The Sheila Variations

I would add ...

to the list below the following titles:

Sheila's List of Contemporary Must-Read Fiction - with the understanding that I am a bit confused as to what they mean by 'contemporary' - when is the cut-off date? Slaughter-House Five was published in the 60s ...

1. Mating, by Norman Rush
This is # 1 on the list, forever.

2. Hopeful Monsters, by Nicholas Mosley
If anyone ever really wants to understand, on a cellular level, how I see the world, and humanity's place in it ... I wouldn't be able to describe it myself probably. This book is the closest expression of it yet.

3. The Goldbug Variations, by Richard Powers
I do not know how to describe this book without making it sound boring. It's NOT! Its theme is life itself - the search for DNA, mixed in with the Goldberg Variations ... the connections found between these two ... and the meeting-up of 3 very different people: a librarian, a crazy-boy nighttime computer programmer, and an ex-scientist - one of the guys who had been on the forefront of the search for the "code" of DNA in the 50s ... their paths meet in the 1980s. And how the Goldberg Variations fit into all of this is anybody's guess ... this book is HUGE. All about math, and music, and humanity. A great achievement.

4. Birds of America, by Lorrie Moore -

this woman is tremendous. One of my writing idols.

5. A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L'Engle.
Enough said. One of the greatest books ever.

6. Cat's Eye, by Margaret Atwood.
An unbelievable achievement. This book haunts me. Here's a wee story I told about it.

I'll probably think of more - but these are the ones that came immediately to mind.

Here are a couple more:

The Bone People, by Keri Hulme.

Thanks, Fee. I don't know how I could have forgotten that one. The only novel this woman wrote. The story of a Maori woman who is a hermit and lives in a stone tower. Isolated. And then into her life comes the battering-ram of a man Joe and his little beaten-down son. The book is a 3-way dance. It's tragic - and Fee's right: it was a painful read, although completely unforgettable.

Geek Love, by Katherine Dunn

I finished this book, sitting on my porch when I lived in Philadelphia (Germantown, to be exact) - My boyfriend was going for a run, and when he returned home I was curled up on the wicker couch bawling my eyes out for poor "Olympia". Great book, people - about a family of circus freaks. Indescribable. Unforgettable.

Atonement, by Ian McEwan

Going After Cacciato, by Tim O'Brien
The great novel about Vietnam. National Book Award winner - writing beyond compare. The Things They Carried, a collection of short pieces by O'Brien, is also unbelievable - all stories about Vietnam.

Posted by sheila