Communicator (communicator) wrote,
Communicator
communicator

a half-century of books

The Guardian lists fifty essential works of contemporary literature. I have read only 14 of them. There are a few more there (like The Corrections and The Blind Assassin) that are sitting accusingly on my shelves. I've no reason to think I won't like them, except for their presence on lists like this one, which makes me feel rebellious. Though I enjoyed all the ones I have read.

(from coalescent


A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
American Pastoral by Philip Roth
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Being Dead by Jim Crace
Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres
Cloudstreet by Tim Winton
Disgrace by JM Coetzee
Enduring Love by Ian McEwan
Faith Singer by Rosie Scott
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
Fred and Edie by Jill Dawson
Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels
Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
Grace Notes by Bernard MacLaverty
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
His Dark Materials Trilogy by Philip Pullman

Hotel World by Ali Smith
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
Misery by Stephen King
Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow by Peter Hoeg

Money by Martin Amis
Music and Silence by Rose Tremain
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
Riders by Jilly Cooper
Slaughterhouse-five by Kurt Vonnegut
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
The House of Spirits by Isabelle Allende
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

The Passion by Jeanette Winterson
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
The Rabbit Books by John Updike
The Regeneration Trilogy by Pat Barker
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
The Shipping News by E Annie Proulx
The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass
The Wind Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
The Women's Room by Marilyn French
Tracey Beaker by Jacqueline Wilson

Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh
Unless by Carol Shields
What a Carve Up! by Jonathan Coe
What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt
White Teeth by Zadie Smith"
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  • Phew what a scorcher

    I see Gove has backed down on climate change and it's back in the curriculum again.

  • GCSE Computer Science

    My book is now for sale

  • LJ Settings

    At the moment I have set up this journal so that only friends can comment. I hate doing this, but I was just getting too much Russian spam.