Friday, June 9, 2017

Fifty incredible literary works destined to become classics

At the B&N Reads blog Saskia Lacey tagged fifty incredible literary works destined to become classics, including:
The White Tiger, by Aravind Adiga

A biting satire narrated by Balman Halwai, an entrepreneur and self-styled “man of tomorrow,” The White Tiger is a vision of the modern Indian class system from the perspective of a man who starts at the bottom.
The White Tiger is on Louise Doughty's six best books list, Amy Wilkinson's list of seven top books with "white" in the title, Julia Stuart's list of five of the best stories about domestic servantsStephen Kelman's top ten list of outsiders' stories, and is one of The Freakonomics guys' six best books.

The Page 69 Test: The White Tiger.
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz

All Oscar wants is to find love. But being overweight, nerdy, and cursed, his chances don’t look good. Oscar and his Dominican family have been subject to the fukú, a supernatural curse, for as long as anyone can remember. If Oscar is to succeed in love and life, he must battle the unbeatable.
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao appears among Samantha Mabry's five books that carry curses, Susan Barker's top ten novels with multiple narratives, BBC Culture's twelve greatest novels of the 21st century, Emily Temple's fifty greatest debut novels since 1950, Niall Williams's top ten bookworms' tales, Chrissie Gruebel's nine best last lines in literature, Alexia Nader's nine favorite books about unhappy families, Jami Attenberg's top six books with overweight protagonists, Brooke Hauser's six top books about immigrants, Sara Gruen's six favorite books, Paste magazine's list of the ten best debut novels of the decade (2000-2009), and The Millions' best books of fiction of the millenium. The novel is one of Matthew Kaminski's five favorite novels about immigrants in America and is a book that made a difference to Zoë Saldana.

The Page 99 Test: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue