Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of 2008

Found Matter a challenging read but it sure is full of great ideas. The Hunger Games I read about a fourth of, it's fine.

lol at frontloading the sad young literary men

once again haven’t read any of these

I've read Anathem, that's it.

There's always a batch of books in these polls that, if you didn't read them when they were new, it's very hard to imagine ever reading.

I was surprised thinking, I’ve surely read none of these, but no, three. Am not going to vote on that.

I also own a signed copy of His Illegal Self that I got at a Guardian book event where Peter Carey talked about Oscar and Lucinda that I still haven’t read.

This Charming Man is decent, but as far as her later work goes, it’s no The Mystery of Mercy Close. I will be back to stan for that one if you include it in 2012, Daniel! Looking at the cover, the cover is really trivial and sparkly but it’s dark as fuck and a genuinely uncomfortable read. I liked it, but it was too hard to read again. I feel like her actual work & the marketing of might be up there with the most misleading in publishing?!

I tried reading The Three Body Problem, Lavinia, and I Curse the River of Time and couldn't get into any of them; I guess 2008 just isn't for me.

I've absorbed the Hunger Games by osmosis (via my kids) but this year is basically a blank for me.

I think of Seiobo as a collection of stories rather than a novel (got into an argument about this before) but I will still confidently vote for it because it's front-to-back bangers

The White Tiger is good journalism first and decent fiction second. Not quite enough for a vote but I'd not not recommend it

Because of my old person reading habits, as these polls entered the 21st century they have included ever fewer titles I've read. This one is a shutout.

Voted Home, which, after looking out across time and space and tumblin' tumbleweeds from Gilead, especially (but even if I'd started here) is tight and sometimes claustrophobic, with these few family members bumping up against each other even when trying to avoid or slow confrontation, as the father's condition deteriorates, but w those bolts of lucidity, as olde rationalizations are forgotten, and new developments are noted--but also moments of respite, grace notes, even, setting them up for the next round (ending incl. sweet payoff, though not living-dying happily ever after)

I own one or two of these, have read none.

Have read 5, voted Home.

Seiobo There Below by László Krasznahorkai

The only one by him I really liked. Goes from his post Joycean modernism of the earlier work to something more essayistic. But the writing can be as challenging as what he writes about.

I've read "All the Sad Young Literary Men" but I don't remember it very distinctly. I think this would be a write-in for Joseph O'Neill's Netherland for me.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Haven't read many of these. Suicide by Edouard Leve is a pretty striking one - author writes a 'novel' entitled Suicide, about a 'friend' who commits suicide, then three days after it's accepted for publication, author commits suicide, leaving a note to say he still wants the novel published.

Interesting piece about the author here: https://www.frieze.com/article/last-things

3BP

I've read six - Home, Olive Kitteridge, Visitation, Matter, Anathem, The Three Body Problem. No regrets about any of them though I do prefer Gilead's open hearted protagonist to Home's over anxious and somewhat less generous Glory. Olive Kitteridge is abother not so sympathetic character but I warmed to her contradictions and moments of self awareness. I'm voting for Visitation which is monumental, and devastating where it touches on the holocaust. Anathem is my favourite Stephenson, love the idea of the monasteries only open once every year, decade, century, or millennium. Matter is one of the more fun Culture novels and The Three Body Problem is bonkers but memorable.

Oh, Visitation has a thread: 'may and must, and may, and must, and may, and must': a thread for jenny erpenbeck's novel 'visitation'

2x 3bp novels in the list, neither of them short (i'm guessing this was the translation into english rather than initial publication).

just those two and Matter for me (and House Of Suns, not listed). can't choose between them.

I think this would be a write-in for Joseph O'Neill's Netherland for me.

Only because I don't think I've ready anything else on this list.

Home's Glory is youngest daughter/sister, back to take care of their father and for private reasons, then lifelong outlier prodigal brother finally returns, she's cooped up in old weird family home w them, no room for laidback Rev. John reveries, though she has her own at the end---think it works on its own terms, like the others in this cycle. But it's also the only one in this poll that I've read, as usual; otherwise, I might vote for something else.

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

Least popular year since 2003 which also had 13 votes.

Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of 2009

Only top tie so far!?

Oh no, theer were tons of those in the early 20th century polls.