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Wow, I've actually read several of these. I'm shocked.

The Times of London has published their "The 100 Best Books of the Decade" list. Here are the ones I've read, and the ones that were already on my to-read list.

Already Read
42. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel (2006)
37. William Trevor: The Collected Stories (2009)
14. Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi (2003)
9. Atonement by Ian McEwan (2001)
2. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (2003)
1. The Road by Cormac McCarthy (2006)

On My List
97. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (2007)
68. Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson (2005)
66. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (2004)
51. Home by Marilynne Robinson (2008)
46. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (2002)
44. Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner (2005)
40. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight trans Simon Armitage (2007)
24. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (2005)
22. The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman (2000)
3. Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama (2004)

Comments:
+ Trevor is on the "read" list with an asterisk, because while I haven't read that specific volume, I've read several of his other story collections, which I assume partially overlap with The Collected Stories.
+ I liked Bechdel's book, but as far as "graphic memoirs" go, Joe Sacco's Palestine and Art Spiegelman's In the Shadow of No Towers were both much better.
+ I wouldn't even put Nafisi's book on a list of the hundred best books I've ever read, let alone of the decade.
+ Absolutely no argument here with numbers 9, 2 and 1. Great books all.

November 25, 2009 in Books | Permalink

Comments

I believe I've read 21 of them. I agree, 1, 2 & 9 were all excellent. And I was surprised but happy to see Pullman on the list. (Although with Dan Brown and Stephanie Meyer included, it's hardly a literary achievement!)

Posted by: Julie at Nov 25, 2009 3:09:16 PM

I hardly think "The Kindly Ones" is one of the best books of the decade. Then again, I couldn't even finish it, it was such a mess. "Middlesex" was good, though it was very uneven. "Freakonomics"? Eh, it was okay, and probably only made the list because of some of its theories (including the theory that abortions in the '70s were behind declining crime rates in the '90s). I haven't read Armitage's translation of "Gawain," but I liked Marie Boroff's 1967 translation.

In all, a pretty unimpressive list. It's really about the most popular, most talked-about books of the decade.

Posted by: Brandon at Nov 26, 2009 9:34:00 PM

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