Books& To CheckoutPosted by Tim on November 30, 2007 at 10:26 AM
The New York Times has whittled their list of 100 Notable Books of 2007 to a more manageable 10 Best Books of 2007. They are:
Fiction:
- Man Gone Down by Michael Thomas
- Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson (excerpt)
- The Savage Detectives by Robert Bolaño (excerpt)
- Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris (excerpt available at link)
- Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson (excerpt)
Non-Fiction:
- Imperial Life int he Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone by Rajiv Chandrasekaran (excerpt)
- Little Heathens : Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression by Mildred Armstrong Kalish (excerpt)
- The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin (excerpt)
- The Ordeal Of Elizabeth Marsh: A Woman in World History by Linda Colley (excerpt)
- The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century by Alex Ross (audio samples)
November 30th, 2007 at 10:39 am
Lists are entirely subjective I know, and not worth getting bothered about, but it does bother me that not one work of fiction by a woman was determined to be this notable, and only 2/10 books in total. Though of course there are even worse things to bother about but still…
November 30th, 2007 at 11:56 am
Yikes! I never knew I was a philistine until I read this list. I haven’t read any of the top ten books! Several are on my wish list; maybe I should take a week of vacation and catch up.
November 30th, 2007 at 2:43 pm
Kerry: I see your point, but the list does have some diversity with Bolaño, Petterson, Thomas, and Chandrasekaran. If you add those guys to the list of ladies, less than half of the list are white American guys! It’s like a melting pot (with tongue planted firmly in cheek.
Beth: Listening to the 20th Century seems up your alley.
December 3rd, 2007 at 11:54 am
Kerry- I immediately noticed the same thing. Considering how subjective the creation of such a list is, it would have been nice if the NYT had explained how this “best” list was created– or if they did, I do not see it. I find it pretty deplorable.