Winter HolidaysTop 10 Best Novels of The Century (so far)by Mark Flanagan Certainly "Best" is Subjective, but here they are - the best novels published in This Century! Ali Smith's Booker-nominated novel, The Accidental, is about how people break down and the terrifying possibilities of who they might become. Nick Guest, finds his life dramatically altered when he takes up residence with conservative Parliament member, in Alan Hollinghurst's winner of the 2004 Booker Prize. David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas ricochets it's way through time, space, and literary genres and characters in an extremely compelling "puzzle book" novel. Winner of 2001's National Book Award, Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections is a modern portrait of the family in decline. William T. Vollmann's historical novel, Europe Central, is dense with allusions to art, to music, to literature, and to history. Its characters include Kurt Gerstein, Käthe Kollwitz, and generals on both sides of the Eastern front in the Second World War. If you've not read Mark Helprin before, start with Winter's Tale or A Soldier of the Great War. If you're familiar with Helprin's epic odysseys and have been waiting for his latest, wait no longer. In The Known World, Edward P. Jones weaves together the lives of freed and enslaved blacks, whites, and Indians - and allows all of us a deeper understanding of the enduring multidimensional world created by the institution of slavery. E.L. Doctorow renders the 1864 Civil War march of Union General William Sherman. Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex is nothing short of epic; one family's survival on a twisted path through Greece to 20th Century America; the igniting of Michigan race riots, and the burning desires hidden within a girl named Callie and the man named Cal who she is to become. Zadie Smith made a literary splash as a twenty-five-year-old with her debut novel White Teeth. In On Beauty she delivers a modern twist on E. M. Forster's Howard's End. | 
| 