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Holtmann asked, and I’ve sweated bullets to deliver up the goods. In the end, two lists weren’t possible, so the U.S. and the Commonwealth have been united. It’s been horrible, agonizing: one discovers that to list one’s favorite novels of the past quarter century is to condemn oneself twice, as both conventional and poorly-read.

Without further ado, then…

The Boswestblog colors, courage, mast and sticking point list, 1980-2005 (alpha by author’s surname):

• The Master of Petersburg Coetzee
• The Remains of the Day Ishiguro
• Killing Mr. Watson Matthiessen
• A Fine Balance Mistry
• Beloved Morrison
• Hopeful Monsters Mosley
• Midnight’s Children Rushdi
• A Confederacy of Dunces Toole
• Sabbath’s Theater Roth
• The Passion Winterson

Honorable Mentions:

• Underworld DeLillo
• The Unbearable Lightness of Being Kundera
• The Child in Time McEwan

The One That Got Away:

• The Sea, The Sea (1978) Murdoch

Other beasts in the jungle (I’ve spotted a few, but many are still too fleet):

Ackroyd, Amis, Atwood, Bainbridge, Banks, Barth, Barthelme, Ballard, Barnes, Byatt, Burgess, Carey, Carver, Coe, Connell, Crace, Didion, Doctorow, Eugenides, Ford, Fraser, Gaddis, Gray, Heller, Irving, Jin, Kincaid, Kureishi, Lessing, Oates, Okri, Proulx, Mailer, McCarthy, McInerny, McMurtry, Ondaatjie, Pynchon, Rush, Seth, Sinclair, Smith, Smith, Smiley, Swift, Styron, Theroux, Updike, Walker, Welsh, Wolff

Cat: The Margin

Tags: A Confederacy of Dunces, A Fine Balance, Ackroyd, Amis, Atwood, Bainbridge, Ballard, Banks, Barnes, Barth, Barthelme, Beloved, Burgess, Byatt, Carey, Carver, Coe, Coetzee, Connell, Crace, DeLillo, Didion, Doctorow, Eugenides, Fiction, Ford, Fraser, Gaddis, Gray, Heller, Hopeful Monsters, Irving, Ishiguro, Jin, Killing Mr. Watson, Kincaid, Kundera, Kureishi, Lessing, Mailer, Matthiessen, McCarthy, McEwan, McInerny, McMurtry, Midnights Children, Mistry, Morrison, Mosley, Murdoch, Novels, Oates, Okri, Ondaatjie, Proulx, Pynchon, Roth, Rush, Rushdi, Sabbaths Theater, Seth, Sinclair, Smiley, Smith, Styron, Swift, The Child in Time, The Margin, The Master of Petersburg, The Passion, The Remains of the Day, The Sea The Sea, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Theroux, Toole, Underworld, Updike, Walker, Welsh, Winterson, Wolff

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This entry was posted on Saturday, October 21st, 2006.