In your lifetime

[WICKES]

What would you say are the best or most significant books published in the lifetime of the average person on here- say the last 40 years? In any language, fiction or non fiction...

[PeterL]

Probably The Ship That Sailed the Time Stream is the best. Alas, it has been largely ignored, so it probably is not the most significant, but that may change over the next few thousand years.

[LitNetIsGreat]

It's a good question as usual and I will look forward to hearing the views of others, which may involve adding another few to the reading list.

[MissScarlett]

Toni Morrison's Beloved

Salman Rushdie's The Moor's Last Sigh

Gabriel Garcia Marquez' One Hundred Years of Solitude

[The Comedian]

I'll go a little off the map here:

1. Barry Lopez's Arctic Dreams -- this work of non fiction is the perfect example of natural history: it's filled with story, science, thrill, and sadness. And Lopez's writing is some of the best contemporary prose that I've read..

2. David James Duncan's The River Why -- a story about fishing that's filled with humor and insight. The romance portion of the novel could be better constructed, but the other elements outweigh that deficiency.

3). Craig Thompson's Blankets -- a graphic novel in the true sense of the word: a story about a first love that is written and drawn by Thompson. No men in spandex here -- but if you want to read beautiful cartooning, quality prose, and story telling of the highest order, check out this book.

[JBI]

Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie.

[mono]

Gabriel Garcia Marquez' One Hundred Years of Solitude

2. David James Duncan's The River Why -- a story about fishing that's filled with humor and insight. The romance portion of the novel could be better constructed, but the other elements outweigh that deficiency.
Good choices! :thumbs_up
Comedian, have you, by any chance, gotten around to reading The Brothers K by the same author? I think I liked it a bit more than The River Why; it's size looks a lot more impressive (several hundred pages), but I think I read the novel in less than 2 weeks, not having the ability to set it down. :nod:

[sixsmith]

Most significant books of the last 40 years

Fiction: Gravity's Rainbow - Thomas Pynchon
Non fiction: Anarchy, State and Utopia- Robert Nozick

[Drkshadow03]

J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter, of course. And maybe Stephen King's Dark Tower series.

[WICKES]

Stephen Hawking: 'A Brief History Of Time' had a big impact and, I would guess, is the best known work of popular science

Richard Dawkin's The Ancestor's Tale and The God Delusion

The first is an amazing book and probably the most comprehensive, detailed, straightforward, up to date account of how life got here. I suspect it will become a classic in the future and may be seen as his best book.

The God Delusion is not so good in most people's opinions, but it is perhaps the best known work of the so called 'New Atheist' movement and has generated a hell of a lot of debate and anger. It perhaps represents a new mood of hostility towards religion in the wake of 9/11. Britain is a very secular nation with low church attendence anyway, but who knows the fate of religion in the USA in the coming decades?

Ian McEwan's 'Atonement' ?

Rushdie's 'Satanic Verses' ?

[The Comedian]

Comedian, have you, by any chance, gotten around to reading The Brothers K by the same author? I think I liked it a bit more than The River Why; it's size looks a lot more impressive (several hundred pages), but I think I read the novel in less than 2 weeks, not having the ability to set it down. :nod:

I have read The Brothers K and had the same reading experience as you did, mono. I carried that book around with me nearly everywhere I went. And I agree that I think the overall story of The Brothers K is more tightly constructed and as a whole, may be better than The River Why, but I'm a sucker for moments, and there some paragraphs, chapters, lines in The River Why that stay with me to this day.