Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of 1953

Lots of good stuff here but The Unnameable is the greatest novel of the 20th century.

Probably voting The Go-Between. I taught it to a 200-level college writing class - so, a bunch of freshman and sophomores who hadn't taken college lit before - and a lot of them were surprised by how into it they got.

I also taught Fahrenheit 451 a few years ago, at HS level, and liked it better than I had remembered. All the stuff about the omnipresence of technology, people doing everything with their earbuds constantly in till they become uncomfortable with silence, was much more interesting and prescient than what I remembered, which was just the book-burning part of it. I was student teaching that year at a school on an island, and when we got to the part where he reads "Dover Beach" out loud, I took the students out to the beach and read it to them out there with the sound of the waves behind us, which sounds cheesy but what else could I do? The beach was right there.

Others I've read here are The Long Goodbye - my least favorite Chandler, probably - and The Night of the Hunter, which was surprisingly great and exactly like the movie, and yet somehow still overshadowed by it.

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There’s just enough time to read The Unnamable and vote for it if you haven’t already.

I'll abstain. I've actually read many of these, but none of the 'important' ones, so I'd just end up voting for some book I found entertaining for a few hours and no longer recall very well.

The Unnamable, though The Erasers and Vian are good too.

Quite like to read that Canara Laye..

"The Go-Between by L.P. Hartley"

Though I haven't read this is another one where the film could be better.

Film not better.

'll abstain. I've actually read many of these, but none of the 'important' ones, so I'd just end up voting for some book I found entertaining for a few hours and no longer recall very well.
This would be okay! You might, for inst., lead us to unknown or forgotten pleasures.

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Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of 1954