Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of 1985

I guess this is the place to get in your convincing arguments for each book, though

I was just noting the presence of lots of books that are often cited as the best or one of the best by a well-known author (though of this course this may not be unanimous), including for authors I've never read (like McCarthy and Atwood). I haven't read that much by Auster, but "City of Glass" seems a good distillation of his strengths, and is probably what I'll vote for.

20 something me would have voted for White Noise, but I think it’s Annie John

i have never been able to like Love in the Time of Cholera, even though One Hundred Years of Solitude is undeniable.

I must have missed the year with Norman Rush’s Mating, dammit!

Mating is '91 I think?

i have never been able to like Love in the Time of Cholera, even though One Hundred Years of Solitude is undeniable.

― horseshoe

Interesting. I didn't like 100 YoS but my friend tried to convince me that LitToC was better and I should still give it a try.

I'm struggling to choose between my two, I think they're both good books - I feel like Perfume is a much more sensual read with more interestingly-crafted prose, but that it says something pretty bad about my personality if I choose it over Handmaid's Tale. I mean, I guess my personality *is* pretty bad, but I don't want to admit to that.

I didn't like 100 YoS but my friend tried to convince me that LitToC was better and I should still give it a try.

Haven't read either since high school but my memory is that your reaction to 100YoS is a pretty good indication of whether the whole GGM project is right for you

As usual, lots of familiar names and titles, but have only read a few, will go for The Handmaid's Tale. which is still being told in the corridors ov memory and elsewhere (haven't seen the series, don't remember the movie)

Blood Meridian, over Handmaid's Tale, from a stacked field

Voted Masters of Atlantis, Portis, here. Perfect summation of the weird little cults that sprang up at the ragged fringes of US life before the internet turned them monstrous.

Blood Meridian over Perfume

Old Masters. His best.

is the latter real-autobiography version of Oranges worth reading?

* later

I don't know how much ground it re-covers (surely it would be interesting from that pov anyway) but I enjoyed it.

I just finished Blood Meridian, so that over White Noise over Love in the Time of Cholera over City of Glass.

I wonder what I will think in a few years.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Where'd my vote go? i am not good at computer

I was expecting The Handmaid's Tale to walk this, exacting descriptions of scalpings more popular on ilb though

Didn't know if I thought it was going to win but did think it'd get more than two votes - has the by all accounts terrible tv show hurt its rep?

I wonder who voted for A Maggot? It's certainly unlike most other novels though I would never read it again.

Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of 1986

Count me too as startled by low showing of Handmaid's Tale (of which I made up half the vote) -- at the time EVERYBODY read this, EVERYBODY praised it. My teen son read it and dug it last year so it's not like it doesn't still work.