This must have some debate-worthy items on it.
A few things come to mind:
I'd like to see why the author included certain less well-known works/events. I seem to lack the poetry appreciation gene, so I really can't judge the worthiness of "The Song of the Shirt." And I really can't say why it belongs in a 50-Greatest list.
As for Shakespeare, I'd probably drop his sonnets in favor of his output of 1595: A Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo and Juliet, and Richard II. At the dawn of modern drama, he wrote one of the world's greatest comedies, one of the world's greatest tragedies, and a superior history play -- all in one year. Nothing against the sonnets, but Shakespeare didn't play a role in inventing the sonnet.
Amazon or the Internet/Web or the word processor? Electronic sales/distribution or electronic publicatino or electronic creation? I'd argue that the word processor has as much right as the typewriter to a spot in the top 50.
Hec, what do you think belongs in the list from the 1966-1990 era? LOTR comes to mind, kicking off a huge wave of SF/fantasy, but that was published in 1954-55.
Twilight Fanfic Strikes Again: Beautiful Bastard Gets a Book Deal.
E.L. James' 50 Shades of Grey opened the door, and now Christina Lauren's Beautiful Bastard is sexily sashaying through it. Christina Lauren is actually two people — Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings* — who landed a book deal with Simon & Schuster after the popularity of their fanfic The Office** exploded online. Renamed and given sexy new packaging, Beautiful Bastard is about a kinky businessman and his sexxxy intern.
The first chapter is up for preview. Le sigh.
God damn, WHY haven't I started writing kinky fiction?
(Partly because I just don't take Teh Kink as seriously and utterly humorlessly as the current rash of fiction makes it out to be. I mean, it *can* be serious, but I have to say, we spend a lot of our time laughing our asses off at each other. Sadly, that makes a lot of people think we're Doin It Rong. So I probably couldn't write a book about it.)
I know a Lauren Billings. She was a bartender at my regular bar, and then she moved to Tahoe to play poker.
This must have some debate-worthy items on it
I don't understand why a German novel that I've never heard of (WG Sebald: Vertigo, 1990) is on that list. Did it have some impact on Anglo-American lit?
Just started Gone Girl -- maybe four chapters in -- and I love it. She's an incredible writer. I'm a little wary about hating the plot of it toward the end, because there was a pretty divisive twist, right?
a German novel that I've never heard of (WG Sebald: Vertigo, 1990)
I didn't even know it was German, just that I'd never heard of it, and didn't care enough to click. I didn't disagree with a whole lot of, though, so maybe it was important?
I do think choosing just fifty anything from the whole history of literate is tough, and she might have been better off choosing only books, or only cultural events.
I'm a little wary about hating the plot of it toward the end, because there was a pretty divisive twist, right?
To
say the least
.
I didn't even know it was German, just that I'd never heard of it, and didn't care enough to click. I didn't disagree with a whole lot of, though, so maybe it was important?
Yeah, given this
an attempt to identify some of the hinge moments in our literature – a composite of significant events, notable poems, plays, and novels, plus influential deaths
it's actually a pretty good list, but I think I'd like to see at least a small attempt to explain why a book is a turning point.
Even as little as "The Moonstone": First detective novel, "Life of Johnson": The epitome of biography, etc.
This must have some debate-worthy items on it
It's not a bad list, but it's really incomplete without "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," the first detective story, and something by Wells and/or Verne for SF. "The Song of the Shirt" is one of the first well-known works about the treatment of the working poor, but I would have gone with Dickens. I think it also needs Little Women as a milestone in realistic literature for young people; and Penguin paperbacks, which made literature much more widely available.
Amy,
I don't know what to say without spoiling. I will just say that the book is a trip and a half. I truly disliked the ending and I think megan liked it.
I think megan liked it.
I'm not sure liked is the right word, but I thought it was the perfect ending, the one that made the most sense.
