Subject
Re: Top 100 (fwd)
Date
Body
From: Seth Roberts <roberts@garnet.berkeley.edu>
for those too busy to do a little searching the correct address
is www.waterstones.co.uk.
It is the oddest book list I have ever seen, combining very
recent and very old, very high- and very lowbrow, the obscure (to
an American) and the exceedingly well-known. The unifying theme
seems to be: books that some people really really enjoyed. Believe
it or not, "American Psycho" is on the list.
>From: Jerry Goodenough <J.Goodenough@uea.ac.uk>
>
>Waterstones, Britain's largest chain of 'serious' booksellers has just
completed
>the country's largest ever opinion-poll of book-buyers, asking them for their
>votes for the greatest books of the 20th century. (The top 100 such books are
>being made the subject of a sales promotion in Waterstones' shops).
>
>VN makes a single appearance with Lolita (of course!) charting at 31, just
ahead
>of Iain Banks' "The Wasp Factory" (32) and Proust's "Recherche" (33) but some
>way behind "The Wind in the Willows" (16), "Winnie the Pooh" (17) and "Gone
with
>the Wind" (23). The list tends towards childhood favourites or schoolroom
reads,
>nearly all novels, with no poetry and few works of non-fiction, with a strong
>post-1945 propensity and an unbalanced view of American literature. (My
>charitable description of a list that omits any mention of Faulkner, Hemingway,
>Bellow, Mailer, Wolfe, Roth, Updike, Oates, etc. but gets Stephen King in
twice!
>(at 71 and 73)).
>
>The great British public's choice of the greatest book of the 20th century?
>"Lord of the Rings"! (a choice that made headlines in all the usual places
>here). Nabokovians can check out the full list at
http://www.waterstones.com.uk/
>
>Jerry Goodenough
>University of East Anglia
>Norwich NR4 7TJ
>England
>
>
for those too busy to do a little searching the correct address
is www.waterstones.co.uk.
It is the oddest book list I have ever seen, combining very
recent and very old, very high- and very lowbrow, the obscure (to
an American) and the exceedingly well-known. The unifying theme
seems to be: books that some people really really enjoyed. Believe
it or not, "American Psycho" is on the list.
>From: Jerry Goodenough <J.Goodenough@uea.ac.uk>
>
>Waterstones, Britain's largest chain of 'serious' booksellers has just
completed
>the country's largest ever opinion-poll of book-buyers, asking them for their
>votes for the greatest books of the 20th century. (The top 100 such books are
>being made the subject of a sales promotion in Waterstones' shops).
>
>VN makes a single appearance with Lolita (of course!) charting at 31, just
ahead
>of Iain Banks' "The Wasp Factory" (32) and Proust's "Recherche" (33) but some
>way behind "The Wind in the Willows" (16), "Winnie the Pooh" (17) and "Gone
with
>the Wind" (23). The list tends towards childhood favourites or schoolroom
reads,
>nearly all novels, with no poetry and few works of non-fiction, with a strong
>post-1945 propensity and an unbalanced view of American literature. (My
>charitable description of a list that omits any mention of Faulkner, Hemingway,
>Bellow, Mailer, Wolfe, Roth, Updike, Oates, etc. but gets Stephen King in
twice!
>(at 71 and 73)).
>
>The great British public's choice of the greatest book of the 20th century?
>"Lord of the Rings"! (a choice that made headlines in all the usual places
>here). Nabokovians can check out the full list at
http://www.waterstones.com.uk/
>
>Jerry Goodenough
>University of East Anglia
>Norwich NR4 7TJ
>England
>
>