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New York Times - Best Work of American Fiction of the Past 25 Years

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 is the winner along with other books that received numerous votes.

(found at: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/21/books/fiction-25-years.html)
1. Beloved
by Toni Morrison
 
2. Underworld - Parts I and II
by Don DeLillo
 
3. Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West (Modern Library)
by Cormac Mccarthy
 
4. Rabbit Angstrom : The Four Novels : Rabbit, Run, Rabbit Redux, Rabbit Is Rich, Rabbit at Rest (Everyman's Library)
by John Updike
 
5. American Pastoral
by Philip Roth
 
6. A Confederacy of Dunces
by John Kennedy Toole
 
7. Housekeeping: A Novel
by Marilynne Robinson
 
8. Winter's Tale
by Mark Helprin
 
9. White Noise: (Great Books Edition) (Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century)
by Don DeLillo
 
10. The Counterlife
by Philip Roth
 
11. Libra (Contemporary American Fiction)
by Don DeLillo
 
12. Where I'm Calling From: Selected Stories
by Raymond Carver
 
13.
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The Things They Carried
by Tim O'Brien
 
14.
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Mating
by Norman Rush
 
15. Jesus' Son: Stories by
by Denis Johnson
 
16. Operation Shylock : A Confession (Vintage International)
by Philip Roth
 
17. Independence Day
by Richard Ford
 
18. Sabbath's Theater
by Philip Roth
 
19. The Border Trilogy: All the Pretty Horses, the Crossing, Cities of the Plain (Everyman's Library)
by Cormac Mccarthy
 
20. The Human Stain: A Novel
by Philip Roth
 
21. The Known World: A Novel
by Edward P. Jones
 
22. The Plot Against America
by Philip Roth
 
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Created by joymichelle on May 22, 2006.