I just got done skimming EW’s list of the best 100 books of the last 25 years. I’ll admit that I haven’t read all 100 of the books they’ve got on there, but I do have some thoughts on a few of them.
96. The Da Vinci Code
I was all set to start ragging on this book for all of its fakery and patches of really sloppy writing. I’ve seen DVC so frequently criticised from so many circles I hang out in–church people, avid readers, writers–that the bad parts are fairly well-known to me. (Starting with how the title is strange because “da Vinci” wasn’t the dude’s last name.) Then I remembered how much fun I had reading it. I did, you know. The puzzles were interesting and if you just accepted that we were living in Brown’s (or his wife’s) fictionalised framework, then it was a good way to spend the afternoon. And while so much of the writing was clunky-patchy, the fact was that whichever Brown was responsible for the plot finally wove together the general story of Christ’s lost bloodline and the vast conspiracy to cover it up in an entertaining way. That’s something that the dozens of other books on the subject which came before could never do.
93. A Thousand Acres
After reading this book I vowed to never read anything else by Jane Smiley ever again. Despite the conceit of reworking King Lear into the modern setting of an American farm, this book just fails miserably in its attempt be original. In fact, if it were not for that brush-up-your-Shakespeare setting, this story would have been a great Lifetime movie. Hey, wait. Now that I think about it, EW actually criticised the movie based on the book as being “Lifetime”ish. They blamed the makers of the movie, but honestly I think the whole molestation twist corrupted the source material.
87. The Ruins
No. I don’t care what Stephen King says, this was a bloody, gory, awful thing with no redeeming qualities at all.
86. And The Band Played On
It’s a shame this was published in 1987. It should be higher on the list, because it was a much more important book. This single book changed the way publishers allowed authors to represent gay people in fiction. Prior to Randy Shilts’ groundbreaking work, gay people in mass market fiction were generally cautionary tells or cardboard characterisations.
73. A Prayer For Owen Meany
This should have been ranked higher. In my own personal list this book usually vies with To Kill A Mockingbird for Best Book Ever. I won’t presume that in the scope of things it really was the best book of the last 25 years, but it certainly was better than many which are listed above it. (Waiting To Exhale is at number 52? For reals?)
40. His Dark Materials
How come Rowling only gets one book (Goblet Of Fire) on the list, while Pullman’s entire series is considered worthy of inclusion as a whole? I realise that there are three times the number of pages in Rowling’s infinitely better works, but believe me when I say that they are really thematically one epic book. And a better epic book than Pullman’s.
1. The Road
I suppose I just ought to read this. I normally love dystopian post-apocalyptic fiction. I just can’t get past my prejudiced view that this particular book is just a sexed-up reworking of A Canticle For Leibowitz. I wonder why EW put it at number one. There are at least a dozen other books farther down the list (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay; Bel Canto ) which seem like worthy candidates of the top spot. I suppose I should get my hands on this to check it out. Hey. Maybe that’s it. They wanted a more front-list title to top the list for sales reasons.
Just Another Pretty Farce 
93. A Thousand Acres
Well, don’t let that book spoil you on Smiley. She’s a fantastic writer, generally, but that book is a failure. She’s like Joyce Carol Oates in playing around with different genres, and that one (and her detective novel as well) just defeated her. I think you’d like Moo or Horse Heaven or even Greenlanders. You might not like my favorite book of hers, Ordinary Love and Good Will because it’s about defeat. But, anyway, you can’t judge her as a writer by any one of her books.
I may take you up on that. Especially since you acknowledge the general failure-ness of 1KAcres. So many people ooze with love over that book, and I’ve never been able to understand why.
Oh, well, it was an OK mellerdramer, ya know. I mean, in the category of books in which people who should know better go running out into the storm, there are worse. But she can do better than that, and I think usually does. The truth is, that listing jumped out at me, because it’s the only book of hers they have on there, and I think it’s her worst.
Don’t read The Road. Just don’t. Sylvia Plath doing an Easy-Off commercial thinks it’s depressing.
Hmm. I’ve read 4 of the books on that list (and that includes Jon Stewart’s America). Meanwhile I’ve seen 74 of the movies on their top 100 list. Perhaps I should read more. Of course EW doesn’t seem to care much for biographies or history and my last few books have included biographies of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Leonardo da Vinci, and Albert Einstein.
And again I’m not sure how much I should trust EW’s opinion here when the Amazon Kindle is included in their top 25 gadgets and innovations since 1983 but not the Nintendo Wii.
And again I’m not sure how much I should trust EW’s opinion here when the Amazon Kindle is included in their top 25 gadgets and innovations since 1983 but not the Nintendo Wii.
The Nintendo Wii isn’t a distribution device for Time Warner publications or publications of their subsidiaries.
Of course EW doesn’t seem to care much for biographies or history
Unless, of course, they are biographies of drug-addled rich boys or porn stars.
Don’t read The Road. Just don’t.
If you, the man who sat through that Pahulnik (or however you spell it) book, thinks The Road is depressing, I am not even gonna read the jacket flap.
(You know the book I mean. The one with the people in the theatre trying to out-gross each other. Is it Chuck Pahulnik or someone else? I’m blanking.)
I’ve read 1, 28 (Naked, David Sedaris – loved it), 72 (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon – an utter waste of time) and 96. The Road is the single most depressing book I’ve ever read. Unless you feel overwhelmed with unnecessary happiness you need to rid yourself of, avoid it.
Oh no!
Curious Incident truly is a wonderful book. Mark Haddon did such a wonderful thing in making his protagonist autistic. So many books try to offer insight into the human condition, but by having an Asperger Autistic as the unreliable narrator forces the reader to reason for herself as to the motivations of the external characters.
Not to mention the fact that the central character’s voice is so dry, unique and heartbreakingly funny.
Chuck is one sick twist. His book about the guy who goes back in time to rape his matrilineal line while they are pubescent is a real bucket of family fun, too.
I’ll loan you my copy of The Road. It will stay with you long after you return the book. You will come to understand the meaning of “the living will envy the dead.”
A Prayer for Owen Meany is one of the handful of books that truly makes me laugh out loud while reading – I concur that it should be higher on the list.
I’ve read almost two dozen of those, not many I’d put at the top of my own list.
Side note – Pahlaniuk’s latest is hard to get through, and I’m not offended easily.