Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of 1996

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Poll Results

OptionVotes
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace 18
Excession by Iain M. Banks 3
The Beach by Alex Garland 2
Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood 2
A Game Of Thrones by George R.R. Martin 2
Death And The Penguin by Andrey Kurkov 1
The Well by Elizabeth Jolley 1
The Left Wing by Mircea Cărtărescu 1
Cocaine Nights by J.G. Ballard 1
Big Breasts And Wide Hips by Mo Yan 0
The Art Of Joy by Goliarda Sapienza 0
The Story Of The Night by Colm Tóbín 0
The Great And The Good by Michel Déon 0
Voice Of The Fire by Alan Moore 0
Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite 0
The Debt To Pleasure by ILB Fave John Lanchester 0
A Dictionary Of Maqiao by Han Shaogong 0
The Beauty Of Men by Andrew Holleran 0
Vita Brevis: A Letter to St Augustine by Jostein Gaarder 0
The Snack Thief by Andrea Camilleri 0
The Samurai's Garden by Gail Tsukiyama 0
Primeval and Other Times by Olga Tokarczuk 0
Nanjing 1937: A Love Story by Ye Zhaoyan 0
Naive. Super by Erlend Loe 0
Heart Of Stone by Sebastiano Vassalli 0
Gimme The Money by Iva Pekárková 0
Don't Look Back by Karin Fossum 0
The Tailor Of Panama by John Le Carré 0
Reality And Dreams by Muriel Spark 0
The Big Blowdown by George Pelecanos 0
Accordion Crimes by E. Annie Proulx 0
The White Boy Shuffle by Paul Beatty 0
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell 0
Quite Ugly One Morning by Christopher Brookmyre 0
Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels 0
The First Daughter by Goretti Kyomuhendo 0
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk 0
The Cure For Death By Lightning by Gail Anderson-Dargatz 0
The Green Mile by Stephen King 0
Martin Dressler by Steven Millhauser 0
Reading In The Dark by Seamus Deane 0
Last Orders by Graham Swift 0
The Football Factory by John King 0
Every Man For Himself by Beryl Bainbridge 0
Dangerous Love by Ben Okri 0
Bridget Jone's Diary by Helen Fielding 0
253 by Geoff Ryman 0
Out Of Sight by Elmore Leonard 0
The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks 0
Anita And Me by Meera Syal 0


Daniel_Rf, Tuesday, 28 September 2021 16:49 (three years ago)

read five of these and don't want to vote for any of them

edited to reflect developments which occurred (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Tuesday, 28 September 2021 17:01 (three years ago)

I remember The Beach being both enchanting in its depiction of an island paradise and harrowing as this turns into hell. Nb read this when I was like 16.

Game oF Thrones has huge amounts of baggage now but gotta say those books were addictive as fuck when I listened to them as audiobooks while playing Civ. Read by Roy Dotrice, and since he's passed on even if GRRM ends up finishing the series "my" song of ice and fire will always remain incomplete.

Daniel_Rf, Tuesday, 28 September 2021 17:13 (three years ago)

I've only read "Infinite Jest".

o. nate, Tuesday, 28 September 2021 17:16 (three years ago)

there's just so much jest in that book

ciderpress, Tuesday, 28 September 2021 17:23 (three years ago)

read five of these and will vote for one of them

mookieproof, Tuesday, 28 September 2021 17:42 (three years ago)

There are a bunch of these I’d like to read eventually, but voted for the option that will be seen (frankly) as very Basic Bro.

Legalize Suburban Benches (Raymond Cummings), Tuesday, 28 September 2021 17:43 (three years ago)

Yeah, thinking about it I'm going to go with The Beach, really captures a world I've known in a way nothing else really does, the first half at least.

edited to reflect developments which occurred (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Tuesday, 28 September 2021 17:59 (three years ago)

Excession is next up in my Banks rereading project (currently running at 1 a year).

koogs, Tuesday, 28 September 2021 18:02 (three years ago)

None of these really leaping out at me. I had fun with the Poppy Z. Brite back in the day so might go for that.

Vanishing Point (Chinaski), Tuesday, 28 September 2021 19:36 (three years ago)

Embarrassing admission: I only just realised Poppy Z. Brite is a man.
Excession for me, but nothing here is top-drawer. I probably read the Pelecanos about 20 years ago. I have never read and will never read Infinite Jest.

a down-on-his-luck gastromancer enters (Matt #2), Tuesday, 28 September 2021 19:43 (three years ago)

Infinite Jest, happily, recently picked up a copy for a re-red.

bulb after bulb, Tuesday, 28 September 2021 20:29 (three years ago)

The Beach by Alex Garland
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell - Catholics in Spaaaace!
253 by Geoff Ryman - "originally created as a website"
Excession by Iain M. Banks
Naive. Super by Erlend Loe
Primeval and Other Times by Olga Tokarczuk

My copy of The Beach was misbound, leading to a confusing reading experience - after jumping off the cliff it cut to the food poisoning bit, to me it seemed like they blacked out on hitting the water and woke up disoriented and sick through concussion, but who were all these other characters who our protagonists seemed to know already?

Tokarczuk is my new favourite author but voting Excession as probably the best Culture novel.

ledge, Wednesday, 29 September 2021 07:36 (three years ago)

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

System, Thursday, 30 September 2021 00:01 (three years ago)

lol that the two I've read are Cocaine Nights and, er, Bridget Jones' Diary. I read the latter in response to "you can't just dismiss something if you haven't read it", and it was even worse than I was expecting it to be, so eh, that lesson was not learnt. I remember the Ballard as being pretty poor, though, so not sure I want to vote for that one either.

emil.y, Thursday, 30 September 2021 00:13 (three years ago)

alias grace is one of atwood's better novels.

adam t. (abanana), Thursday, 30 September 2021 08:50 (three years ago)

The Debt to Pleasure is actually pretty good, don't hate me for saying so. I'm going Ballard, a good example of his late style.

Neil S, Thursday, 30 September 2021 08:57 (three years ago)

I'd like to save my vote so can I have two for 1997?

look on my guacs, ye mighty, and dis pear (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 30 September 2021 11:09 (three years ago)

All the great authors wrote Britpop songs instead.

xyzzzz__, Thursday, 30 September 2021 12:56 (three years ago)

i am gonna vote for the book that's gonna win

STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Thursday, 30 September 2021 13:13 (three years ago)

rereading infinite jest a few years ago was very frustrating and uneven and made me reflect a lot about what we expect from our white dude masterpieces but when i got to the last twenty or so pages i was like "yeah this is still like fucking incredible"

STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Thursday, 30 September 2021 13:14 (three years ago)

Those last twenty pages are woah

Legalize Suburban Benches (Raymond Cummings), Thursday, 30 September 2021 16:57 (three years ago)

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

System, Friday, 1 October 2021 00:01 (three years ago)

Lanchester robbed. Is Fight Club off the cultural agenda nowadays?

a down-on-his-luck gastromancer enters (Matt #2), Friday, 1 October 2021 00:22 (three years ago)

i appreciate fight club for being gay as hell but i hate reading palahniuk's writing

STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Friday, 1 October 2021 00:48 (three years ago)

Expected enough backlash for it not to come anywhere close to winning but I'll admit I didn't expect it to straight up get zero votes.

Daniel_Rf, Friday, 1 October 2021 10:40 (three years ago)

Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of 1997

Daniel_Rf, Friday, 1 October 2021 12:10 (three years ago)


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