Wednesday, August 19, 2009

How Well Read Are You in Entertainment Weekly's Top 100 New Classics List?

How well read are you in the "new classics?"

I also pulled American "Classics" off of this list of new classics by Entertainment Weekly. I'll post other lists in the future - I'm tired of lists today! :-)

X = Books Read
M= Movies Watched

1. The Road , Cormac McCarthy (2006) (X)
2. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling (2000)(X) (M)
3. Beloved, Toni Morrison (1987)
4. The Liars' Club, Mary Karr (1995)
5. American Pastoral, Philip Roth (1997)
6. Mystic River, Dennis Lehane (2001) (M)
7. Maus, Art Spiegelman (1986/1991)
8. Selected Stories, Alice Munro (1996)
9. Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier (1997)(X) (M)
10. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami (1997)
11. Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer (1997)
12. Blindness, José Saramago (1998)
13. Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (1986-87) (X)
14. Black Water, Joyce Carol Oates (1992)
15. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers (2000)
16. The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood (1986)
17. Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez (1988) (X)
18. Rabbit at Rest, John Updike (1990)
19. On Beauty, Zadie Smith (2005)
20. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding (1998)(X) (M)
21. On Writing, Stephen King (2000)
22. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Díaz (2007)
23. The Ghost Road, Pat Barker (1996)
24. Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry (1985)
25. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan (1989) (X) (M)
26. Neuromancer, William Gibson (1984)
27. Possession, A.S. Byatt (1990) (X)
28. Naked, David Sedaris (1997)
29. Bel Canto, Anne Patchett (2001)
30. Case Histories, Kate Atkinson (2004)
31. The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien (1990)
32. Parting the Waters, Taylor Branch (1988)
33. The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion (2005)
34. The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold (2002) (X)
35. The Line of Beauty, Alan Hollinghurst (2004)
36. Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt (1996) (X) (M)
37. Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi (2003)
38. Birds of America, Lorrie Moore (1998)
39. Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri (2000)
40. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman (1995-2000)
41. The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros (1984)
42. LaBrava, Elmore Leonard (1983)
43. Borrowed Time, Paul Monette (1988)
44. Praying for Sheetrock, Melissa Fay Greene (1991)
45. Eva Luna, Isabel Allende (1988)
46. Sandman, Neil Gaiman (1988-1996)
47. World's Fair, E.L. Doctorow (1985)
48. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver (1998) (X)
49. Clockers, Richard Price (1992)
50. The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen (2001) (X)
51. The Journalist and the Murderer, Janet Malcom (1990)
52. Waiting to Exhale, Terry McMillan (1992)
53. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon (2000)
54. Jimmy Corrigan, Chris Ware (2000)
55. The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls (2006)
56. The Night Manager, John le Carré (1993)
57. The Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe (1987)
58. Drop City, TC Boyle (2003)
59. Krik? Krak! Edwidge Danticat (1995)
60. Nickel & Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich (2001) (X)
61. Money, Martin Amis (1985)
62. Last Train To Memphis, Peter Guralnick (1994)
63. Pastoralia, George Saunders (2000)
64. Underworld, Don DeLillo (1997)
65. The Giver, Lois Lowry (1993)
66. A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, David Foster Wallace (1997)
67. The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini (2003) (X)
68. Fun Home, Alison Bechdel (2006)
69. Secret History, Donna Tartt (1992)
70. Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell (2004)
71. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Ann Fadiman (1997)
72. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon (2003)7
3. A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving (1989) (X)
74. Friday Night Lights, H.G. Bissinger (1990)
75. Cathedral, Raymond Carver (1983)
76. A Sight for Sore Eyes, Ruth Rendell (1998)
77. The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro (1989)
78. Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert (2006) (X)
79. The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell (2000)
80. Bright Lights, Big City, Jay McInerney (1984)
81. Backlash, Susan Faludi (1991)
82. Atonement, Ian McEwan (2002) (X) (M)
83. The Stone Diaries, Carol Shields (1994)
84. Holes, Louis Sachar (1998) (X)
85. Gilead, Marilynne Robinson (2004)
86. And the Band Played On, Randy Shilts (1987)
87. The Ruins, Scott Smith (2006)
88. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby (1995)
89. Close Range, Annie Proulx (1999)
90. Comfort Me With Apples, Ruth Reichl (2001)
91. Random Family, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc (2003)
92. Presumed Innocent, Scott Turow (1987)
93. A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley (1991) (X) (M)
94. Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser (2001)
95. Kaaterskill Falls, Allegra Goodman (1998)
96. The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown (2003) (X)
97. Jesus’ Son, Denis Johnson (1992)
98. The Predators' Ball, Connie Bruck (1988)
99. Practical Magic, Alice Hoffman (1995) (X)
100. America (the Book), Jon Stewart/Daily Show (2004)

Number of "New Classics" Read = 21
Number of Movies Watched = 8

Top Five from what I've read:

1. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
2. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
3. Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
4. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
5. Bridget Jones' Diary by Helen Fielding (I know it's light reading - but it's fun!)

I would most like to read these five:

1. World's Fair by E. L. Doctorow
2. Beloved by Toni Morrison
3. Mystic River by Dennis Lehane
4. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
5. On Beauty by Zadie Smith

Overall I do much better with "old" classics read. I need to catch up with the new classics!

If you post this on your blog, please add your link to the comments. I always like to see what others are reading!

3 comments:

  1. Thanks for providing the list Laura...you've got me beat!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Better number this time!! I'm got 15!! I'm curious though . . . why would you put The Road on your favorites? Do you have a review of it that you could refer me to? The reason I ask is because I had such a hard time with it . . . I thought the writing was beautiful, but the story was not!! I would love to hear your detailed thoughts! :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. http://lauragerold.blogspot.com/2007/04/road-by-cormac-mccarthy.html

    Here is my review of The Road from a couple of years ago. The novel has stuck with me over the past couple of years and I find myself thinking about it a lot. The story definitely wasn't happy, but it told a lot about the human condition.

    I'll post this on your site too!

    ReplyDelete