21st Century Literature discussion

Take a look at the group's bookshelves and let us know the 21st century selections destined for the ages that you think we've missed (or maybe just haven't gotten to yet). Can be specific books or authors.

Merry Christmas for those celebrating this week!

It is too easy to make this a laundry list of authors and books I like. Anything by Ottessa Moshfegh, Naomi Alderman, Samanta Schweblin, or Cesar Aira would be great additions.

But if I have to pick one book to add to the list I would pick Heads Of The Colored People by Nafissa Thompson-Spires. It's a collection of short stories and her first book. It was published in 2018 and was nominated for a few awards. The collection is outstanding and I expect there will be more great things coming from her in the future. Highly recommended.

Two that certainly have garnered a lot of critical praise (neither of which I've gotten to, yet) are Salvage the Bones and Lincoln in the Bardo.

Jesmyn Ward's Sing, Unburied, Sing is excellent. I intend to get to Salvage the Bones eventually as well.

David wrote: "Jesmyn Ward's Sing, Unburied, Sing is excellent. I intend to get to Salvage the Bones eventually as well."

Another that certainly has a lot of critical acclaim, maybe even more than Salvage the Bones. I can't believe we haven't read any Ward, yet! Going to the top of my moderator pick list.

David wrote: "It is too easy to make this a laundry list of authors and books I like. Anything by Ottessa Moshfegh, Naomi Alderman, Samanta Schweblin, or Cesar Aira would be great additions.

But if I have to pi..."

What a fantastic story collection! I enjoyed reading it

I'm surprised that no one mentioned Kate Mayfield's The Parentations. It truly is an excellent novel.

I can't give a quick answer to this one! When I first joined the group Siri Hustvedt was the first name on my list but that has now been rectified. Will have to do a proper comparison of my lists with the group bookshelf but I am not sure when I'll have time...

For fun, I went through the "we've read it" list for this group, and lined it up with a provisional list of authors, all of which have done significant work in the 21st century but none of whom appear in this list. My own list of, if you will, "neglected authors" follows:

Emily Arsenault
Paul Auster
Fredrik Backman
Jesse Ball
Nicola Barker
Robert Jackson Bennett
Chris Bohjalian
Blake Butler
Ron Currie
Emma Donoghue
Percival Everett
Michel Faber
Tana French
Alice Hoffman
A. M. Homes
Michel Houellebecq
Howard Jacobson
A. L. Kennedy
Etgar Keret
Marina Lewycka
Tom McCarthy
China Mieville
Lydia Millet
Magnus Mills
Joyce Carol Oates
Matthew Pearl
Matt Ruff
Will Self
Scarlett Thomas

Please amend or correct me if I've made errors in compiling this list ... thanks!

Jerry wrote: "For fun, I went through the "we've read it" list for this group, and lined it up with a provisional list of authors, all of which have done significant work in the 21st century but none of whom app..."

One point I should add in "screening" my authors: For the most part, I chose to OMIT authors who mainly wrote "series" books. The only exception to this rule is Tana French, whose work is just too good to omit her from the list. However, since I've already read all of her stuff, I won't mind if others ignore her presence on the list.

That's quite a list, Jerry, and it doesn't even look like it addresses major writers from Central and South America, Asia, Eastern Europe, etc.

My own biased list would probably include (in no particular order):
- Cynthia Ozick
- Don DeLillo
- Lynne Tillman
- Miranda July
- Tatyana Tolstaya
- Olga Tokarczuk
- Ben Meyers
- Ben Marcus
- Sjón
- Rachel Cusk

Marc wrote: "That's quite a list, Jerry, and it doesn't even look like it addresses major writers from Central and South America, Asia, Eastern Europe, etc.

My own biased list would probably include (in no par..."

It's true, and I should have added a disclaimer to the effect that the list reflects my own limited reading tastes, which, although rather wide in some respects, fail the "breadth" test miserably when measured along international lines. I generally like to read several books at a time, and keeping track of characters' names and identities is crucial to the success of this endeavor. If I'm going to read a book full of proper nouns with which I have no experience, my head cannot hold all these names adequately while I'm "juggling" other books. So while I do read books not written by American, Canadian, English, etc authors, when I do so I pretty much need to curb my multiple-books-at-a-time habit and commit more single-mindedly to a particular book.

Jerry,
You can see my own list is pretty sorely lacking international options. No one person can cover it all, which is the joy/opportunity of being in a group. :D

Curbing one's multiple-books-at-a-time habit is no small choice!

Multiple-books-at-a-time need not be curbed!!

Good lists, some authors which I have touched/read, most not, unfortunately.

I will mention here:

Assia Djebar
Nuruddin Farah
Patricia Grace
Rohinton Mistry
Mia Couto

David Malouf
Álvaro Mutis
Adam Zagajewski
Claribel Alegría
Duo Duo
Dubravka Ugrešić.
Edwidge Danticat

I will plead guilty to not cross checking these -- some may have been read here. A number of these did much, if not all their (best?) work before the turn of the century, e.g., Assia Djebar. What all of these have in common is having been Neustadt prize winners, which some of you have heard me speak to elsewhere as our not having given the same look-at as some other major literary prizes...true or false as that statement may or may not be.

I will try to revisit this and cull if appropriate.

Postscript 1 -- I did not find any of these on the bookshelf of books we have read, including even David Malouf. Doesn't mean I didn't miss one or more.

I mentioned this author and novel briefly in my self intro but I'll add both now officially. Based on this group's mission, I was actually surprised this book was not already a group read and I went through the group bookshelf twice to see if I had missed it.

I think author Amor Towles would be one to watch now and in the future. His second novel, one that I feel is a taut modern masterpiece, 'A Gentleman in Moscow' is a billowing force. Not necessarily because this was, by a mile, my number 1 favorite read of 2018, but because 'A Gentleman in Moscow' encompasses what literary masterpieces are usually made of.

In addition to the inspired accounts from readers like me, I think Towles' writing, and the novel itself, stand on their merits. It is cerebral, scholarly, sharp, witty, charming, delightful, emotionally resonant, and deeply affecting - so much so that six months after turning the last page, it still resonates, and the characters are still speaking to me long after I turned their pages.

From my perspective, writing like Towles' is exceptional and rare. It is intelligent without being pretentious, it is vivid without being suffocatingly overwrought, and it is relatable without being cloyingly sweet or cliched. Of course, this is all my opinion, but I'd also say the organic word of mouth by others who have read it would agree.

Whether as a group read, or if you each decide to explore it individually, I think many will come to understand why 'A Gentleman in Moscow' should take a spot on this list.

Cindle | kindle w/a C. wrote: "I think many will come to understand why 'A Gentleman in Moscow' should take a spot on this list...."

I do want to go back and read Amor Towles's Rules of Civility. Like so many others, I found A Gentleman in Moscow to be a very enjoyable read. However, see my review here (view spoiler)[https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... (hide spoiler)] as to why interactions with other goodreads readers (view spoiler)[ especially some on the Popsugar board (hide spoiler)] as well as friends with acquaintances familiar with Russia of that era and finally even with a respected professional book critic have all eventually led me to wonder how to evaluate and consider this novel. I'd be interested in your viewpoint, Cindle. How important is probable historical possibility to evaluation of a piece of historical fiction, especially when set against the standards of looking for lasting excellence of this board? And yet I relished the idea that a man such as the Gentleman could have existed. And clearly we allow many characters to be frankly fictional.... Still, somehow in the setting used and developed by Towles, ...

Here is part of the discussion on Popsugar, but still not the extremely negative comments in some other entries, based largely on perceived conditions in Russia at the time of the setting of the novel, that sort of started me down the path of thinking about the significance of this novel among literary outputs: (view spoiler)[https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/... (hide spoiler)] I don't find those initiating comments tonight.

OK, this is entirely subjective, but based on my ratings of books published since 2000, and comparing my list with the group's selected authors, these are the ones by whom I have read at least two 21st century books with an average rating over 4 stars (this is rather an Anglocentric list):

Olga Tokarczuk*, Joanna Kavenna, Deborah Levy*, Neel Mukherjee, Benjamin Myers, Kamila Shamsie, Nadeem Aslam*, Jim Crace*, Daisy Johnson, Paul Kingsnorth, Annie Proulx*, Sally Rooney, Henrietta Rose-Innes, Amy Sackville, Andreï Makine*, Anna Burns, Damon Galgut, Jeanette Winterson*, Donal Ryan, Adam Thorpe*, Andrew Greig*

and an edited selection of those who average slightly less:
John Banville*, Pat Barker*, Kevin Barry, Rachel Cusk*, Sarah Hall, Eimear McBride, Marie Ndiaye, Cees Nooteboom*, Elizabeth Strout, Graham Swift*, Niall Williams*, Evie Wyld

Several of these are writers I have nominated unsuccessfully for the open pick.

These are the ones with only one 21st century book on my list, which I awarded 5 stars to:

Martin Booth, Kevin Davey, Daša Drndić, Guy Gunaratne, Ariana Harwicz, Gabriel Josipovici, Thomas Keneally*, Bernard MacLaverty*, Anne Michaels*, Alex Pheby, Francis Spufford, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o*, William Trevor*, Eley Williams

Those marked * have at least one pre-2000 book that I have read

[understatement]Looks like this group still has a couple of 21st century authors to cover.[/understatement]

An embarrassment of riches, for sure.