Saturday, November 28, 2015

New York Times Lists 2015's Notable Books (and I've read exactly one of them)

The New York Times has just published its list of "100 Notable Books of 2015."  And I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, because it always seems to be the case when I read lists like this one, that I've read almost none of the books on the list.  Well...to be exact, I've read one and have two others in my TBR stack someplace.  I should probably be more concerned than I am that all three books are fiction titles, but since I so seldom agree with the Times on what constitutes a "notable" nonfiction book, that's just business as usual. 

The one I've read is Elena Ferrante's The Story of a Lost Child, the fourth book in the author's Neapolitan Series.  In fact, I've read all four books in the series since mid-October, and I'm happy to see this one on the list. 

I picked up a signed copy of Lauren Groff's Fates and Furies in Austin in late October when I attended the Texas Book Festival there.  I probably would not own a copy otherwise because in the past I've found Groff's prose to be a little too dense for my taste but her festival presentation was so charming that I decided to take a chance on this new one.

The other book from the Times list that is still in my TBR stack is Toni Morrison's God Help the Child.  I'm a relatively recent convert to Morrison's fiction and this one sounds like an excellent addition to her body of work.


So for now now, I've read one percent of the titles on the list...with a pretty good chance that I will get that number all the way up to three percent some day.  Wow.


4 comments:

  1. I haven't read any of them, although I do have N.K. Jemisin's The Fifth Season in my Audible library, so I'll eventually be listening to that.

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    1. There are just too many books out there. We'll never get to all the "notable" ones that show up on various lists. I usually try to make a list of my own at the end of the year, and I doubt that any one person has read more than 20% of them. Too many books; too little time. That's still my favorite problem to have.

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  2. You've read one more than me! I rarely read books the year they're published, though.

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    1. I never do well on these lists, Rob...but one out of a hundred is low even for me based on past years because about half of my reading in a given year involves books published that year.

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