From my list.
The New York Times recently put out a list of the 100 best books of the century (e.g., the first quarter century, of course). And here is a list of "ten best" books by Stephen King and other authors. Here is the list compiled from reader favorites.
Here isTyler Cowen's ten best list.
Here is Freddie Deboer on the Times' list.
I don't know that my list would necessarily be any worse than anyone else's, so here is my ten best list (in no particular order):
Email to the Universe, Robert Anton Wilson.
Anathem, Neal Stephenson.
Ha'Penny, Jo Walton.
Surface Detail, Iain Banks.
Somnium, Steve Moore.
Too Like the Lightning, Ada Palmer.
The Scythian Empire, Christopher Beckwith.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Susanna Clarke.
The KLF: Chaos, Magic and the Band who Burned a Million Pounds, John Higgs.
The United States of Paranoia, Jesse Walker.
Bonus culture link: My new Substack piece on classical music on Hoopla.
7 comments:
Off the top of my head, my list.
1. The Dawn of Everything, David Graeber
2. Tree of Smoke, Denis Johnson
3. Inherent Vice, Thomas Pynchon
4. Bleeding Edge, Thomas Pynchon
5. Sudden Death, Alvaro Enrigue
6. Modes of Sentience, Peter Sjostedt-Hughes
7. A Letter to My Children, Raoul Vaneigem
8. The Wilds of Poetry, David Hinton
9. The City and the City, China Mieville
10. When We Cease to Understand the World, Benjamin Lanatut
As I said. Those are off the top of my head so there’s probably a recency bias. I’m sure there’d be some changes if I took the time to think about it.
1. American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis
2. Trickster Makes This World, Lewis Hyde
3. Overstory, Richard Powers
4. Quantum Psychology, Robert Anton Wilson
5. Human Smoke, Nicholson Baker
6. Economics in One Lesson, Henry Hazlitt
7. Glamorama, Bret Easton Ellis
8. Seventy Eight Degrees of Wisdom, Rachel Pollack
9. The Way of Zen, Alan Watts
10.The Real Anthony Fauci, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Two I wish had got recognition:
Chronic City by Lethem
Gnomon by Harkaway
Thanks for including me!
@Lvx15 I liked Gnomon, too. If you haven't seen this, it might be of interest:
http://www.rawillumination.net/2019/02/nick-harkaways-gnomon.html
Nice one, thanks Tom!
Ten 21st century books I love and have read more than once:
I, Wabenzi by Rafi Zabor
Street Legal by Rafi Zabor
TSOG by Robert Anton Wilson
email to the universe by Robert Anton Wilson
Opera and the Morbidity of Music by Joseph Kerman
Against the Day by Thomas Pynchon
Beethoven's Piano Sonatas: A Short Companion by Charles Rosen
The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood by David Thomson
Try to Tell the Story by David Thomson
Moments That Made the Movies by David Thomson
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