No David Graeber is a massive omission,—The Dawn of Everything was extremely impactful for a lot of people I know personally at least,— and the same with Ottessa Moshfergh, Thomas Pynchon (Against the Day really should have been on the list), and Knausgaard.
I will say though, My Brilliant Friend was a solid pick for first.
No David Graeber is a massive omission,—The Dawn of Everything was extremely impactful for a lot of people I know personally at least,— and the same with Ottessa Moshfergh, Thomas Pynchon (Against the Day really should have been on the list), and Knausgaard.
I will say though, My Brilliant Friend was a solid pick for first.
I haven't read The Dawn of Everything—would really like to soon (though clearly I have a lot of books I keep on saying this about!)
It's interesting…Pynchon and Cormac McCarthy both felt like "omissions" to me when I first read the list, but I think their most famous/influential works were all published in the late 20th century? But maybe it's also that we haven't had enough time and distance to assess their late-career works…
I'm in the same boat,—too many books to read and too little time!
But yeah, I feel the same way about McCarthy but also, the Road made it to 13 on the list which is a pretty good placement.
My thoughts with Pynchon is that, yeah while two of his three major works were published in the twentieth century (talking about Gravity's Rainbow and Mason & Dixon here), Against the Day was published in 2006 and I think there's a good chance that it's remembered down the road as his best. At the very least it lays out his philosophy better than his other books and it's a good skeleton key to understanding all of his other works imo (in the same way that Mullholand Drive was the key, for me anyway, of understanding David Lynch's work). The only issue is that Against the Day was 1200 pages smh...
But also like maybe i'm just too much of a pynchon fanatic lol
lol somehow I missed The Road being there! yet another situation in which I have read the “minor” work (Blood Meridian, unbelievably gorgeous prose and descriptions of landscape and nature) but not the more well-known work
Blood Meridian is soooooo good, but one of those books where I had to put it down for long periods of time because it was just too much to take in (I think i took a four month break right after the convoy passes the tree of dead babies lol,—what a ride that book was)
The Road is on the list, and I think one could make a strong argument for No Country for Old Men, a novel that seems to be on its way to something like classic status. If nothing else, the popularity of and critical acclaim for its (extremely faithful) film adaptation give it some cachet in wider pop culture.
No David Graeber is a massive omission,—The Dawn of Everything was extremely impactful for a lot of people I know personally at least,— and the same with Ottessa Moshfergh, Thomas Pynchon (Against the Day really should have been on the list), and Knausgaard.
I will say though, My Brilliant Friend was a solid pick for first.
I haven't read The Dawn of Everything—would really like to soon (though clearly I have a lot of books I keep on saying this about!)
It's interesting…Pynchon and Cormac McCarthy both felt like "omissions" to me when I first read the list, but I think their most famous/influential works were all published in the late 20th century? But maybe it's also that we haven't had enough time and distance to assess their late-career works…
I'm in the same boat,—too many books to read and too little time!
But yeah, I feel the same way about McCarthy but also, the Road made it to 13 on the list which is a pretty good placement.
My thoughts with Pynchon is that, yeah while two of his three major works were published in the twentieth century (talking about Gravity's Rainbow and Mason & Dixon here), Against the Day was published in 2006 and I think there's a good chance that it's remembered down the road as his best. At the very least it lays out his philosophy better than his other books and it's a good skeleton key to understanding all of his other works imo (in the same way that Mullholand Drive was the key, for me anyway, of understanding David Lynch's work). The only issue is that Against the Day was 1200 pages smh...
But also like maybe i'm just too much of a pynchon fanatic lol
lol somehow I missed The Road being there! yet another situation in which I have read the “minor” work (Blood Meridian, unbelievably gorgeous prose and descriptions of landscape and nature) but not the more well-known work
I thought that Blood Meridian was generally thought of as his magnum opus.
Blood Meridian is soooooo good, but one of those books where I had to put it down for long periods of time because it was just too much to take in (I think i took a four month break right after the convoy passes the tree of dead babies lol,—what a ride that book was)
The Road is on the list, and I think one could make a strong argument for No Country for Old Men, a novel that seems to be on its way to something like classic status. If nothing else, the popularity of and critical acclaim for its (extremely faithful) film adaptation give it some cachet in wider pop culture.