I hate best book lists; intrinsically they try to syncretize commercial success and good writing into a formula that almost never works. These lists satisfy no one and including books like The Da Vinci Code on them perhaps propels the few souls who’ve shunned it to relent. Is that a good thing?
That said, there are many good books on the Exclusive Books “101 Books to Read Before You Die” list (caveat emptor: I oppose canons generally regardless who compiles them) and good authors, too – but all too often the wrong book is featured. The Lord of The Rings is a universal favourite but this particular blogger thinks Silmarillion is a far better book.
Likewise Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. Is it included here because its been turned into a film? Mandolin is surely less good than the The War of Don Emmanuel’s Nether Parts. Ditto Disgrace – probably the most alluded to novel in South Africa, today but is it better than In the Heart of the Country or Youth?
One wonders whether this list was really voted on by 35 000 members of Exclusive Books. It constitutes too even a blend of the commercial and the highbrow, the established and the contemporary. And feeling particularly snarly, I had to wonder if Exclusive Books vet their book blurbs at all. Life of Pi is billed as an “original work” when in fact Yann Martel was notoriously embroiled in a war of accusations about his borrowing from Brazilian writer Moacyr Scliar.
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June 20th, 2007 @21:33 #
Anybody else find these "things to do before you die" lists rather morbid? Who wants to be reminded that he's going to die?
June 20th, 2007 @22:39 #
Hello Ben
Good to have met you at the fair. Cool our stands were right next to each other.
Yip well the Exclusive list was done by readers and by reader votes, not statistics like numbers - ie sales.
I always thought Silmarillion was a fans book for Tolkien lovers like his most recent offering that came out this year? Not one of his better works, but each to his own:)