Fifty Books for Our Times
Posted by Ardyce on July 2nd, 2009
Newsweek has an interesting feature on What to Read Now. And Why.
They say “The fact is, no one needs another best-of list telling you how great The Great Gatsby is.” These books “open a window on the times we live in, … help us see ourselves in new and surprising ways.”
The list of 50 titles starts with Anthony Trollope’s 1875 book The Way we Live Now, and includes books by William Faulkner, Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, and Mary Shelley. I think I would enjoy reading Air Guitar by Dave Hickey: “a seamless blend of criticism, personal history, and a deep appreciation for the sheer nuttiness of American life, with essays on Norman Rockwell, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Perry Mason, to name a few.”