Show & Tell: The New York Times Made a List. I Am Not Okay.
Unstacked Digest for the week of July 8-14
Welcome to another edition of Show & Tell where I tell you the nine things I loved from the week and the one thing I hated, plus round up everything else going on around these parts. The first half of Show & Tell is free to all. The adoration and hateration are for paid subscribers only.
When I first wrote this installment of Show & Tell on Saturday, July 13th there had not been a shooting at a Trump rally. That feels like a big thing, that maybe shouldn’t be completely ignored. It is not a thing I love or hate, it feels like an extremely American thing. I didn’t want to write this week without at least mentioning it. So here you go. I don’t have fully formed thoughts, nor do I think we have enough information on the topic. So I’ll leave it at that.
The real thing I obsessed over this week was the The only thing I thought or cared about all week was the New York Times’ list of the “100 Best Books of the 21st Century”. I love a list and I love to think about a list, even a list that I maybe hate, and now you’ll all get to hear about that.
This Week on Unstacked
Last week was July 4th, so Show & Tell was loosely based around all of that, plus Kendrick. Always Kendrick.
For Read to Know Basis I talked with shark scientist Jasmin Graham about her book, Sharks Don't Sink: Adventures of a Rogue Shark Scientist.
Books I Read This Week
Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
This 1993 classic near-future dystopian novel starts in July 2024, which means we’re currently living our greatest writer’s worst nightmares. Welcome to the terrordome. This is a reread for me, and I liked it more in a lot of ways, and but found it much more brutal and upsetting this time around. I am saving most of my thoughts for the episode on Parable of the Sower, for The Stacks Book Club. That will drop on July 31st, make sure you’re subscribed to the show so you don’t miss it.
Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe
Those of you who know me know I love love loooovvveeee PRK. I had started this book in December 2019 and never finished because I decided to give birth to the Mini-Stacks instead. I finally went back and restarted this work of investigative journalism about the Troubles in Northern Ireland this week. This book is a masterpiece. I think PRK is the best investigative journalist author we have. He can weave a story that is so compelling and filled with history and research but reads like a novel or true crime.
Fave of the week!
Housekeeping
Katherine Lewin, author of the new cookbook/hosting guide Big Night: Dinners, Parties, and Dinner Parties came on the pod to talk about gathering. I promise this is for those of you who love having friends over and those who dread it!
This month on NPR’s Here and Now I shared some audiobook recommendations.
Nine Things I Love…
Book News
Ok, we should start here. The New York Times released this list of the “100 Best Books of the 21st Century”. Love it or hate it, it took up so much of my brain space this week. I woke up early every day to check the 20 book drop of the day and text my friends about it. I was in no less than six chats about this list. It occupied so much of my brain space I am behind on just about everything other work obligation I have.
I did make my own mock ballot, thanks to JC Grenn for the idea and sparking a trend that I do honestly wish would die at this point.
I was happy to see some faves on the list (including 9 books/authors we had on The Stacks in the last six years), a few titles I’d never heard of, and some of my favorite books of all time.
That being said, the methods behind this list were so unclear and shrouded I truly do not know what this list says or means, or even really, who is saying it. According to the NYT they asked 503 “literary luminaries” (authors, critics, librarians, etc.) for their 10 “best” books of the last 25 years. They didn’t define best for the participants. They then proceeded to aggregate the data and put the highest vote getters in a ranked list 100 to 1. Which all sounds good, but like who are these people? What happens in the event of a tie? Did the NYT editors have any oversight? If not, why not?
There ended up being some major snubs, for example not a single Native American author is on the list. Also, less shameful, but still perplexing no Gone Girl on the list, no A Little Life, no Educated, no Jon Krakauer (maybe I’m the only person who cares about that, but I’d argue his impact is bigger than he gets credit for).
I do think knowing the demographics of the folks who voted would really help. It feels like a list about books decided by a group of writers who want to seem smart and big up their teachers and inspirations. I can’t figure out how George Saunders ends up on the list three times and Dave Eggers doesn’t. And this isn’t me saying anything about the quality of either of these people, but more so the fact that some huge names in shaping books in the last 25 years are just missing. Jhumpa Lahiri anybody?
Some of these snubs make more sense if we find out that the list was made by a majority of MFA holding literary fiction writers. It certainly would explain the Saunders and the lack of genre fiction. Likewise if the list was made by a bunch of Gen Z readers I’d understand why Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow got a spot (which at present seems unthinkable).
The list did the thing these lists are built to do, it got people thinking and talking and arguing about books. It made books the center of attention for a whole week, and to me, that is a dream come true. So in that regard I do really love this list.
I am a list person. I know lots of folks dismiss these things and think they are meaningless. I am not one of the those people. I love the power of a ranking and the way they spark debate and work as a mirror to the culture. So yeah, I do not agree with a lot on the list, but I am thrilled about the list’s existence and being rolled out with so much daily anticipation. Like, on Thursday I spent so much time thinking about what would be in the top 20, to the point that I wrote out my own list of what I thought had to be there, based on the public ballots I saw, my own sense of the literary world, and what I thought just had to be on the list. That list is below and is over 30 books long. The sense of dread when I realized the amount of snubs coming…
A great week to be a reader!