Score

The Lord of the Rings was published since 1983?

Nope! Guess they just really like that book. Try to keep it within the time frame please!

Harry Potter is a classic? Or Bridget Jones' Diary? Or Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell? I look at all these lists and realize that lists mean nothing. The only list that means a thing, if you're a list type person, is your own personal list.

As mentioned in the heading, this is a list of what EW thinks will become classics. I've opened up the forum for you to include those missing from the list that you think should have been included. Why don't you vote for your favorites or add a new book you think is worthy?

Twilight as a classic? *shudders*

The "Entertainment Weekly" list is published at http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20207...

Bevin wrote: "As mentioned in the heading, this is a list of what EW thinks will become classics. I've opened up the forum for you to include those missing from the list that you think should have been included. Why don't you vote for your favorites or add a new book you think is worthy?"

That's an invitation calling for the cramming of this list with the "usual suspects" already topping plenty of other Goodreads lists, I'm afraid. ;)

As far as I can see, Entertainment Weekly gives an evaluation of each individual book they placed on the list, commenting on the writing, contents, etc., and (directly or indirectly) setting forth why they think the book is destined to become a "new classic." Unfortunately they don't also seem to provide a summary of the criteria they looked for, but it does seem to come down to something more than "popular appeal" (even in the case of entries such as "The Da Vinci Code," "Harry Potter," and "Eat, Pray, Love"). If we are adding books of our own to this list at all, shouldn't we at least TRY to live up to that?

ETA: Also, when adding books from a series, wouldn't it make sense to limit our entries to one (e.g., the first) book?

I couldn't agree more! I wish there were a way for me to show which books were on the original top 25 before others were added. It is hard to tell with some of these additional entries if the post-er thinks they will be "new classics" or if they simply like the book. There is a difference (hint hint future adders)

Well, we can at least replicate the top 25 entries from the actual EW list here ...

They are, in order:

1. The Road , Cormac McCarthy (2006)
2. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling (2000)
3. Beloved, Toni Morrison (1987)
4. The Liars' Club, Mary Karr (1995)
5. American Pastoral, Philip Roth (1997)
6. Mystic River, Dennis Lehane (2001)
7. Maus, Art Spiegelman (1986/1991)
8. Selected Stories, Alice Munro (1996)
9. Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier (1997)
10. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami (1997)
11. Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer (1997)
12. Blindness, José Saramago (1998)
13. Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (1986-87)
14. Black Water, Joyce Carol Oates (1992)
15. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers (2000)
16. The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood (1986)
17. Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez (1988)
18. Rabbit at Rest, John Updike (1990)
19. On Beauty, Zadie Smith (2005)
20. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding (1998)
21. On Writing, Stephen King (2000)
22. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Díaz (2007)
23. The Ghost Road, Pat Barker (1996)
24. Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry (1985)
25. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan (1989)

Thanks!!!

TeNeBriS iN LuX (Celia "Valo") wrote: "Twilight as a classic? *shudders*"

amen !!!

Thanks for the list!

Amen again about the Twilight series!

It was a close call, but I removed The Prince by Macchiavelli. It missed the 1983 cut off only by 500 years or so.

Cosmically speaking, a mere millisecond ... ;)

TFIOS is the kind of book that should be considered classic... it's just that type of book.

where is City of Bones?

To Kill a Mockingbird is long before 1983

Anne of Green Gables 1908
In Cold Blood
The Sun Also Rises
etc

at least a dozen books prior to 1983