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/lit/ - Literature

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14418680 No.14418680 [Reply] [Original]

What does /lit/ think of the Guardian's top books for the 21st century?

theguardian.com/books/2019/sep/21/best-books-of-the-21st-century?

>> No.14418692

Gay. There are only two men on the list. Mary Beard and Richard Dawkins.

>> No.14419112

>>14418680
I've only seen like two of these books discussed on /lit/. Is /lit/ pleb or the guardian?

>> No.14419446

>>14419112
Reading books published after 1900 is pleb so the guardian

>> No.14419450

>>14419112
/lit/ has no taste of its own

>> No.14419458

Holy anglos, etc., etc.

We’ve had this thread before though.

>> No.14419897

WOLF HALL IS ABSOLUTE FUCKING GARBAGE IF THAT'S #1 I'M NEVER READING ANOTHER FUCKING GUARDIAN ARTICLE EVER AGAIN

I'm now going to check the actual link to see what #1 is.


FUCK THE GUARDIAN

>> No.14419922

>>14418680
I've read 3
Nothing to Ever and Stories of Your Life and Others were based
The Road was trash
I rate the Guardian's list 2 out of 3 stars

>> No.14419925

>>14419922
*Nothing to Envy

>> No.14419953

>>14418680
Its not a bad book.

>>14419450
this

>> No.14420446

>>14419922
Of that list, I read 10:

#94 - The Tipping Point (shit book, Gladwell is a shit thinker, and there is zero reason for his popularity. He doesn't even understand the basics of the things he is writing about)

#57 - The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (was OK I guess. Got it because I liked some short story Chabon had written about a kid who thought he was a werewolf. The book was nothing like that story)

#55 - The Omnivore's Dilemma (OK book, but Pollan takes his vendetta against corn a bit too far)

#25 - Normal People (This, unfortunately, is the future of literature. Rooney gets millennial in a way that others don't; she might actually turn into something of a millenial Updike or Roth or Carver, though she isn't close their level stylistically)

#24 - A Visit from the Goon Squad (I was mislead - this wasn't about something awful at all. Honestly, it was fine I guess. I checked out during the powerpoint section)

#22 - Tenth of December (legitimately good. Title story was one of the most affecting stories I've read in the last decade, and the rest are good too. I like Saunders even though I think LitB was a bad book and not deserving of any of the praise it got)

#17 - The Road (Massively overrated. It's 'a literary author writes a run-of-the-mill genre work, but literary critics aren't familiar with genre fiction so they think it's original when it isn't' book. I generally like McCarthy, but this was not great)

#16 - The Corrections (Was OK. I don't remember it very well since I read it ~17 years ago. I guess I enjoyed it enough)

#7 - Between the World and Me (Another overrated book. Boring and unoriginal not-quite-afro-pessimism. Coates is lauded as a great thinker but he is anything but)

#4 - Never Let Me Go (I love Ishiguro - he is my favorite living novelist. That said, this was fine, but also essentially a YA version of Ishiguro)

---

Overall, blah list for a largely blah 21st century so far.

>> No.14420689

>>14420446
>#7 - Between the World and Me (Another overrated book. Boring and unoriginal not-quite-afro-pessimism. Coates is lauded as a great thinker but he is anything but)

The worst part about it is just how many of his atrocious stylistic tendencies have entered the discourse. I honestly don't mind him as a thinker, but as a writer he's abominable.

>> No.14420898

>Naomi Klein
Yeah, I’m thinking this list is trash

>> No.14421005

>>14419450
Literature is objective. /lit/ likes objectively good books. Reading shitty consumer genre fiction is not “taste”

>> No.14421019

I picked up wolf hall ages ago in a second hand bookstore and haven't read it yet. Is it any good? I was putting it off because I'm not an anglo and I know literaly nothing of anglo history, will this still be a fun read for me?

>> No.14421188

>>14421019
Wolf Hall is quite good desu. Comfy Tudor-era read

>> No.14421613

Bump, and interested in other anon's opinions, as well as their best books of the century so far.

Surprised that there was no Houllebecq on that list desu senpai.

>> No.14422670

>>14419897
What was so bad about it?

>> No.14422697

90% Anglos
WoW!

>> No.14422762

>>14420898
There are far worse books on that list.

>> No.14422774
File: 167 KB, 1200x630, Morrissey-Guardian-Shirt.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
14422774

>>14418680
>No Morrissey autobiography
pic related says it all

>> No.14422785

>Yuval Noah Whoriri

>> No.14423188

>>14421019
I’ve heard some anons claim that Mantel has an anti-Catholic bias.
But who really gives a fuck what a bunch of papist scum thinks?

>> No.14423303

>>14422697

I know right. Is the rest of the world even trying?

>> No.14423599

>>14418680
i don't even have to open that site to know it's irredeemable trash