Top 10 Contemporary Classics You MUST Read! 

8:02 I too have some agreement with that statement, looking at the extremes of climatinc conditions all over the world.

Great and serious thoughts here. You remind me of a combination old time radio DJ and a1980s/90s B&N bookseller.

RE: Zhadan. It has been published by PEN America 😊 I was made aware by Razom in New York of The Orphanage

Bravo for including The Last Samurai in your list. I'd considered putting it on my top 25 ALL-TIME personal faves. DeWitt has two of my favorite short stories as well (Brutto, a satire of the impossible-to-satirize art world that was part of Some Trick, and The English Understand Wool, a freestanding publication)

I'm looking forward to checking out some of these Modern Classics I MUST Read, but I have to admit hesitation because two works that were recommended to me as MUST reads were absolute scatter-brain flops (Infinite Jest and House of Leaves). Offhand I can't think of 10 books I've read that I'd categorize at Modern Classics that one MUST Read, but here are 6 I really enjoyed and I think may have some merit in the future: 1) Baudolino by U. Eco 2).Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen 3) Tenth of December by George Saunders 4) Gould's Book of Fish by Richard Flanagan 5) Wizard of the Crow by N. Thiongo 6) 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami I appreciate videos that you and others on BookTube do to help inform people of books to consider reading!

RE: Tempest - it IS an Album BUT it was released with a poetry collection. The collection and album are the same words. I did mention in my video I was pulling a Bob Dylan 😂

DUCKS!!! 😍 I've been waiting for a q&a to ask about the influence you think this will have, and now I know!

I’m going to start Perdido Street Station sometime next week. Cheers!

I think the interesting thing is the longevity question. When you look back on popular writers and popular books and how they disappear over time it is interesting. I jokingly said once that there should be an books prize for books from 50 years ago - although book prizes often seem foolish to me. A Little Life wasn't my cup of tea. I think for the reasons you outlined. I couldn't find the beauty in it. But thanks for your list. I've only read one of them: Wolf Hall. My wallet will not thank you.

this video added 3 books to my tbr list: The Brutality of Fact, M Son of the century, and the Last Samurai (I might have to read the far pavilion just out of curiosity too). You may not have explained it fully, but you conveyed just how powerful Kramer's book is. Wolf hall and Ducks, Newburyport were already on my tbr, hopefully I'll get to them soon. I love Marilynne Robinson's work, but oddly I enjoyed Gilead the least of her novels. I still think Housekeeping for all its simplicity is her best work. Of the recent stuff Home was my favorite. Similarly with Zadie Smith who's post White teeth novels I enjoy a lot more. You might be right in terms of influence/importance with White teeth though. If I had to pick the most important recent immigration novel it would be the 1991 Buddha of Suburbia but that's too old for this list lol I definitely haven't read a lot in contemporary fiction but from what I've read so far: -The Human Stain by Philip Roth (I realize Roth isn't particularly popular right now, but his best work will last: this along with American Pastoral are his best. I also enjoyed the Plot against America but I don't think it's as good) -A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara (comparing it to a Thomas Hardy novel is perfect) -Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (I do love this book, but a big part of why it's here is because I think it will be taught in high schools for quite a while, unless censorship wins out) -The dark forest Liu Cixin (agree that modern science fiction at its best has become more artistically accomplished along with still being interested in idea experiments, I think this trilogy is both hugely influential but also great, book 2 being my favorite. It was my shoveling snow audiobook one winter so I remember many a cold days listening to a fairly bleak but still imaginatively inspiring book) -A book of American Martyrs by Joyce Carole Oates (her best post 2000 work, though I enjoy A little bird of Heaven a bit more but it's just not as ambitious or lasting) -Flood of Fire by Amitav Ghost (really the whole trilogy, but if I have to pick just one) I feel solid about the above six, but after that it feels even more arbitrary to just what I've read and enjoy: -Europe Central by William T Vollmann (Vollmann can sometimes feel a little bloated and lacking editing, but here he really molded his passions into a structure that could hold it) I-Q84 Haruki Murakami(this is a very flawed book and Murakami's written better before 2000, but I'm still thinking about parts of it over a decade after having first read it, It's takes on cults and the power of "group think" in an ever expanding social media age will only become more prescient -Girls last tour manga series (6 volumes) by Tsukumizu (I can't make a great case for it, but there should be at least one thing that I choose just because I love it beyond all reason. As a book about two girls wandering the mostly deserted remnants of our future dead civilization it somehow manages to be a haunting contemplation of the lasting (but mortal) power of art, language, beauty and music. Lasting as long as there is even one person (or in this case two) to experience those things -A free Life by Ha Jin (the best post 2000 immigration novel, fits in a line of classical realistic/naturalistic making your way in America fiction. It's possible it speaks to me because it reminds me of my parents, so it might not work as well for everyone) Books with reputations that make me think they could be on my list in the future after I've read them: 2666, Ducks Newburyport, Overstory, Wolf Hall and My brilliant friend series.

Thank you for the video, was interesting

I’ve only read one on your list, The Last Samurai, and I agree 100 percent that it is amazing.

Steve...telling us to "find the beauty in the misery" of A Little Life is ultimate trolling behavior. I can only assume that you challenge yourself to find the beauty in your root canals.

I read The Far Pavilions 6 years ago, thank you very much sir lol

An amazing list that includes a couple of titles I haven't heard of before. And for some reason I was hoping to see Tea Obreht's The Tiger's Wife

I must look to see if you’ve done a video about Knausgaard. A friend insists _My Struggle_ is wonderful, and so Book 1 has been sitting on my shelf. So far other things have priority.

I actually really like your list Steve. Wasn’t expecting to but I could agree with really every choice lol

Ducks, Newburyport and the Last Samurai are excellent choices. I tend to find the choices for contemporary classics a shallower pool. Now maybe that’s because I read less in this category or maybe there are less truly interesting works being written or maybe the focus on what’s supposed to be important has shifted. Who knows.

I picked up M on sale at the Kobo store for about three bucks based on your previous recommendation. Sounds like I got a great bargain.

How does the Larry Kramer book separate itself from Karl Ove Knausgard’s book if they both are heavily auto-fiction?

Have you ever read Green Lantern by Jerome Charyn, Steve? Doesn’t solely focus on Stalin but I was reminded of it when you were talking about M. Enjoyed it quite a bit when I read it.

YEEEEEEEEEEEEES

you made me want to read Gilead. but i have a rift with my own son and i wonder if i can handle that book or if it will help.

Thanks for a very absorbing video. There were a couple of books that i didnt know - the book about Aids was totally unknown and as i am conducting my own scream against cancer i might leave it to one side. I loved the Mantel trilogy and can’t believe she’s gone. I like a lot of her novels eg Fludd and Black which I have reread with growing pleasure. My Xmas reads will include War and Peace as I have never read it- i read Anna Karenina several times but not lately. I also want to reread Oliver Twist and a little bit of cosy crime when I need something lighter. Hope you and the Bean are well. PS i aren’t say this aloud but i really don’t like Bob D …. Creeps out of the room 😳

I think I may have to lay off the Christmas sherry. I could have sworn I just heard Ducks, Newburyport get a mention on Uncle Steve’s list.

The Prague Cemetery is a 21st Century must. One of the most impressive works of historical fiction ever written. You need a research machine like Eco to write that. An considering the subject, it's also extremely relevant.

Steve, very Des Moines Register of you to have an Iowa angle in your list.

Amazingly I’ve actually read some of these! And liked them! (Less said about Wolf Hall the better)

🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿

Good list! (Don't understand your saying 'not published in America.' KD is Welch, living in Wales, doubt America is his focus.)

Does "having" to include a 9/11 book (soooo New York) meean that we need a Pearl Harbor book for the 20th? There is only one, and it hasn't really worn well...

Hi Steve i am really glad to be getting old considering the state of the world. Even before the climate goes AWOL we might have some sort of nuclear incident and that doesn’t bear thinking about. I can’t make lists of novels - it takes me a long time to inwardly digest them and the criteria for my reading them changes as well. For example when i smashed my ankle earlier this year i had to put what usually read to one side and i enjoyed all manner of what i call “light” literature until my mind and body started to heal. As for a contemporary canon - its almost a contradiction in terms surely? But then perhaps this is all we will get. When the world goes to hell who will be reading new fiction?

I might be the only human who did not like WOLF HALL. Maybe I need to revisit...

You hate on DFW and like Zadie Smith? Hmm...

Totally agree with you about climate change. The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells. Fusion and AI came too late. I'm prepping. Way better than Knausgard are Japanese I-novels. Mizumura's, for example.

15:57

This might be my favorite of all your many, many videos. Seeing all these unread, fat books all in one place . . . I think I actually started to salivate at one point. Just one note: I dabbled with _White Teeth,_ so I can't speak authoritatively, but _On Beauty_ is one my favorite books period. Is it possible that _On Beauty_ is a more mature, accomplished, nuanced novel?

I thought The Queue was excellent as well..

Yes.... to comments on climate...

Sorry. Don't agree with your choice of M or any of the remarks you make concerning why you so chose. In these times especially. I assure you there are already too many people out there willing and eager to believe well of Mussolini. I would have chosen The Feast of the Goat in its place.