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Mark Flanagan

Mark's Contemporary Literature Blog

By Mark Flanagan, About.com Guide to Contemporary Literature

The Best Fiction of the Millennium (So Far)

Wednesday September 30, 2009

Over at The Millions, C. Max Magee and company are taking the literary pulse of the 21st Century by listing The Best Fiction of the Millennium (So Far). Though admittedly premature, this list of twenty books was in fact discerned not only by contributors from The Millions, but also a respectable panel of 48 writers, editors, and critics, who were all asked a single question, "What are the best books of fiction of the millennium, so far?" Here's what they came up with:

#20: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
#19: American Genius, A Comedy by Lynne Tillman
#18: Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link
#17: The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
#16: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
#15: Varieties of Disturbance by Lydia Davis
#14: Atonement by Ian McEwan
#13: Mortals by Norman Rush
#12: Twilight of the Superheroes by Deborah Eisenberg
#11: The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
#10: Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
#9: Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage by Alice Munro
#8: Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson
#7: Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald
#6: The Road by Cormac McCarthy
#5: Pastoralia by George Saunders
#4: 2666 by Roberto Bolaño
#3: Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
#2: The Known World by Edward P. Jones
#1: The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

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