Stop this. The idea that our generation doesn't read as much or is stupid or doesn't care is a myth. Why would you assume that Dreww's or any of our fiction reading isn't rapid?

Stop what? I don't think I implied your generation is stupid. We got onto this concept of how many books, and/or what provenance of which one reads as a function of age...I think. Drew seemed to suggest I might have read more, or more widely (in the budding literary realm), as I have more years on him. Which just isn't true. And I have said, of your generation, that I have a daughter who reads as much as I ever did, and just as quickly. And admittedly, having grown up in Asia, she does tend to read a fair number of Asian and age of empire sorts of titles, along with American stuff. She has a thing for David Sedaris titles, oddly. But I still think people read fewer "classics" or "literary" works than they used to.

Why do conversations always have to be an argument, or oddly defensive? Budding literary types might do well to toss in some more modern non-american options. Or they might not, as you will. It doesn't make one dumber or smarter, just possessed of a different frame of reference.

http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/ar ... 439559.php
this is sad, i used to look forward to this book sale every year.

Just curious, does one still read The Good Earth in secondary school in the US?

a few reasons explaining why dreww's list includes those authors and why that's fine and shouldn't be read into very much:

-your tastes evolved a couple decades before ours (sorry if i'm assuming you're older than you are!) and emphases on canonized literature were different, and some contemporary authors weren't even writing.
-young men and young women definitely differ in what they read. there's a lot of overlap, but boys read more male authors and girls read more female authors, for example. i think girls may read more relatively obscure (compared to the canonized heavy hitters) authors because so many of the big, worshipped novels have male protagonists they are less likely to relate to, so they branch out more earlier. that's just a theory.
-it sounds like your reading habits and consumption were way ahead of the curve for people your age.
-internet was less developed and television was less prominent in your life.

i think you're anomalous (not a bad thing) or at least incredibly different from 2000s and 2010s budding young american literature readers for a lot of reasons, but i don't know why you're so bent on creating a standard out of your experiences and tastes, or how that justifies your subtle criticisms and judgments on why we are one way and you were another way, like we're doing it wrong.

It's just hard to have a conversation with you Karen because I don't think you understand the tenor in which my post was intended, and I don't think it's too opaque because it hasn't been a problem for anyone else. Again: it's not a list of authors I think are best. It's not a list of recommendations. It's not a list of what I think people should read. It's not an exhaustive list of authors I have read or plan to read. It's a list of authors I tend to see boys in a certain age range reading recreationally, in the order that I personally like those authors. That's all it is, nothing more. The list, in other words, is written with a touch of irony, if the tone of its title did not make that clear enough. You have repeatedly responded to it as if it claims to be something other than that, and used it as a springboard to make all kinds of unfounded left-field assumptions about my (and my generation's) character, knowledgeability, etc. It's just a little annoying.

because the way you phrase things, ask questions, and select words often reeks of condescension and superiority

ahead of the curve for people my age? what does that even mean? as for your dislike on how i phrase things...okay, i guess.

i am not bent on changing Drew's list. but y'all seem to think it's illegal to compare Drew's list to what amounts to my husband's list from a slightly, but not hugely, different era, albeit one a quarter of a century earlier -- and to then wonder why it got a little more american-centric than i recall. and FTR, Ellis published his first book in '85, i graduated in '87 (the year Wallace first published). Ellis was all the rage, at the time. you shouldn't focus on the boy girl aspect, as i am providing a literary male perspective. up until about 15 years ago, i solely read the fiction my husband, a male, purchased.

i get that. and all i said was it had an american bent. and i compared it what i know of my husband and his friends from a different time.

...then it got overly complicated. okay. i give up. no more talking about literature.

Because it's an unfair, unhelpful comparison. My list is based off stereotyping a demographic. Your list is the list of an actual human being. If it were a comparison of my own personal reading list and your husband's, that would be something.

And I will persist in the boy/girl thing. Most of my male friends read the giants of American and European modernism and postmodernism. It's my girl friends who read more female authors and more widely in nationality. My professors, of course, make it their business to read more widely because it's expected in the profession. Maybe your husband was an exception.

I suspect it is fair to say, I shouldn't say anything, but feminism exists on different level now than it did in the 70s/80s. And my husband had a reasonably large group of literary/philosophy type friends who spent many a night chewing the fat about literature, philosophy and film. I usually ignored the film bits. And, in NYC, it is also fair to say a lot of university-aged men were homosexual and bi. Which may have been contributing factors...and women not so traditional.

giants of American and European modernism and postmodernism are hugely popular with budding literary types, very true.

I'd adjust that to 80s/90s and agree. And I'd include the multicultural swing. At least in terms of what young people read recreationally, especially young men, there probably is a trend to long for the return of the great white male author. It's fashionable for professors to dismiss the notion in class, so it may cause young men to be nostalgic for it in their free time.

I may have asked you this before, do you read the Oxford American?
http://www.oxfordamerican.org/articles/ ... rry-crews/

also interesting, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/08/us/08bcculture.html

White Noise - Don Delillo
7.4/10

First DeLillo book I've read. Loved it, the voice is perfect, the narrator manages to be the butt of the joke and almost above the joke at the same time (if that makes sense). My only big complaints are that the supermarket was used so much that the idea became a little less effective than it could have been, and the constant attention/satire paid to toward technology and information receiving was also a bit much (though it ends kinda away from that so I guess he makes up for it), and Gladney's little episode at the end seemed kind of sudden (though if I read it again I might think differently knowing where the plot is going).

Bought Underworld and will likely read it later this summer. Just started Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson.

I didn't much care for White Noise. It felt... flat, maybe? Too long since I've read it for me to remember specific complaints.

I just really enjoyed the language and the quirkiness of it. Content wise it's probably "only" above average.

I remember being annoyed with the language too. It kept me at one remove from everything in a way that I'm sure DeLillo intended, given the general theme of the novel, but it kept me from ever fully engaging with it. I guess that was probably my main issue. Holding the reader at a remove like that is tricky because you've got to do that while also, in another sense, not holding the reader at a remove—you can't prevent the reader from sinking into the text. And I don't think DeLillo successfully managed that.

Drew assures me that Mao II is better so I suppose I shall read that one at some point.

That's a legitmate complaint. The reader, non-critic side of me found it engaging enough. It could also be noted, and I don't know how important this is, that the narrator is a world-renowned college professor and in that sense that language fits. Though I guess you still can't forget the reader. In the end stuff like, "Maybe there is no death as we know it. Just documents changing hands," I absolutely love.