The Modern Library: The 200 Best Novels in English Since 1950

A decent if idiosyncratic view of novels - and some short story collections - of the second half of the 20th century. Apparently the only politician worth vilifying in that span is Margaret Thatcher and doing so is a path to at least one of these authors' heart. I doubt any even partially well read person who was reading for up to 30 of those 50 years won't have books they agree with including, books they would never have included, and books that darned well should be, but were not, included.

Meh. I grabbed this one from the library on a whim, and have been perusing it for the past month or so.

I have a serious love-hate relationship with guides like this. They can be fun to browse if your to-read list is in need of some additions (believe me, mine is not), but obviously any list of "must reads" or "most important/influential books" is biased and everyone's going to have a different opinion on what should or shouldn't be included. The authors at least acknowledge this in the introduction, as well as explaining a little about how they chose the books to include. Whatever. Despite having some worthy inclusions I agreed with, a good portion of these I hadn't even heard of, and the authors generally did a lousy job of convincing show more me to pick them up. Their summaries/reviews are totally inconsistent, tending towards uninteresting, and some of them include major spoilers -- unforgivable for a guide of this type, in my opinion. Believe me, you will find much better reviews here on GoodReads from random internet people. show less

This is just someone's list of "books an Englishman should read", and it's not even that impressive. Better, more inspiring, more varied lists are only a click away.

On the positive side, there is an interesting blurb about each book, though I felt, at times, that '' tags would have been good.

Overall, there's no reason for this book.

Recommends books from the second half of the twentieth century.

“While we differ in our response to literary theory – one of us is hostile to it, the other cannot have enough of it – we were as one in our determination to ignore the distinction between so-called popular fiction and literary fiction (also so-called.) … The critical dividing line between popular and literary also ignores the reader and the writer, who rarely contemplate the novel in this way.” (Two original quotations, Introduction, page 6)

Theme and Content
Colm Tóibín and Carmen Callil are well-known authors. This book includes two hundred novels written since 1950 by English-speaking authors from all over the world.

Implementation
The books begins with an introduction where the two authors explain their intention to show show more that the modern novel flourishes more than ever before, but that it too has changed during these fifty years between 1950 and 2000. Their intense research led to one hundred and ninety-four own choices for readers of every age and taste, and six novels chosen by their readers. As the two authors are from different countries and they have different preferences, any list of this kind is also somehow personal, but they always have looked for a certain quality, an excitement in the reading and the feeling to want to give this book to someone else to read.
The introduction is followed by a list of titles in order of publication, because the entries are alphabetical under the name of the author. Each recommended novel has one page with descriptions of genre, themes, form, characters, content and the intentions of the author. On the bottom of each page, there you can find information about the author. This main part is followed by lists of Autobiographies and memoirs, Literary biographies, Poetry, Autobiographies and memoirs by novelists chosen in this book, Literary biographies of novelists chosen in this book and several lists of Literary Prizewinners from Bookers Prize to Novel Awards, ending with the Index of Titles.

Conclusion
An entertaining, delightful and interesting guide that leads us through fifty years of modern fiction and books we might know and love and others, new for us, that make us curious and immediately end up on our “want-to-read”-list. A timeless, enjoyable read. show less