The National Book Critics Circle has come out with a list of recommended reads, or “Good Reads,” as they call their list (not be confused with the literary social networking site Good Reads, a problem many people have had, judging from the comments left on the NBCC blog yesterday after the name change went into effect). I want to be perfectly clear about something up front — I love the National Book Critics Circle. Their annual awards “get it right” (at least in my opinion) far more often than the National Book Award or the Pulitzer (the Gold Glove of literary awards). Their criticism and poetry awards bring attention to books that often don’t have much of a home in the marketplace, and for this, I thank them.
That being said, their recommended list leaves a bit to be desired. It’s not that the books on the list aren’t good — they are — it’s that they’re, well, a little obvious. My friend Cory, blogger at Skylight Books in LA, pointed out that Philip Roth made the list. Looking at the fiction list, I feel a little like Jack Black’s character in High Fidelity, “Philip Roth? Not obvious. No, not obvious at all. Come on, NBCC, couldn’t you make it easier? What about Hemingway? How about William Shakespeare? Why not recommend Hamlet?” I don’t mean to hammer on Philip Roth, who I love, but come on. Does he really need the readers? Other books on the fiction list represent some of the major books of the year, including Denis Johnson’s Tree of Smoke and Junot Diaz’ The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. The one quasi-obscure title on the list is Per Petterson’s Out Stealing Horses, a book that comes in at #35 on the New York Times bestseller list, one spot behind Diaz’ title. The non-fiction list offers little in the way of “off-the-beaten” path recommendations, either, with NBCC Award nominees Legacy of Ashes, The World Without Us, and Brother, I’m Dying all making the list.
Some of the blame should go to the methodology of how these lists are compiled. According to the NBCC, “Polling our nearly 800 members, as well as all the former finalists and winners of our book prize, we asked, What 2007 books have you read that you have truly loved?” By casting such a wide net, the sample size becomes so large that only the truly well-known rise to the top (The list of every book receiving multiple votes is available in each category). That’s not a problem, except that it raises the question of who the list serves? If I’ve already heard of every book on the list, what good is the list? Is it aimed at people who haven’t read a book in years?
I applaud the NBCC for stimulating literary discussion, and obviously every one of the books on these lists is a good book, worthy of being read far and wide. I would hope, however, that the NBCC would use its position in the literary vanguard to promote some books that maybe aren’t getting the readership they deserve. That would be a list people could actually use.
(The NBCC will have an event at Skylight Books this Tuesday (2/5), when Mark Sarvas will lead a panel discussion of exactly how this list came to be).
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Peter, Thanks a lot for caring enough to make such a thoughtful comment about the list. I really appreciate it. I worry about these things, too, and you bring up some good points. We live in a world where writers are becoming brand names, and there is an argument to be made for the fact that many of the writers on the first list (and some on the second) fit into that category.
I’m not terribly worried, though, about giving very good books another shot at reaching readers. I’m more worried about the speed with which we’re supposed to metabolize books now. Johnson’s novel was out in September, won an award in November, and I feel by December we’re all supposed to have moved on because it’s had ‘success.’ It’s a big book, which took him a decade or more to write, and raises some very serious issues — I think reviews have just scratched the surface. I don’t think readers who wander into the store are on that speeded up schedule and the critical world (and publishing world) does them a disservice by our restlessness.
I suppose you could say that there are a lot of other books waiting for their turn, and I agree. There are far too many books being published now than a culture can possibly devour (and we’re not even very good at translating books!). It’s good to spread the wealth. But I also believe that the discussion about books shouldn’t be driven by a desire to help out small presses or new authors — worthy as those impulses are — but simply to find the best, even if it is obvious choice, while keeping an eye on the institutional or structural impediments against getting books which are very good (like say Geoffrey O’Brien’s poems, Sleeping and Waking, or Dinaw Mengestu’s novel Children of the Revolution) their fair due.
About the methodology: I believe that asking a large group of writers and critics (many of whom are skpetical of the new new thing) to recommend a book should help us make a list of the best books possible. Because the really good books do travel on a different space-time continuuum. Edward P. Jones’ The Known World, which won our award a few years back, was published into a vacuum created by the decade or so it took him to write it. His first book sold very few copies. But the Known World emerged and got several dozen reviews and I bet it’d have made our Good Reads list if we’d had one back then. Would it have been an obvious choice? By the time a list was compiled, it would have seemed so, but it’s a tremendous, tremendous book and came from a less than obvious writer.
My hope with the Good Reads list is that people drill down a little to the longlists (which I’ve been asking people to link to when I send it out). Lydia Millet very nearly made our first list, she’s on the longlist again. On our new list, Steve Erickson emerged out of the first longlist to beat out Roth and Petterson. J.M. Coetzee got on the shortlist. He’s no spring chicken, sure, but he’s on there for a rather difficult book written like a neopolitan ice-cream scoop.
Who is this list for? It’s for readers first and foremost. I think ultimately people who follow reviews very very closely, and work in the book trade and read the blogs are not going to be surprised — no matter what we pick — because there is just so much book information out there now, with review sections on the internet, and online booksellers, and all the blogs — a good thing, yes, but it leads to name fatigue. My hope is people would talk back to the list, like you!, so their own preferencs could be registered and recorded on the internet. What would you have put on there?
Finally, I think some of this will change as we move into a new year. The parameters for this vote were Spring ’07 to Spring ’08, since I wanted to account for the fact that even if a book is getting lots of reviews now, people who are buying contemporary fiction are following at a slight lag to the media, which has become obsessed with reviewing right on or before the pub date.
I think as we turn deeper into the new year the Good Reads list will contain a few more wild cards, and it might spin off a few siblings. The name won’t change — Good Reads is just a phrase and that website, far as I can tell, doesn’t have it trademarked (which would be like trademarking Good Eats).
I can imagine the NBCC creating a list specifically for booksellers and/or other reviewers, made up, say, of 7 titles recommended by individual writers and critics, like Cynthia Ozick or John Updike or Eliot Weinberger, then emailed around to critics and booksellers. Do you think that would be helpful? Since these people read ahead of the curve it might actually lead to some discoveries as they say.
Hope that answers some of your questions, Patrick.
My best,
John Freeman