Results for “best fiction” 318 found
Addendum to best books of 2019 list
Here is the original non-fiction list, the original fiction list, and these are my post-Thanksgiving additions:
Emmanuel Todd, Lineages of Modernity.
John Barton, A History of the Bible: The Story of the World’s Most Influential Book.
Charles Moore, Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography, Herself Alone, volume three.
Susan Gubar, Late-Life Love: A Memoir.
Bernardine Evaristo. Girl, Woman, Other: A Novel. The Booker co-winner and yes the focus of black women’s gender-fluid lives in Britain sounds too PC, but I was won over. There is a Straussian reading of it as well.
Elizabeth Strout, Olive, Again: A Novel.
On the classical music front, Jean-Paul Gasparian’s Chopin CD is one of the best Chopin recordings ever, which is saying something.
The list of add-ons is I think a bit shorter than usual, which suggests that other people’s “best of” lists are declining somewhat in quality. In essence I construct this add-on list by ordering the items off other people’s lists which I am not already familiar with. I didn’t find so many undiscovered-by-me winners this time around, the Gubar and Strout being the main choices I drew from the discoveries of others.
Favorite fiction of 2019
Linn Ullmann, Unquiet: A Novel.
Guzel Yakhina, Zuleikha.
Aladdin, a new translation by Yasmine Seale.
Broken Stars: Contemporary Science Fiction in Translation, edited and translated by Ken Liu.
Sally Rooney, Normal People: A Novel.
I did try many of the more famous recommended novels of the year, and mostly didn’t like them. Still, I don’t feel this list is coming very close to capturing the year’s best fiction — I think I’ll have a better sense in two or three years and then I will report back. In the meantime, what do you recommend?
How I choose fiction
An MR reader emails me:
Reading: what is your decision model for choosing fiction?
Here is a description, these are not necessarily recommendations for you:
1. If a woman as smart (or smarter) as I am tells me to read a particular work of fiction, it is likely I do so. If a smarter man tells me to read a particular work of fiction, odds are I will ignore it.
2. I am least likely to read American fiction. The 1850s, Faulkner, and Pynchon aside, American fiction seems more superficial to me than say European or Latin American fiction. American fiction is also very popular in…America, which leads to an excessively loose selection mechanism for those residing in this country and reading its media. Whereas if a novel from El Salvador (Castellanos Moya) makes its way in front of your eyes, it may be quite good.
3. In genre fiction, I am most likely to read American fiction. Superficiality is less of a problem, and vitality is more likely to be relevant.
4. I track fiction reviews in the NYT, Times Literary Supplement, London Review of Books, Financial Times, the WSJ and WaPo, BookForum, The New Yorker, New York Review of Books, and on-line, and I buy what seems interesting to me. I read the blog Literary Saloon which covers fiction in translation. I will randomly sample other sources as well, sometimes the Guardian too or the London Times. I will click on “best of” lists relating to fiction.
5. If I am in a German- or Spanish-speaking country, I’ll buy a few titles from the front tables and also ask an intelligent-seeming clerk what I ought to be reading. I don’t always get around to actually reading those, noting that the final equilibrium has not yet arrived.
6. I used to scan the “New Arrivals” section of the local public libraries for fiction titles, but in recent years I have cut back on my fiction consumption and this practice has fallen by the wayside. It was not leading to a high hit rate in any case (too many second- or third-tier books by writers I already like but who are past their peak years).
7. I will periodically reread old classics, on a more or less random basis, mostly correlated with how long ago I last read them.
The best book of 2018
Soon I’ll offer up my longer lists for fiction and non-fiction, but let’s start at the top. My nomination for best book of the year is Emily Wilson’s translation of Homer’s Odyssey. It is a joy to read, the best of the five translations I know, and it has received strong reviews from scholars for its accuracy and fidelity. I also would give a top rating to the book’s introductory essay, a mini-book in itself.
Normally I would say more about a book of the year, but a) many of you already know the Odyssey in some form or another, and b) this spring I’ll be doing a Conversations with Tyler with Emily Wilson, and I’ll save up my broader thoughts for then. I’ll just say for now it is one of the greatest works of political thought, as well as a wonderful story. In any case, a reread of this one is imperative, and you will learn new and fresh things.
There you go!
Final installment of stochastically best books to read on each country
These are past suggestions from MR readers, pulled from the comments, endorsed by me only on a stochastic basis:
Michela Wrong, Eritrea
Rwanda: something Prunier, probably Rwanda Crisis though it stops in 1996
Uganda: Season of Thomas Tebo, though it’s fiction (is that disqualifying?)
Eastern Congo: Jason Stearns Dancing with Monsters (like China, the country is too big for one book)
The Government of Ethiopia – Margery Perham’s Ethiopian answer to Ruth Benedict’s Japanese The Sword and the Chrysanthemum.
Ethiopia: – Wax and Gold by Donald Levine – Understanding Contemporary Ethiopia (edited by E. Ficquet & G. Prunier
Pre-colonial Africa: The Scramble for Africa
For DRCongo, I recommend The Congo: From Leopold to Kabila by Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja. It does a great job of distinguishing between the dizzying array of political factions in Congolese history. It’s shortcomings are in culture and economics. Not a lot to choose from with DRC unfortunately!
From Genocide to Continental War, by Gérard Prunier
In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz was excellent, as was King Leopold’s ghost on the DRC.
Zimbabwe – The Struggle Continues: 50 Years of Tyranny in Zimbabwe by David Coltart
Great Lakes region: this was actually good https://www.amazon.com/Great-Lakes-Africa-Thousand-History/dp/1890951358/
On Australia: Robert Hughes’ “The Fatal Shore: The Epic of Australia’s Founding”
On Hong Kong: Gordon Mathews’ “Ghetto at the Center of the World: Chungking Mansions, Hong Kong”
Tyler mentioned Joshua Jelly-Schapiro’s book on the Caribbean for the region, so how about Paul Theroux’s book about the South Pacific, “The Happy Isles of Oceania”?
And if Boston were a country: J. Anthony Lukas’ “Common Ground” J. Anthony Lukas
What about outer space? Best book on Mars? The moon?
Ten favorite science fiction novels
That is from a reader request, please note I am not saying these are the best (that would be a separate query). Here goes, noting I am engaging in some bundling of volumes and sequels:
1. Olaf Stapledon, Last and First Men, Star Maker. Who needs characters and plot when such a compelling mega-Hegelian take is on the table? His other novels are underrated as well.
2. Isaac Asimov, original Foundation Trilogy. But no, the books didn’t want to make me become an economist and in fact when I read them at age fourteen (?) I recoiled at their historicist, anti-Hayekian, and anti-Popperian nature. I, Robot is actually a more important book, and one of the most influential of its century, but it is less fun to read.
3. Stanislaw Lem, Solaris, doubles and erotic guilt, with a touch of Girard, check out the Tarkovsky film as well.
4. Ursula LeGuin, The Left Hand of Darkness, her masterpiece, sadly I find The Dispossessed pretentious and unreadable.
5. Arthur C. Clarke, Childhood’s End. In for a penny, in for a pound, as they say. And once again, why haven’t they turned this into a movie?
6. Dan Simmons, Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion. I’m not sure these are important science fiction, but they sure hold your interest.
7. Larry Niven, Ringworld. Read this one through the lens of Dante.
8. China Mieville, Embassytown. It demands serious attention, but worth a try even if you don’t enjoy his other books.
9. Liu Cixin, The Three-Body Problem trilogy. Again note the first volume is tough sledding for quite a while.
10. Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game trilogy, it only gets great at the end of the first volume, nonetheless deeply worth it.
Assorted notes: I would have said Dune, except that last year I tried to reread it. John Wyndham deserves a lifetime achievement award. Philip K. Dick is “idea rich,” but basically a bad and overrated writer. And don’t kid yourself, Neuromancer, while important, isn’t that much fun either. A big chunk of Verne and H.G. Wells is worth reading, more than just the famous ones. I’m a fan of Neal Stephenson, but not sure my favorite works of his count toward this category. Huxley’s Brave New World would make the list if it counts. Gene Wolfe is OK, but no need to lecture me about him in the comments, same for Ray Bradbury. Some Heinlein holds up fine, but most does not. Vonnegut no, but I like Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series if it counts as science fiction. There is also Iain Banks.
Honorable mentions: Joe Haldeman, The Forever War; Greg Bear, Eon; Octavia Butler Xenogenesis trilogy; Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. My dark horse pick might be Michel Faber’s The Book of Strange New Things, or Audrey Niffennegger’s The Time Traveller’s Wife, if that one counts as belonging to the genre. High marks to Stephen King’s Dark Tower series, and The Stand, again if they count. Any of these mentions could make the top ten without shame.
Additions to my best books of the year list
Since my longer, full list (and for fiction), more has come out, or I have become aware of some omissions, listed here:
The Valmiki Ramayana, translated by Bibek Debroy. I have only browsed this so far, but it is definitely worthy of mention.
Peter Guardino, Dead March: History of the Mexican-American War. The link brings you to my commentary.
Samanta Schweblin, Fever Dream: A Novel, [Distancia de Rescate].
Navid Kermani, Wonder Beyond Belief: On Christianity. My review is behind the link.
Claire Tomalin, A Life of My Own. Ditto, a real favorite.
Robin Hanson and Kevin Simler, The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life. At first this was slated for my 2018 list, but it turns out the Kindle edition is out now, so it gets to make both lists.
The New Testament, translated by David Bentley Hart.
Homer, The Odyssey, translated by Emily Wilson. I haven’t read this yet, but it is getting consistently rave reviews.
Karl Sigmund, Exact Thinking in Demented Times. Again, a review is behind the link.
The best book on the contemporary Cuban economy
Buy Richard E. Feinberg, Open for Business: Building the New Cuban Economy. It also will make my best non-fiction books of the year list. See also his Miami Herald interview, and his long Brookings paper on FDI in Cuba.
*The Complete Review Guide to Contemporary World Fiction*
That is the new book by M.A. Orthofer, out soon this April. If you measure book quality by the actual marginal product of the text, this is one of the best books written, ever. Reading the manuscript in draft form induced me to a) write an enthusiastic blurb, and b) order about forty items through Amazon, mostly used of course. The book is basically a comprehensive guide to what is valuable and interesting in recently translated world literature, a meta-book so to speak, with extensive coverage of most of the countries you might want.
Here is the book’s home page. Here is a superb New Yorker profile of Orthofer, who writes the blog Literary Saloon. Highly recommended to avid readers of fiction.
What is the best novel about a bureaucracy?
I don’t quite mean “the best novel,” rather I mean “the best novel as a novel of bureaucracy.”
There is Franz Kafka, but I find his writings more theological and fantastic than insightful about bureaucracy per se. Besides, his short stories are his best work and the novels do not have proper endings.
There are post-war Eastern European novels galore, where to start? In the First Circle? Still, communist bureaucracies are no longer so typical, so I am not ready to award any of these novels first prize. Gogol’s earlier Dead Souls also stands out as a Russian candidate.
Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 is in the running, as are John Le Carre, Thomas Pynchon and David Foster Wallace. Here is a discussion of Dickens, Orwell, and other classics. Here is a jstor-gated survey of the topic. There are plenty of novels about universities, very few of which I can endure.
The Chinese have an entire genre of “bureaucracy literature.” And perhaps bureaucracy in science fiction is deserving of its own post.
In any case, my clear first choice pick is Anthony Trollope’s Barchester Towers, which I started reading a few days ago. Here is the first sentence of the Amazon.com review:
This 1857 sequel to The Warden wryly chronicles the struggle for control of the English diocese of Barchester. The evangelical but not particularly competent new bishop is Dr. Proudie, who with his awful wife and oily curate, Slope, maneuver for power.
So far I am finding that just about every page has insight about bureaucracy. Trollope, by the way, had extensive experience working for the Post Office in England and Ireland, and furthermore he missed out on a major promotion.
What else am I forgetting?
Hard Social Science Fiction: Neptune’s Brood
Hard science-fiction is science fiction that respects the findings and constraints of contemporary science. By analogy, I deem hard social science fiction* to be science fiction that respects the findings and constraints of contemporary social science especially economics but also politics, sociology and other fields. Absent specific technology device such as a worm-hole, hard science fiction rejects faster than light travel as little more than fantasy. I consider Eden-like future communist societies similarly fantastical. Nothing wrong with fantasy as entertainment, of course, just so long as you don’t try to implement it here on earth.
Charles Stross is one of my favorite hard social science fiction authors. Stross writes both hard science-fiction and hard social-science fiction, sometimes in the same book and sometimes not. The Merchant Prince series, for example is hard social-science fiction drawing on development economics with a fantasy walk-between-the-worlds element while Halting State is hard-hard science-fiction set in the near future (n.b. HS memorably begins with a bank robbery from Hayek associates).
Stross’s latest, Neptune’s Brood, is hard-hard science-fiction set far in the future and perhaps best illustrated with this telling quote:
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that every interstellar colony in search of good fortune must be in need of a banker.
Although set far in the future, Neptune’s Brood contains plenty of commentary on recent events if one reads it carefully for hidden meaning, i.e. a Strossian reading. It is no accident, for example, that it opens with a quote from David Graeber’s Debt and finishes with altruist squids.
Neptune’s Brood is Stross’s attempt to understand money by thinking about what money and banking would look like given interstellar travel and relativity. Not surprisingly, Stross draws upon Paul Krugman’s Theory of Interstellar Trade and also (perhaps less explicitly) on the new monetary economics of Fama, Black, Hall, Cowen and Krozner. One plot point turns on what might happen should the velocity of money increase dramatically! I was also pleased that privateers make an appearance.
Hard social-science fiction is not just about economics. NB also contains interesting commentary on technology, religion, social organization, reproduction and their mutual influences. I wouldn’t put NB at the top of my list of Stross favorites but I enjoyed Neptune’s Brood and you need not let the commentary interfere with the story itself which in Stross fashion moves along at a rapid clip with plenty of enjoyable action and mystery. Recommended.
* yes, it should probably be hard social-science science-fiction but that is too much of a mouthful.
The very best books of the year 2011 (so far)
This year there are three stand-out winners, which is not usually the case. These are all major books which virtually everyone should read, at least provided you read non-fiction (fiction) at all:
1. Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence has Declined. My review is here.
2. Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs, interesting on every page and lives up to the hype. Here is a good review by Michael Rosenwald.
3. Haruki Murakami, IQ84. I haven’t finished it yet, but I feel confident putting it on the list (I’m about one-third through). I even agree with many of the reservations expressed in this review but the book is nonetheless a major achievement. There are dozens of reviews here.
Here is the (lame) PW list of the ten best books of the year. And if you are wondering, I have sour impressions of the new Eco and Joan Didion books.
Soon I’ll prepare a longer list of my favorite books of the last year, in part for your gift-giving purposes.
The Great Fiction
Catherine Rampell, Bruce Bartlett, and Matt Yglesias are all pushing the chart below from a paper by Suzanne Mettler. According to this gang, people who use, for example, the mortgage interest deduction or who have a 529 college savings program are willfully ignorant about how they benefit from government (Rampell’s terminology).
As Bastiat said, “Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.” What Rampell et al. want to do is to make people believe in this great fiction. But there are always taxpayers and taxeaters, even though government has so wormed its way into every organ of the body politic that it is sometimes difficult to tell which are which. (Indeed, part of Mettler’s point is that the government shell game of ‘hide the subsidy, hide the tax’ is often designed to obscure taxpayers and taxeaters.)
Nevertheless, there are dividing lines. In a laissez-faire world we don’t get rid of 529 programs, instead all savings, not just savings for college, become tax-free. A 529 program is not a government program like food stamps, it is the absence of a government tax. (N.B. I am not taking a position here on the best tax structure.)
People who use 529 programs and who think that they have not used a government social program are not willfully ignorant, they are demonstrating a healthy if fading appreciation of the distinction between civil society and government. What Rampell et al. implicitly imagine is that the natural state is slavery and any departure from that state a government benefit. Thus, if the government taxes your saving for a college education less than your other savings, you should be grateful for how government has benefited you and your children.
And if the government doesn’t jail you today, you should be grateful for how government has granted you the benefit of liberty.
This is the attitude of a serf not an American.
The best parenthetical statement I read today
(The fictional 18th century heroine, Moll Flanders, recognized that a high self-regard can be dangerous, arguing that women who believe themselves beautiful are easier to seduce: “If a young woman once thinks herself handsome, she never doubts the truth of any man that tells her he is in love with her; for she believes herself charming enough to captivate him, ’tis natural to expect the effects of it.”)
Here is the link.
Underrated science fiction
Yes it is "Underrated Week" and our next genre is science fiction.
But – sorry guys — I don’t think there is much underrated science fiction. You might think the genre as a whole is underrated, but within the genre there are so many sad desperate souls (I know, I am one of them) who will clutch at straws and elevate the mediocre into the worthwhile and the worthwhile into the superlative.
Science fiction has been treading water since the 1960s. Since that time its most glorious achievements have been on the screen, not on the printed page. There are some excellent individual books, such as Eon or Hyperion, but the genre is mostly retreads. Nor do I think much of attempts to cross science fiction with "serious fiction," whether it is coming from Philip K. Dick or Doris Lessing. Yes the idea is cool but the execution is usually quite flawed.
Still we all must have our picks, so here are mine:
1. Sphere, from Michael Crichton. Forget the last few books. He is the best science fiction writer in contemporary times, though his publisher works very hard to make sure that label does not stick.
2. Star Maker, by Olaf Stapledon. Read Stapleton if you fervently believe that British Hegelianism is the missing element in most science fiction. Yet this is probably my favorite science fiction novel of all time, who else can credibly skip over 20,000 years in a single breath? "Civilizations rose and fell, yet now we must move on," or something like that. Honorable mentions go to Stapledon’s Odd John and especially Sirius.
3. Jonathan Lethem, Gun with Occasional Music. This is marketed as contemporary literature, which keeps away the science fiction fans.
It is hard to call Joe Haldeman underrated but still there are fans who don’t know he is one of the best science fiction writers, period.
I guess there is some underrated science fiction after all.
Crying Uncle: OK people, I retract the claim "Science fiction has been treading water since the 1960s." Card and Butler are the most convincing counterexamples.