Reading List

From the New York Times

Early this year, the Book Review's editor, Sam Tanenhaus, sent out a short letter to a couple of hundred prominent writers, critics, editors and other literary sages, asking them to please identify "the single best work of American fiction published in the last 25 years." Following are the results.

THE WINNER:
Beloved (1987)
Toni Morrison
Review

THE RUNNERS-UP:
Underworld (1997)
Don DeLillo


Blood Meridian (1985)
Cormac McCarthy
Review


Rabbit Angstrom: The Four Novels
John Updike


American Pastoral (1997)
Philip Roth
Review


THE FOLLOWING BOOKS ALSO RECEIVED MULTIPLE VOTES:

A Confederacy of Dunces (1980)
John Kennedy Toole


Housekeeping (1980)
Marilynne Robinson


Winter's Tale (1983)
Mark Helprin


White Noise (1985)
Don DeLillo


The Counterlife (1986)
Philip Roth


Libra (1988)
Don DeLillo


Where I'm Calling From (1988)
Raymond Carver


The Things They Carried (1990)
Tim O'Brien


Mating (1991)
Norman Rush


Jesus' Son (1992)
Denis Johnson


Operation Shylock (1993)
Philip Roth


Independence Day (1995)
Richard Ford


Sabbath's Theater (1995)
Philip Roth


Border Trilogy
Cormac McCarthy


The Human Stain (2000)
Philip Roth


The Known World (2003)
Edward P. Jones


The Plot Against America (2004)
Philip Roth