The Best Books of 2007! (New York Times)

Comments

1. JohnABaptist says

   November 30, 2007 at 3:18 pm

   The list was obviously for Adult Novels and did not include titles from their Children’s List. (!) I wonder, who, if anyone, is the token adult at the NY Times?

   (Bad JAB, catty comments belong to someone else on this blog. Bad! I say, bad! Smacks self on nose with NY Times…self ignores self as usual.)
2. reyhan says

   November 30, 2007 at 3:47 pm

   Deathly Hallows made it to their Notable Children’s Books of 2007 list:

   ‘This book, among the best-selling of all time, brings to a close a 10-year series exceptional for its appeal to fans from 7 to 70. In this final volume, Harry faces his last battle with Voldemort and solves the mystery behind his enigmatic elders, Severus Snape and Albus Dumbledore. The Harry Potter books have won their author “imperishable renown,” as Christopher Hitchens wrote in these pages. “Probably for many decades there will still be millions of adults who recall their initiation to literature as a little touch of Harry in the night.”’

   Oooh.
3. JOdel says

   November 30, 2007 at 5:11 pm

   *sigh*

   You *do* notice the utter lack of any kind of genre fiction on that list don’t you? Where are the mysteries, Science Fiction, Fantasy, westerns or romances on that list?

   Never expect to find any form of genre fiction on any self-anointed “best books” lists. The people who produce such lists don’t admit to reading genre fiction.

   Which isn’t to say that it *never* shows up. But it is as rare as hen’s teeth, and is usually masquerading as something else. (Social satire, typically. How often do people come out and state that 1984 qualifies as science fiction?)
4. Arabella Figg says

   December 1, 2007 at 5:13 pm

   Have you ever noticed in interviews that when famous people are asked what they’re reading, they’re always in the middle of some *important* tome, history, biography, awareness-raising book, etc.? They’re never reading Tom Grisham, Danielle Steele, Mitch Albom or any popular authors. These folks apparently never indulge in “guilty pleasures.” I’m afraid I don’t read these authors either, but they have huge audiences.

   I think this is what these kinds of lists in publications that take themselves way too seriously like to publish. Probably everyone in on the choice read DH, but would never admit it in public. Or sully themselves with including it in literatoor.

   Luscious Badboy found some literatoor and sat on it…