Best of the Millennium
September 23, 2009
#8: Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson 3
by Yiyun Li
If resonating with the work of either Hemingway or Sebald is enough to make a novel good, Out Stealing Horses, with its echoes of both, is a rare book indeed.
September 23, 2009
#9: Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage by Alice Munro 0
by Michelle Huneven
Alice Munro has taught us to find literary pleasure in leaping over time, in the odd swerves life takes, in the unexpected sources of comfort and sustenance, and in the idiosyncratic arrangements made for human happiness.
September 23, 2009
#10: Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro 1
by Elif Batuman
This book made me cry for days.
September 22, 2009
#11: The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz 6
by Martha Southgate
I grabbed it, flipped open to the directed page–and found there one perfect sentence.
September 22, 2009
#12: Twilight of the Superheroes by Deborah Eisenberg 0
by Sarah Manguso
Life is impossible; it can’t possibly continue; and then it does.
September 22, 2009
#13: Mortals by Norman Rush 6
by Garth Risk Hallberg
The story of hapless CIA functionary Ray Finch’s midlife unraveling in Botswana is uproarious and deadly serious, ruminative and suspenseful, psychological and philosophical. Think Graham Greene as written by Saul Bellow. Or Thomas Mann as written by Jonathan Franzen.