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

[Glorfindel]

[pynch]

Originally Posted by Lynx-lynx

Did you have some sort of conversion in the early 90's?

No, but I didn’t like Infinite Jest, so I had to find something else.

[BelleZora]

Originally Posted by pynch

1901-1910 Nostromo (1904) by Joseph Conrad.

1911-1920 A la recherche du temps perdu (1913-1927) by Marcel Proust.

1921-1930 Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften (1930-32) by Robert Musil.
I have tried to avoid previously nominated books, so no Ulysses here.

1931-1940 The Waves (1931) by Virginia Woolf.

1941-1950 Querelle de Brest (1947) by Jean Genet.

1951-1960 En attendant Godot (1952) by Samuel Beckett.
I’m looking forward very much to the constructive discussion comparing the transcendental homelessness of the characters in this one and The Lord of the Rings!

1961-1970 Franny and Zooey (1961) by J.D. Salinger.

1971-1980 Gravity’s Rainbow (1973) by Thomas Pynchon.

1981-1990 White Noise (1985) by Don DeLillo.

1981-1990 No Greater Love (1991) by Danielle Steel.

Originally Posted by Lynx-lynx

@pynch, you've listed some tremendous literature in your selections, and then for the 1990's you've nominated Danielle Steel. Did you have some sort of conversion in the early 90's?

Originally Posted by pynch

No, but I didn’t like Infinite Jest, so I had to find something else.

Posts like these make my day and confirm my love for MR. I nominated Skinny Legs and All by Tom Robbins not only because it deserves more attention for both the humor and the audacious tackling of the most sensitive issues of the decade, but it also makes for a more interesting list. I say, nominate whatever we have most loved and let it all get sorted out in the end. Better than copying lists from the 'experts'. I'm delighted with the interesting nominations.

[disconnected]

Originally Posted by Lynx-lynx

Those still looking (struggling?) to put together their decade nominations may be interested in downloading a preview of this Anthology:
Authors of the Early to mid-20th Century
by Britannica Educational Publishing
The Britannica Guide to Authors

The table of contents lists many authors as the title suggests, and may serve as a memory prompt of authors/books you've read (or new/reminder source of authors to read - both apply to me )

My library has the ebook so your library may also.

If you want the preview then I know that it's available at Kobo, but didn't show up in Amazon for me.

Edit
I'm also quite excited about this exercise, because it's made me shift from the mind set of just reading mystery type books to literature books again. And with the Kobo Refer program still active I've been able to indulge my fancies!

I started by making a list of books and authors that immediately came to mind as being particularly enjoyable or memorable. Then I looked up their dates.

I have been a total mystery addict (especially the "Golden Age" sort -- thrilled that so many are ebooks now) since I found Nancy Drew at age ten or thereabouts, so I wasn't surprised that a great percentage of my list was mysteries.

It was a bit shocking though that after I sorted by date, I found that almost every non-mystery book I had listed was published between the late fifties and mid eighties and read by me between the mid sixties and mid eighties, when I was aged about twenty to forty. I can remember reading NYT book reviews, sharing books with friends, and having long late-night discussions of books we'd been reading.

Apparently when I turned forty I reverted to reading mysteries almost exclusively and tuned out the rest of the literary world forever.

[Greg Anos]

Decision for 1901-1910:

The Devil's Dictionary - Ambrose Bierce

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by disconnected

I started by making a list of books and authors that immediately came to mind as being particularly enjoyable or memorable. Then I looked up their dates.

I have been a total mystery addict (especially the "Golden Age" sort -- thrilled that so many are ebooks now) since I found Nancy Drew at age ten or thereabouts, so I wasn't surprised that a great percentage of my list was mysteries.

It was a bit shocking though that after I sorted by date, I found that almost every non-mystery book I had listed was published between the late fifties and mid eighties and read by me between the mid sixties and mid eighties, when I was aged about twenty to forty. I can remember reading NYT book reviews, sharing books with friends, and having long late-night discussions of books we'd been reading.

Apparently when I turned forty I reverted to reading mysteries almost exclusively and tuned out the rest of the literary world forever.

It is very interesting to note those patterns. I participated in a poll/discussion once where we all went to our bookshelves and gave percentages of the male to female writers found there. There was also a genre breakdown. I think the most fun was had because we surprised ourselves with the stats!

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by BelleZora

I say, nominate whatever we have most loved and let it all get sorted out in the end. Better than copying lists from the 'experts'. I'm delighted with the interesting nominations.

Exactly so. I want personal nominations of books that people have actually read and consider 'best' by whatever criteria they want to judge 'best'.

There's no point in nominating a book by reputation.

[Lynx-lynx]

Originally Posted by BelleZora

Posts like these make my day and confirm my love for MR. I nominated Skinny Legs and All by Tom Robbins not only because it deserves more attention for both the humor and the audacious tackling of the most sensitive issues of the decade, but it also makes for a more interesting list. I say, nominate whatever we have most loved and let it all get sorted out in the end. Better than copying lists from the 'experts'. I'm delighted with the interesting nominations.

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Exactly so. I want personal nominations of books that people have actually read and consider 'best' by whatever criteria they want to judge 'best'.

There's no point in nominating a book by reputation.

I couldn't agree more with you. Mixed in with my 1950's authors/books is Dr Seuss' The Cat in the Hat. I loved his books when I was being introduced to reading, and I used them to learn new words and a different way of looking at things (and I've always loved cats).

On another note - Paul I'm still trying to work through how the voting is going to be anything other than an outcome that identifies the greatest number of people who have read a particular author/book during a particular ten year period.

By that I mean that I know I'm only going to vote for a book that I've read, and that for me is the best in the decade, and I would imagine that is how people are intended to voted. So, that being the case, it seems to me that the book that generates the most votes will in fact be the most read book of that decade and therefore considered 'the best book' of the decade (whatever that should mean to the individual), by default.

As the greatest number of participants are likely to be US citizens then the vote will be weighted to reflect the greatest number of US citizens who have read the author/book in any given decade.

My thinking flawed?

What I'm getting out of this thread is the enjoyment of reading people's nominations and an updated reading list, and whilst I will put my list forward, the outcome of the vote isn't of particular importance - but it will be of interest.

[Greg Anos]

Look at is this way, Lynx-Lynx. We should get a great list of personally vetted books to read that we may not have read...

[Lynx-lynx]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Look at is this way, Lynx-Lynx. We should get a great list of personally vetted books to read that we may not have read...

Definitely! And I've now purchased a number of these nominated ebooks and have started to read them; and one or more may be included in my final decade selections.

[HomeInMyShoes]

Yertle the Turtle is absolute genius.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Lynx-lynx

What I'm getting out of this thread is the enjoyment of reading people's nominations and an updated reading list, and whilst I will put my list forward, the outcome of the vote isn't of particular importance - but it will be of interest.

Any 'best' list is inevitably a popularity contest in some way. And I agree that it's likely to be the process rather than the outcome that's of most interest to members.

[HomeInMyShoes]

^I am totally there for the process.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Lynx-lynx

As the greatest number of participants are likely to be US citizens then the vote will be weighted to reflect the greatest number of US citizens who have read the author/book in any given decade.

I guess I don't see the significance of this, or even that it's much of a factor.

More Americans voting? Sure. But so what? I think this is only indirectly important, as a factor in the most significant aspect of both books and voters which is that they're overwhelmingly Anglophone. There's a huge British presence in the nominated books, so if you're going to attach some significance to Americans' reading and voting for British books, that's fine, but I don't see what that tells us.

After the Anglophone factor, which I expect crosses Anglophone national lines fairly impartially, I think the next most significant factor is going to be genre. At least to me, this board seems heavily weighted toward SFF. I'd be very surprised if Tolkien and Adams didn't win in their respective categories (and, to state the obvious, they're English).

Also of more importance than the plurality if not majority of American voters, I'd guess would be sex and age. It could be interesting to look at sex when the dust settles, but age would be impossible to quantify. Level of education is also likely to be a factor.

So I'd guess I'd like to know why you think a preponderance of American voters (as opposed to Anglphone voters) matters and what it would say about the selections. I find it odd to see being American singled out, when there are so very many social and demographic differences.

[treadlightly]

When I scroll through the nominators, the locations reported didn't strike me as being overwhelmingly American.