Nominate MobileRead's 10 best fiction books of the 20th Century

[pdurrant]

OK, simultaneous voting threads, or as simultaneous as I can easily manage. I won't wait to get them all ready before posting the first one, once nominations are closed.

[sun surfer]

Originally Posted by pynch

Well, it’s written from the perspective of a fictitious character, so I guess it’s fiction.

Or do you think the devil’s real? — Wait, there’s somebody knocking at my door, who might that be???

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Well, it's certainly not factual, and the entries were written as entertainment. I'm willing to class it as fiction.

Heh, sometimes it's the thing that one thinks they see as obvious that others then disagree with! To back up my last post, I'll also note that-

On Goodreads, the first two genres it's listed as are "Humour" and "Non-Fiction".

On Wikipedia, it's categorised as Non-Fiction (see bottom of page).

On Bloomsbury Publishing, it's listed under Non-Fiction.

On Strand Books, it's listed under Literary Non-Fiction (and, by the way, Strand's a really great - and large - bookstore if one's ever in the NYC area).

And finally, on Mobileread itself the book is listed in the Patricia Clark Memorial Library under Non-Fiction.

I certainly don't really mind it being allowed for this competition since, as has already been discussed, this is more about enjoying the process than the outcome. But, since it was specified that non-fiction books aren't allowed (a pity; I would've liked to nominate one for at least one decade!) this book seems ineligible.

[Catlady]

Of course it's nonfiction!

[pdurrant]

Hmm.... OK, I'll have another think about this one.

[Jeff L]

Late to the game. Not a full list, but these are the books I give to others the most. They're the breakout novels that put their authors on the map.

1951-1960 The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow (1953)

1981-1990 City of Glass by Paul Auster (1985)

1991-2000 The Gold Bug Variations by Richard Powers (1991)


The Adventures of Augie March
Like other books with "Adventures" in the title, this is a picaresque novel, a romp through the country and the times.


City of Glass
Nowadays, this is packaged by the publisher as part of the New York Trilogy, along with Ghosts (1986) and The Locked Room (1986), all from the 1980s. Auster is an inventive stylist whose spareness is sometimes described as minimalist, but that's only superficial. Where other minimalists tend towards realism, Auster is more theater of the absurd, but with the original fun and not the later angst, and all in the context of a seeming detective story.


The Gold Bug Variations
Commentary about Powers usually mentions CP Snow's idea about Two Cultures, the split between science and the humanities. Powers' books often range over both terrains expansively. Like Gödel, Escher, Bach but as a novel, the book covers math, music, genetics, and art.



ETA:

1941 - 1950 All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren (1946)

[Lynx-lynx]

This is my voting list, the list that speaks to me 'best'.

1910 - Henry Handel Richardson - The Getting of Wisdom
1916 - CJ Dennis - Songs of the Sentimental Bloke
1930 - Vance Palmer - The Passage
1933 - Dorothy Wall - Blinky Bill
1943 - Kylie Tennant - Ride on Stranger
1958 - Nancy Cato - All The Rivers Run
1964 - George Johnston - My Brother Jack
1975 - Tom Keneally - Gossip from the Forest
1981 - Colleen McCullough - An Indecent Obsession
1993 - Frank Moorhouse - - Grand Days

(This is my non-voting list, the list of some of the 'Best' literature I've read.
1929 - Jean Cocteau - Les Enfants Terrible
1942 - Albert Camus - L'Etranger
1988 - Peter Carey - Oscar and Lucinda

I find myself nodding in agreement with many other peoples contributions as well. So many choices in some decades of the books that I've read, and none that I'd want to include in other decades, so both lists just represent what speaks to me.)

[pdurrant]

A reminder that nominations will close at the end of April. You have less than a week left to ponder and post, if you haven't posted yet.

[sun surfer]

Are you going to nominate any, Paul? I'd be interested to see your list.

[caleb72]

OK - I'm finally ready to add some books.

1901 - 1910: Call of the Wild by Jack London (1903)
1911 - 1920: Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton (1911)
1921 - 1930: We by Yevgeny Zamyatin (1921)
1931 - 1940: Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (1939)
1941 - 1950: L'Étranger by Albert Camus (1942)
1951 - 1960: To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1960)
1961 - 1970: The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin (1969)
1971 - 1980: The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov (1972)
1981 - 1990: Skallagrigg by William Horwood (1987)
1991 - 2000: Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson (1999)

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by sun surfer

Are you going to nominate any, Paul? I'd be interested to see your list.

I've nominated one so far. I'll come up with a list soon.

[HomeInMyShoes]

You'd better. Voting is supposed to start at the end of the week.

[pdurrant]

I shall be tallying up the results this evening and starting voting threads shortly.

If anyone has some last-minute nominations, you may make them NOW, provided they get posted before I start making up lists. I shall post again in this thread when I start work on the voting lists.

[Lynx-lynx]

Paul, issybird made a suggestion some pages (?) Back that some sort of qualitative data be captured as part of the voting process, can that occur please?

Perhaps the qualitative questions could include: gender, age, predominant current reading genre and/or other suggestions. The responses could be voluntary.

Another thought is that one survey could be dedicated to these questions alone.

Sending via phone, so I can't link you to Issy's post.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Lynx-lynx

Paul, issybird made a suggestion some pages (?) Back that some sort of qualitative data be captured as part of the voting process, can that occur please?

Perhaps the qualitative questions could include: gender, age, predominant current reading genre and/or other suggestions. The responses could be voluntary.

Another thought is that one survey could be dedicated to these questions alone.

Sending via phone, so I can't link you to Issy's post.

I don't mind adding in a vote thread to capture that data, from those willing to provide it. I'd make it an anonymous vote, of course.

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I don't mind adding in a vote thread to capture that data, from those willing to provide it. I'd make it an anonymous vote, of course.

I understand the need to make it optional to be anonymous. It does sort of kill the reason for seeking the data, that being how a persons age, nationality, education, vocation, ...,? influences their selection.

I don't mind revealing that about myself.