List-o-Phile Monday

Last week we wrapped up the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, 2008 edition – the added books. The next three weeks I’ll be posting the books they REMOVED from the 2006 edition. I wanted to post what they added first, so you could get a sense of that before I showed you what they removed to make way. This is the list that will make you angry. It makes me angry. The first 100 here aren’t so bad, though. It’s nice to see some of the 10 or so J.M. Coetzee that were on the original list be removed, as well as books like Memoirs of a Geisha. On the other hand, even with this part of the list, there are ones that were removed that are very frustrating. Now, I’ve never read a novel by Chuck Palahniuk (which is something I intend to correct this year), but I know that he’s very popular, and that his fiction is innovative and unique. And yet they remove the ONLY Palahniuk novel that was on the list, and it is not replaced by another one.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the criticism of the list – like most of these types of lists - being male-centered, and Western centered. It’s my understanding that the 2008 update to the list was done in part to correct these deficiencies. While it seems to me that they certainly did regarding the Western part, I’m not so sure about the male part. While they certainly added some women who were overlooked for the first edition, such as Eudora Welty and Alice Monro, as well as a number of lesser known and non-Western female authors, they did so at the expense (once again) of some of the giants not only of women’s literature, but of Western literature in general. They removed one of the two Gertrude Stein’s on the list (and arguably the one that had more influence), and they removed multiple titles by Charlotte Bronte, Jane Austen, Edith Wharton and Virginia Woolf, in addition to Margaret Atwood and Jeanette Winterson. Now, I’m not arguing that because of who Virginia Woolf or Jane Austen were, that because of their place individually in the history of literature all of their works need to be on the list. Far from it. But if any of their novels, taken individually are better books than, oh, say some works by Henri Barbusse, which was left ON the list…then the better book should be on there. And frankly, the works of Jane Austen ARE better than the works of Henri Barbusse – at least what I’ve read. And THAT’s what makes me angry. I don’t really have beef with most of the books that were added – except, *cough, cough* Suite Francaise (oh how I wanted to like it!) – but with what they took off to make room.

As always, list is in reverse chronological order and red (or a link) indicates that I've read it.

1. Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro
2. Saturday – Ian McEwan
3. On Beauty – Zadie Smith
4. Slow Man – J.M. Coetzee
5. Adjunct: An Undigest – Peter Manson
6. The Red Queen – Margaret Drabble
7. Vanishing Point – David Markson
8. *The Lambs of London – Peter Ackroyd
9. Dining on Stones – Iain Sinclair
10. Drop City – T. Coraghessan Boyle
11. The Colour – Rose Tremain
12. Thursbitch – Alan Garner
13. The Light of Day – Graham Swift
14. Elizabeth Costello – J.M. Coetzee
15. London Orbital – Iain Sinclair
16. Family Matters – Rohinton Mistry
17. Fingersmith – Sarah Waters
18. The Double – José Saramago
19. Unless – Carol Shields
20. The Story of Lucy Gault – William Trevor
21. That They May Face the Rising Sun – John McGahern
22. In the Forest – Edna O’Brien
23. Shroud – John Banville
24. Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides
25. Youth – J.M. Coetzee
26. Dead Air – Iain Banks
27. The Book of Illusions – Paul Auster
28. Gabriel’s Gift – Hanif Kureishi
29. Schooling – Heather McGowan
30. Don’t Move – Margaret Mazzantini
31. The Body Artist – Don DeLillo
32. Fury – Salman Rushdie
33. At Swim, Two Boys – Jamie O’Neill
34. Choke – Chuck Palahniuk
35. An Obedient Father – Akhil Sharma
36. Ignorance – Milan Kundera
37. Nineteen Seventy Seven – David Peace
38. City of God – E.L. Doctorow
39. How the Dead Live – Will Self
40. The Blind Assassin – Margaret Atwood
41. After the Quake – Haruki Murakami
42. Super-Cannes – J.G. Ballard
43. House of Leaves – Mark Z. Danielewski
44. Blonde – Joyce Carol Oates
45. Pastoralia – George Saunders
46. Timbuktu – Paul Auster
47. The Romantics – Pankaj Mishra
48. Cryptonomicon – Neal Stephenson
49. Everything You Need – A.L. Kennedy
50. The Ground Beneath Her Feet – Salman Rushdie
51. Sputnik Sweetheart – Haruki Murakami
52. Intimacy – Hanif Kureishi
53. Amsterdam – Ian McEwan
54. Cloudsplitter – Russell Banks
55. Tipping the Velvet – Sarah Waters
56. Glamorama – Bret Easton Ellis
57. Another World – Pat Barker
58. Mason & Dixon – Thomas Pynchon
59. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
60. Great Apes – Will Self
61. American Pastoral – Philip Roth
62. The Untouchable – John Banville
63. Cocaine Nights – J.G. Ballard
64. The Information – Martin Amis
65. The Moor’s Last Sigh – Salman Rushdie
66. Sabbath’s Theater – Philip Roth
67. The Rings of Saturn – W.G. Sebald
68. Mr. Vertigo – Paul Auster
69. The Folding Star – Alan Hollinghurst
70. The Master of Petersburg – J.M. Coetzee
71. Trainspotting – Irvine Welsh
72. Complicity – Iain Banks
73. Operation Shylock – Philip Roth
74. The House of Doctor Dee – Peter Ackroyd
75. The Robber Bride – Margaret Atwood
76. The Emigrants – W.G. Sebald
77. A Heart So White – Javier Marias
78. Jazz – Toni Morrison
79. Black Water – Joyce Carol Oates
80. The Heather Blazing – Colm Tóibín
81. Black Dogs – Ian McEwan
82. Time’s Arrow – Martin Amis
83. Downriver – Iain Sinclair
84. Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord – Louis de Bernieres
85. Wise Children – Angela Carter
86. Vineland – Thomas Pynchon
87. A Home at the End of the World – Michael Cunningham
88. Possession – A.S. Byatt
89. A Disaffection – James Kelman
90. Billy Bathgate – E.L. Doctorow
91. The Temple of My Familiar – Alice Walker
92. The Book of Evidence – John Banville
93. Cat’s Eye – Margaret Atwood
94. The Beautiful Room is Empty – Edmund White
95. Libra – Don DeLillo
96. The Player of Games – Iain M. Banks
97. The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul – Douglas Adams
98. The Passion – Jeanette Winterson
99. The Child in Time – Ian McEwan
100. Marya – Joyce Carol Oates