Posted by Guillermo Maynez
on 21/10/2009, 8:32:49, in reply to "Where is the 21st Century?"
189.140.173.105
In my case, one of the reasons is that the century is very young. Books haven't had the time to mature and be sorted out from the thousands of titles published every year. It would be a challenge to look at the full catalogue of any given year -say, 1922- and without hindsight information, sort out the ones you really want to read.
Prizes could be a way of forming your criterion, but, also in my case, I have become ever more suspicious about them. Certainly the Nobel prize is seldom reliable.
Not that I'm unwilling to venture into what readers like you all may suggest, it's only that I don't feel qualified to suggest any of them myself. But I'll read what we choose.
--Previous Message--
: I was compiling a list of the books nominated so far,
: and something really jumped out: None of the books
: nominated was published after 2000. Technically
: speaking, we have nothing from the current century.
:
: This is very unusual for us, as we usually have some
: current literature on our ballot. Lale, it's up to you
: to redeem contemporary writers. (I'm also curious to
: see if you will nominate The Bastard of Istanbul.)
:
: We also have a preponderance of short novels. There
: are only two over 600 pages, but eighteen under 300
: pages.
:
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