11/11/2004|||110017405819043287||||||

THE GOOD BOOK GUIDE

I'm normally wary of books-of-the-year lists (I hate the sound of all those friends scratching each others' backs) but I make an exception for Benjamin Schwarz's choices in the new issue of The Atlantic. I'm embarrassed to say I haven't read a single item on his list. Time to start throwing money at Amazon, I guess.

He has a stern word or two for the book-reviewing trade, by the way:

"...[A]lthough everyone in the "serious" book business decries the lack of attention to literary fiction, I find the lack of attention to works of serious non-fiction to be an even bigger problem. As I write, only one of the non-fiction titles named here has been reviewed in The New York Times. Finally, although this wasn't a dreadful year in books, it's one of the least good years for novels that I can remember. Readers will notice just two fiction titles—both short-story collections."

The Origins of the Final Solution by Christopher R. Browning (Nebraska)

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography by H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison, editors (Oxford)

The Reformation: A History by Diarmaid MacCulloch (Viking)

The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited by Benny Morris (Cambridge)

Runaway by Alice Munro (Knopf)

Cataclysm: The First World War as Political Tragedy by David Stevenson (Basic)

Honored Guest by Joy Williams (Knopf)

|||Clive|||http://clivedavis.blogspot.com/2004/11/good-book-guide-im-normally-wary-of.html|||11/11/2004 11:40:00 am|||||||||

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