Totally agree that their Murakami selection is an awful book, and nothing Murakami's written in years has been any good, but he used to (20+ years ago) be a bit better...
[The Amazon tagline, "From the Modern Japanese Master" is certainly pretty cringe-inducing. >< ]
In general the entire list seems very uninspired, like it was generated by someone tallying up blog posts and fan-favorite lists, rather than being an informed opinion by someone that's actually read and thought about a lot of books...
> In general the entire list seems very uninspired, like it was generated by someone tallying up blog posts and fan-favorite lists, rather than being an informed opinion by someone that's actually read and thought about a lot of books...
Yeah, I felt the same way. If that's what you got to read before you die, well you might as well die of boredom before you finish reading the books in that list :P
Considering this is a list of books written in English, the language descended from Anglo-Saxon, what did you expect them to do? Include foreign books that their English readers can't read?
(And no, just because a non-English book is great and worth reading does not automatically confer that same status onto an English translation based upon that book.)
> what did you expect them to do? Include foreign books that their English readers can't read?
I've spotted few translated books in this list, so I don't see why this is a problem.
>And no, just because a non-English book is great and worth reading does not automatically confer that same status onto an English translation based upon that book.
I disagree, I think good translations are pretty much transparent. Substance matters more.
I think the US slant is a shame (or does Amazon have multiple lists?) but...
There are some really good books classed as "young adult" that I think are done a big disservice just by being labeled as such. Many of them are very accessible and cover things that sometimes even "grownup" literature does a terrible job of.
Personally I wouldn't go for Hunger Games, but Harry Potter was in large part responsible for a huge resurgence in reading among children and not for no reason. It's an easy read into a possibly new genre for many readers, and I'd be surprised if there was anyone out there that couldn't relate on some level to something going on in the series. It's not the best example ever, but it's far from shabby.
