Classic Books?

[hummingwolf]

Prompted by yesterday's Entertainment Weekly movie meme, I went to the EW site to see if there were any other interesting lists over there. I quickly went to the list of The New Classics: Books ("The 100 best reads from 1983 to 2008") and, well, I'm embarrassed to say that I've read even fewer of the books on this list than I've watched movies on that other list. I'm not even going to bother listing & bolding anything here; I simply want to ask which books on the list you folks out there would actually recommend. So, what are your suggestions?

Comments

[daisydumont.livejournal.com]

i can't even get the page to load! doubt i'll have read many, when it finally does.

say, i'm in the middle of the buffy episode where giles turns into a demon. i love giles. (xander threw pots and pans at him. haha.)

[hobbitblue.livejournal.com]

Haven't even heard of half of those, and I do try and read widely. Don't bother with the Da Vinci Code unless you're very bored or want to enjoy the many debunking type programs, Harry Potter I assume you've read... Pat Barker is a good writer, for sure.

[daisydumont.livejournal.com]

well! i may have read 3 or 4 of them. i read something by Jay McInerney, but i can't remember if it was Bright Lights, Big City or not. ditto something by Barbara Kingsolver, but maybe not the Poisonwood Bible. i HAVE read And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts. ted will be reading The Glass Castle for the beginning week of college. jeannette walls used to write gossip at MSNBC, iirc, so that one surprises me. i have on hand Eat, Pray, Love, but can't bring myself to read it.

i'm a loser, baby...

this list

[seraphimsigrist.livejournal.com]

belongs high on the list of the worlds stupidest lists
I would think. I have read none of them fully
looked in a few(eg read one volume of graphic novel
sandman, looked at da vinci code until it became
too ridiculous etc)
these may be among the worlds worst books

[hasufin.livejournal.com]

I have read four of those books, and would read perhaps four others. I do recommend The Handmaid's Tale and Persepolis, and would be willing to loan you my copies of both. I heartily do not recommend Beloved, and question the wisdom of anyone who puts it on a list of ostensibly worthwhile literature.

That said, any list of recent "classics" is ridiculous. A work becomes a classic only by showing that it has a message which endures beyond the now. This list has several books which clearly cannot qualify - while Nickel and Dimed and Fast Food Nation are indeed worthwhile books, they are very topical and will rapidly lose meaning as the culture which spawned them passes out of memory.