Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

A new thread for 2015.

"The Best Books This Year Are All Written by Women: A Guide for 2015" by Jason Parham

Binary Star by Sarah Gerard (January 13)
Unbecoming by Rebecca Scherm(January 22)
Disgruntled by Asali Solomon (February 3)
Gods and Kings: The Rise and Fall of Alexander McQueen and John Galliano by Dana Thomas (February 10)
A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler (February 10)
Is Shame Necessary?: New Uses for an Old Tool by Jennifer Jacquet (February 17)
Night at the Fiestas: Stories by Kirstin Valdez Quade (March 23)
The Turner House by Angela Flournoy (April 14)
God Help the Child by Toni Morrison (April 21)
The State We're In: Maine Stories by Ann Beattie (August 11)

From the 21st Century Literature Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ board:

I [Linda] spent some time viewing various lists of the most anticipated 2015 titles. Here are ten of those that showed up on more than one list --
1. The First Bad Man by Miranda July
2. The Sellout by Paul Beatty
3. Academy Street by Mary Costello (published in Ireland in 2014 and a prize winner)
4. Mislaid: A Novel by Nell Zink
5. The Making of Zombie Wars: A Novel by Aleksandar Hemon
6. Purity by Jonathan Franzen
7. City on Fire by Garth Risk Hallberg
8. Early Warning: A novel by Jane Smiley
9. A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson
10. (not sure if this is fiction but it showed up on 3 lists) Almost Famous Women: Stories by Megan Mayhew Bergman

Original list can be found here:
/topic/show/...

Commentary on Fifty Shades of Grey

Some lists related to historical novels:





Lily King, author of the second commentary, is author of the currently popular Euphoria.

BBC Culture poll of US critics on the best fiction since 2000:

1. Junot Díaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007)
2. Edward P. Jones, The Known World (2003)
3. Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall (2009)
4. Marilynne Robinson, Gilead (2004)
5. Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections (2001)
6. Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (2000)
7. Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad (2010)
8. Ben Fountain, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk (2012)
9. Ian McEwan, Atonement (2001)
10. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Half of a Yellow Sun (2006)
11. Zadie Smith, White Teeth (2000)
12. Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex (2002)

The runners-up were:

13. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah
14. W.G. Sebald, Austerlitz
15. Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend
16. Alan Hollinghurst, The Line of Beauty
17. Cormac McCarthy, The Road
18. Zadie Smith, NW
19. Roberto Bolaño, 2666
20. Shirley Hazzard, The Great Fire

What do you make of this list? Do you agree that these are the best novels of the century so far? ....



Originally posted in another thread (duplicate, now deleted, hopefully), January 26, 2015.

From Donna, 3/15/15
15 Brilliant Books That Won The National Book Critics Circle Award For Fiction
The Huffington Post | By Claire Fallon

Posted: 03/13/2015 6:30 pm EDT Updated: 03/13/2015 6:59 pm EDT
BOOK AWARD

The National Book Critics Circle Awards for 2014 were announced Thursday, with top honors going to Marilynne Robinson’s quietly searing novel Lila for Fiction and Claudia Rankine’s politically charged collection Citizen for Poetry, and more. Robinson and Rankine were both finalists for the National Book Awards in their categories, though they lost out to Phil Klay’s Redeployment and Louise Glück’s Faithful and Virtuous Night, respectively.

The National Book Critics Circle Awards don’t have quite the same public cachet as the National Book Awards, but they often give exemplary books a shot at recognition they didn’t receive from the National Book Awards. In fiction, for example, there’s little overlap between past winners of the two awards.

The NBCC Awards do, nonetheless, sometimes pick duds -- the past winners include some books that quickly faded to relative obscurity, while some defeated finalists have become modern classics. Don DeLillo’s masterful White Noise is frequently read, taught, and discussed today, but it lost out to Anne Tyler’s The Accidental Tourist in 1985. Controversial cases aside, the NBCC Awards have highlighted many exquisitely crafted, profoundly insightful books worth reading again and again.

Along with Marilynne Robinson’s gorgeous Lila, Claudia Rankine’s stirring Citizen, and the rest of this year’s awardees, here are 15 incredible novels and short story collections that won a National Book Critics Circle Award that you should add to your reading list immediately:

A Visit From the Goon Squad Jennifer Egan (2010, Fiction)
A hauntingly beautiful novel that reads like a set of short stories, Egan’s 2010 book follows a crew of loosely linked individuals as they negotiate the treacherous realms of the music industry, fame, and the uncertain future. Both thought-provoking and stylistically stunning.

Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel (2009, Fiction)
For fans of historical fiction, Wolf Hall is the ultimate -- political intrigue, period detail, and outstanding writing. In fact, even those averse to historical fiction may find themselves seduced by Mantel’s approach.

2666, Roberto Bolaño (2008, Fiction)
Bolaño’s last book examines a series of unsolved murders of women in Santa Teresa, Mexico, though in his typical fashion he does so in five sprawling sections, through a huge cast of characters and in an array of narrative styles. It’s considered the masterpiece of a truly great writer, though at over 900 pages it’s no easy lift.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz (2007, Fiction)
Diaz’s only completed novel -- he’s written two short story collections as well -- brims with personality and cultural insight. It’s the story of a nerdy outsider caught between American culture and his Dominican family, interwoven with his ancestors� struggles under the dictator Rafael Trujillo. Diaz brings it all to life with cutting humor and vivid, energetic prose.

Gilead, Marilynne Robinson (2004, Fiction)
Set among the same characters as this year’s Lila, Robinson’s first Iowa-based novel takes the form of an elderly preacher writing the story of his life for his young son, in case he’s not around to tell him when he’s old enough. Robinson’s meditations on faith and family, and the possibility of finding comfort and redemption, are delivered in golden, leisurely prose.

The Known World, Edward P. Jones (2003, Fiction)
Jones� novel, which takes place in antebellum Virginia, powerfully explores American slaveholding from a nuanced, multi-layered perspective.

Atonement, Ian McEwan (2002, Fiction)
A heart-wrenching story of childish errors and the tragic consequences, this novel is guaranteed to make you cry. Even if you’ve already seen the weep-fest of a movie.

Motherless Brooklyn, Jonathan Lethem (1999, Fiction)
Lethem’s bizarre and brilliant take on the detective novel genre features a gumshoe named Lionel Essrog, who must overcome his Tourettic difficulties with language to solve a heinous crime.

The Love of a Good Woman, Alice Munro (1998, Fiction)
Munro’s short stories, usually about the lives of women and the many small and large troubles and passions that pass through, stand among the greatest -- she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2013 for her short fiction. Read all of her collections, including this one, which focuses on the changing lives of women in the second half of the 20th century, from Munro’s usual quiet, domestic point of view.

The Blue Flower, Penelope Fitzgerald (1997, Fiction)
Writing about genius is always an incredible challenge for a novelist, but few have executed it as well as Fitzgerald. This psychologically acute and thematically ambitious book brings to life the German Romantic poet, Novalis, and his romance with a 12-year-old girl named Sophie.

All the Pretty Horses, Cormac McCarthy (1992, Fiction)
Like many Westerns, this novel lingers over the rugged landscape and traffics in the adventures of cowboys, but McCarthy’s work possesses a poeticism and complexity that’s entirely his own. All the Pretty Horses contains all the blood, guts, and action needed to keep you turning the pages of his dense prose.

Love Medicine, Louise Erdrich (1984, Fiction)
Erdrich’s fiction, which deals in issues and experiences of American Indians, spotlights a highly underrepresented culture in American literature. Love Medicine, her lyrical debut, which it follows a small group of Ojibwe over several decades, unsurprisingly marked her as a talent to watch.

Rabbit Is Rich, John Updike (1981, Fiction)
John Updike’s Rabbit series follows Rabbit Angstrom, a former high school basketball star trapped in a miserable job and joyless marriage, as he struggles with each stage of life’s challenges. In this third novel, he’s settled down in middle age but still dissatisfied. Updike’s bold, flavorful prose is the perfect conduit for Rabbit’s man-in-crisis story.

The Stories of John Cheever, John Cheever (1978, Fiction)
Few short story writers have achieved acclaim in that form, but Cheever is among them. His short fiction, usually set in his familiar WASPy milieu, never fails to be brutally profound, acutely written and truly revelatory.

Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison (1977, Fiction)
Morrison’s powerful, evocative writing about black life in America takes shape in this novel as the saga of a troubled black family, and the coming-of-age story of its central character, Macon “Milkman� Dead. Its touches of magical realism only enhance the deeper truth her poetic novel uncovers.

I'll try to add additional Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ links another time.

Some "new" ones from ten in slide show following the above. (We've seen the others elsewhere.):
.

-- 2014 Pulitzer Prize for History

-- 2014 Pulitzer Prize in Biography

-- 2014 National Book Critics Circle Award in Autobiography

-- 2014 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Fiction

Watch List from the Morning News Tournament of Books (The Rooster Award):

Saint Mazie by Jami Attenberg
Green on Blue by Elliot Ackerman
After Birth by Elisa Albert
A Cure For Suicide: A Novel by Jesse Ball
There's Something I Want You to Do: Stories by Charles Baxter
The Sellout by Paul Beatty
The Queen of the Night by Alexander Chee
Outline by Rachel Cusk
The Only Ones by Carola Dibbell
The Infernal: A Novel by Mark Doten
The Turner House by Angela Flournoy
Purity: A Novel by Jonathan Franzen
Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff
City on Fire: A novel by Garth Risk Hallberg
Delicious Foods by James Hannaham
Our Souls at Night: A novel by Kent Haruf
Dear Thief by Samantha Harvey
The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Tusk That Did the Damage by Tania James
Welcome to Braggsville by T. Geronimo Johnson
The First Bad Man by Miranda July
My Struggle: Book 4 by Karl Ove Knausgaard
I Am Radar by Reif Larsen
Get in Trouble by Kelly Link
Satin Island by Tom McCarthy
God Help the Child by Toni Morrison
The Whites by Richard Price (Harry Brandt)
The Poser by Jacob Rubin
The Book of Aron: A novel by Jim Shepard
Making Nice by Matt Sumell
The Last Flight of Poxl West by Daniel Torday
A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler
Find Me by Laura van den Berg
Gold, Fame, Citrus by Claire Vaye Watkins
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
Mislaid: A Novel by Nell Zink


Featured comment

Fun grid of fiction genres:

Article on Harper Lee.

A new name to me among writers:

A brief survey of the short story part 47: Machado de Assis