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New 2018 edition
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Hilde
(new)
Aug 08, 2018 11:16AM
Seems there will be a new edition of the list this fall: http://arukiyomi.com/?p=6545
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Sorry to be negative, but I'll be the naysayer here. I am not fully on board with some of the new books, especially since a couple are repeat authors with mediocre books. A new edition for only 8 books? Where is Harry Potter????? Why are there still so many Coetzee books? There's a lot of untapped foreign fiction out there, too.I do appreciate that they are mostly female, though.
I agree, Diane - Harry Potter should definitely have been included!
I wonder though if this is all the changes or maybe just a small sample. Seems a bit strange that there are so few changes considering there's been many years since they last revised the list.
Hilde wrote: "I wonder though if this is all the changes or maybe just a small sample. Seems a bit strange that there are so few changes considering there's been many years since they last revised the list."I do hope its just a sample, although I'll never finish the list if they keep adding more.
I am a naysayer for another reason... I hate that some of the classics (East of Eden!) are not on the list but certain modern authors are listed 6+ times. I feel as though this will just be more loss of classics.
I find the additions and exclusions odd, but I don't want to be too negative because overall I enjoy the list (obviously?) - I just think it's too anglocentric and gender imbalanced, among other criticisms (why so many books from select authors?). The new addition is removing titles from the (limited) valuable international scope, and while many additions are female authored, so too are several titles they are removing. I would have rather seen them removing works from multiple listed male authors. Also, H is for Hawk is a good book - but not a novel.
Yes! As an example, 9 books by Graham Greene over the various editions . . . And no Hilary Mantel or Penelope Lively.
But like you said, I mainly use the list to broaden my reading and it does that regardless of these minor changes. I will use it until I feel it doesn't do that for me any longer.
Jen wrote: "I find the additions and exclusions odd, but I don't want to be too negative because overall I enjoy the list (obviously?) - I just think it's too anglocentric and gender imbalanced, among other cr..."Why would H is for Hawk not be a novel?
Forever a Stranger is perhaps one of the best books I’ll read this year and I never would have come across it without the list. Plus, it’s got a new translation and a Kindle copy, so it’s now not impossible to find. They could have just updated the new title. I’m guessing most of us are reading the complete list though, so this will still be read?
Claire wrote: "Jen wrote: "I find the additions and exclusions odd, but I don't want to be too negative because overall I enjoy the list (obviously?) - I just think it's too anglocentric and gender imbalanced, am..."It's a memoir, non-fiction. I understood the list was intended to be exclusively fiction (mostly novels, but some short stories too).
Jennifer wrote: "But like you said, I mainly use the list to broaden my reading and it does that regardless of these minor changes. I will use it until I feel it doesn't do that for me any longer."Well said, Jennifer - same for me.
Jen wrote: "It's a memoir, non-fiction. I understood the list was intended to be exclusively fiction (mostly novels, but some short stories too)...."In the introduction, I believe it discuss literture is included based on its influencing the development of the novel, so some non-fiction works that were innovative in form and/or blur the fiction/non-fiction line were included, such as:
In Cold Blood
Testament of Youth
Walden
Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
Dispatches
Confessions
Chinook wrote: "Forever a Stranger is perhaps one of the best books I’ll read this year and I never would have come across it without the list. Plus, it’s got a new translation and a Kindle copy, so it’s now not i..."I agree. I read it this year, as well. It is disappointing that it would be removed instead of some of others that I feel are more worthy of removal.
Liz M wrote: "Jen wrote: "It's a memoir, non-fiction. I understood the list was intended to be exclusively fiction (mostly novels, but some short stories too)...."In the introduction, I believe it discuss lite..."
Ah, interesting Liz thanks for that explanation. So it's very interesting to me that just this narrow handful of non fiction are included. I'd love to know more about the rationale for their selection.
Mod
Books in: I've read the Goldfinch which I liked but Tartt already has a book on the list. The Circle (wow), I didn't read this when it was first circulating. Americanah. Haven't read yet but okay, she already has a book on the list. I own The Flamethrowers. I've read H is for Hawk. So they removed one Ali Smith and added Winter. You, who read, this series, was that a good move?
I think there was a lot of books out there that might have made better additions than the ones they chose. And they certainly could have removed books from authors that have a lot on the list unless each book is so unique in what it offered toward the development of the novel.
Mod
Mod
I would have liked to see more translated works included as they tend to be the real gems on the list.
Completely agree East of Eden should be on the list it is on of my favourite books of all time.
Is Harry Potter on the children's version of the list? Just curious to know. And which book would you choose seen as the majority of us appear to be against the inclusion of multiple works by the same author.
The ones they chose to remove were odd choices to me. Some of the older books and less available non-English books would have been more reasonable cuts, I would have thought, and some authors are really over-represented on the list, modern and classic authors. I have to wonder how much the people making the list actually read, and how much publishers' financing influences book selections. But Americanah was good, and I'm sure the others will be too, and it is not as if I'll skip the 'removed' books just because a few more have been added to the combined list.
Book wrote: "With regard to adding Winter personally if I had to choose from that series it would have been Autumn.I would have liked to see more translated works included as they tend to be the real gems on ..."
Definitely need more translated works.
As for Harry Potter, I would include the whole series as one book (as done with LOTR, Proust, etc.)
I am thrilled that Elena Ferrante has made it onto the list.
Pip wrote: "I am thrilled that Elena Ferrante has made it onto the list."She was already on the list, but with one of her less well-known and more mediocre books, Troubling Love.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire are on the 1001 list for kids that I have.
I agree about the addition of Elena Ferrante's The Story of the Lost Child and I also prefer Autumn. I have not read Eggers Circle and strangely, because I generally appreciate Eggers, it didn't seem like a book of his I wanted to read. I am one of the few that really did not like The Goldfinch but there you go, each to his own. All in all, it does seem like a strangely small update without a consistent vision about what exactly was being updated and why, but I am not all that knowledgable about the list so it could be my ignorance speaking here.
Mod
The first edition: 2006
The Second edition: 2008 this was a huge change, with an attempt to make the list more global.
The Third edition, 2010
The Fourth edition. 2012
With the third and fourth edition. It was only small amount of change. 10 books
This stretch was a 6 year stretch. So from 2012 to 2018. This was the 10 books (or maybe there will be more) that they chose to pick. Are the best books representing those 6 years? It just seems to me that there were so many great books. Why these?
Was it ten new books? Because they seem to swap out older books, too. For example: Eugene Onegin and Tomcat Murr weren’t on the original list. I’m not sure which edition(s) added these, but they’re not new books.There are 1305 total books that have been on the list, so since the original, about 100 books would get swapped out per edition.
So we just got a life extension!
Hopefully there will be a mix of old and new, with some dinosaur-aged and -sized books being replaced by books that have an even more global feel. I’m really hoping that there will be more older books written by voices normally less heard.
Mod
This time they only added newer books but I didn't pay that much attention to which they removed. I think it was all over the place as far as years.
Here is the link to the books taken out and added - http://arukiyomi.com/?p=6545As has been mentioned... it seems very odd to even do a new edition for 10 books and they took out more books in translation than they put in....
Oh, yay. I’ve been waiting for the app to update.
Honestly, yep I’d have included Harry Potter as a set, just like LOTR by now. Not only is it very influential to this time period, but it’s really well written as the series progresses.Besides that...I can’t believe they haven’t added any Octavia Butler by now, Kindred definitely deserves to be on this list. And I’d add the Earthseed set as well.
And really NK Jemisin has won awards for every volume of her trilogy, if you want to add some newer authors I would have definitely added the whole broken Earth Trilogy!
I know they want to represent women, and women of color, but I wish they’d broaden their scope and not just every volume by Toni Morrison...there are other great people of color writing in the world.
Ok..I’m done, sorry for the rant there.
Book wrote: "With regard to adding Winter personally if I had to choose from that series it would have been Autumn.I would have liked to see more translated works included as they tend to be the real gems on ..."
And I completely agree with you here. Some of those works in translation are my favorite parts of the list. They are indeed hidden gems I never would have come across, by authors I had never heard of, that I really enjoyed and have gone on to add more by some of those authors to my personal to read list.
Mod
So, I have a theory about why why we FINALLY got a new edition, but with just 10 changes. I think it is meant to be to meet this new book for sales over the holidays: 1,000 Books to Read Before You Die: A Life-Changing List.I bought the 1,000 books book, not the 1001 new edition. I have a lot of thoughts, but haven't gotten through the book yet. Is anyone else crazy enough to buy it? I know I won't be finishing any of these lists, so I have no worry about ruining my chances by having another list.
Mod
I haven't looked for the physical book, I updated the app. I have a bunch of notes in my copy and have no interest in copying them over. I also have the spreadsheet and am going to update it myself (but haven't done it yet).
Looks like it is only UK. Amazon has it listed, but as "an international product"https://www.amazon.com/1001-Books-Mus...
Mod
https://www.amazon.com/1001-Books-Mus..."
Thank you Liz.
I’m sure there’s an intended publication date for outside the UK then? Eventually?
Mod
The last edition was not released in the US either.
Oh, interesting. I guess it sells considerably better in the UK? I wonder why?
Mod
The book editor is from the UK and the publisher as well. I suppose that might be why it sells there a bit better. I had thought that every other year they were publishing in US but that seems to not be the case if they are going two editions in a row without publishing in the US.
Another interesting fact: in German the 7th edition was published last year...
Mod
I don’t know about any Swedish editions. The German one is edited by Peter Boxall.
I’m really curious about the book selection, but not enough to acquire that brick...
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