GQ offers The New Canon: The 21 Books from the 21st Century Every Man Should Read.
For 'books' they mean 'works of fiction' (fine by me: that's what counts); of the twenty-one titles only nineteen were written in English (apparently the Sam Tanenhaus-influence extends very far indeed -- even to the extent that the two books written in foreign languages are both by authors who are now dead ...). [For those who haven't been following closely: the long-time The New York Times Book Review editor Sam Tanenhaus only very rarely dares to offer coverage of translated fiction (or non-fiction, for that matter) in its pages; when he does, it far too frequently is either of a new translation of something previously translated (say, yet another Madame Bovary) and/or by a safely dead author ]
Nevertheless, several of these titles are under review at the complete review:
For 'books' they mean 'works of fiction' (fine by me: that's what counts); of the twenty-one titles only nineteen were written in English (apparently the Sam Tanenhaus-influence extends very far indeed -- even to the extent that the two books written in foreign languages are both by authors who are now dead ...). [For those who haven't been following closely: the long-time The New York Times Book Review editor Sam Tanenhaus only very rarely dares to offer coverage of translated fiction (or non-fiction, for that matter) in its pages; when he does, it far too frequently is either of a new translation of something previously translated (say, yet another Madame Bovary) and/or by a safely dead author ]
Nevertheless, several of these titles are under review at the complete review:
- The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
- True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey
- 2666 by Roberto Bolaño
- Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
- Saturday by Ian McEwan
- [Netherland by Joseph O'Neill]