Sharan here, taking a minute from the Apocalypse to reflect on this weeks Newsweek magazine. It does not have Michael Jackson on the cover. Instead the editors are encouraging people to read more books. Hooray!! I think that's wonderful. They even give a list of fifty books we should read now. This is where I differ. I suspect a lot of readers will, too. The list is heavy on twentieth-century books, there are two science fiction books (if you count Frankenstein), one children's book (The Dark is Rising) three books from the nineteenth century, nothing from before that. There are half a dozen or so other novels. Lee Child is the only thriller writer mentioned and Chester Himes the only mystery writer. The list is heavy on depressing (imho) non-fiction and novels that address the hopelessness of modern existence. And, even in that vein, they didn't include The Grapes of Wrath. Newsweek says that all these books "open a window on the times we live in." In that case, no wonder so many people are half hoping the world will end soon.
As I said on my Facebook page. Any list that doesn't start with Winnie the Pooh isn't in touch with what I need to face the problems we are dealing with today. And, by ignoring genre literature, they are missing out on some of the most innovative ideas for changing the world that are around today.
As a closer, as we near the height of summer and I'm grumbling about the heat. this is what my front yard looked like six months ago. Happy Independence Day to Americans and to the British on the list, aren't you glad you got rid of us?
Is there any one list of 50 books that would satisfy every taste?
Or, another way to put it, that I've been wondering about off and on for years ... what constitutes a "well-read" person? Do you have to have read across many genres? Read the collected works of certain authors? Read all the books that appear on all those "top 50" and "top 100" lists? Or do you just have to make reading a priority in your daily life?
And, good heavens, what a depressing list! Way to encourage people to read, and then turn them right off it, Newsweek.
Posted by: Shay W. | July 02, 2009 at 03:39 PM
Rather an odd list, and I agree depressing. Books mostly by men, I notice. Does that matter? Not sure. I'm not a regular Newsweek reader, so it may be in their individual house style, or perhaps the selection is just a sign of the times. There's a few there on my TBR list (though not very near the top!) and only one, Kipling's KIM, that I've actually read.
Posted by: Jane Finnis | July 03, 2009 at 04:12 AM
I always find that lists of so called good literature are always the heavy, depressing tomes that will put people off reading forever. Any list should include one Agatha Christie or Dorothy Sayers, and some humor. Life isn't all dark. How about P.G. Wodehouse?
Posted by: Rhys Bowen | July 03, 2009 at 08:12 AM
OK Ladykillers--how about we come up with our own list?
Mine would start with The Lord of the Rings
at least one Margaret Attwood
Brideshead Revisited, maybe and in the mystery sphere if I had to pick one book it would be Reginald Hill's On Beulah Height.
Oh, and I concur with Sharan on Winnie the Pooh.
Other suggestions?
Posted by: Rhys Bowen | July 03, 2009 at 08:15 AM
I think P.G. Wodehouse is an excellent idea. He demonstrated how to view life as absurd. And Gaudy Night, one of the best examples of how to writer sexual tension that I've ever come across. Not life-changing, but a great read.
Posted by: Sharan | July 04, 2009 at 10:00 AM