Since I don't know enough about books and authors to judge the EW book list, I figured I'd better skip it in case it was as bad as the music list.
Thank you Mr. Constant and Gurldoggie for pointing out some of the better choices, I will give your recommendations a shot.
I am glad to have my fandom of Murakami validated. Sometimes I wonder if he just appeals to certain college students and never anyone else.
Thanks for the love Paul. Right back at ya'.
There are a lot of worthy reads on that list Nightlifejitters, but I'd say the one to read first, based on sheer historical timeliness, is "Black Water" by Joyce Carol Oates. Without giving too much away, it is a short and extremely powerful novel based on the worst day in a life of a very well known and powerful public figure who isn't long for this world. Seriously it's worth reading, or re-reading, in the next couple months before it loses some of its considerable relevance.
You care too much. Stop. OK?
That's one wildly uneven list. If "new" books goes all the way back to the 1990, then I like Thomas Pynchon's Vineland, which everyone called a disappointment after Gravity's Rainbow, but which is one of my all time favorite novels.
you'd sort of think Infinite Jest gets a mention even if no one on the editorial bored has ever read it, just for show, right?
Dude @14, hold your fire. They're book nerds. Harmless.
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