Jeff O'Neal over at BookRiot (he also tweets as @readingape) has posted a list of the 100 best American novels.
(He also posted seven tips on how to fake it in book club--my favorite being "Create a diversion," by which he doesn't mean suddenly yell, "Fire!" but change the subject by asking who might play the main character in a movie.)
(Now I seem to be creating my own diversion by bringing up different blog posts. Let's get back to his list.)
He actually posted the list last July, but I first saw it this morning on the place where everybody sees everything nowadays (and the place where you might see this): Facebook. Connie Ogle, books editor of the Miami Herald, had posted a link, saying, "I would argue about the list for a good long time."
I'm always up for a good argument, so I clicked and read the list. I see holes! Big holes! Do you? (Nice to see Louise Erdrich, but where's Anne Tyler? Or Lionel Shriver?) (Although arguably Shriver's best stuff came after 1991, which is when the list ends.)
What else would you include? What would you kick off? Is "American Tragedy" better than "Sister Carrie"? Does "Day of the Locust" deserve to be there over "Miss Lonelyhearts"?
The list is not ranked, but is in chronological order. O'Neal included only books published between 1891-1991. (So, no "Huck Finn," which was published in 1884, for example, and no Franzen, who came later than 1991.)
Here's the list. Argue away:
