https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/1iw8llp/weekly_faq_thread_february_23_2025_which/
created by AutoModerator on 23/02/2025 at 12:00 UTC
17 upvotes, 25 top-level comments (showing 25)
Hello readers and welcome to our Weekly FAQ thread! Our topic this week is: Which contemporary novels do you think deserve to become classics? We're all familiar with the classics, from *The Iliad* of Homer to F. Scott Fitzgerald's *The Great Gatsby*. But which contemporary novels, published after 1960, do you think will be remembered as a classic years from now?
You can view previous FAQ threads here[1] in our wiki[2].
1: https://www.reddit.com/r/books/wiki/faq
2: https://www.reddit.com/r/books/wiki/index
Thank you and enjoy!
Comment by PawneeGoddess11 at 23/02/2025 at 17:47 UTC
11 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Comment by AdorableCode574 at 23/02/2025 at 15:15 UTC
8 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Stoner By John Williams. It already feels like a classic to me. An absolutely beautiful book.
Comment by Accomplished_Mud3228 at 23/02/2025 at 14:29 UTC
7 upvotes, 1 direct replies
The Book Thief is already being taught in some schools
Comment by sweetspringchild at 23/02/2025 at 17:43 UTC
7 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I don't think they will be classics, but if it were up to me
Song of Achilles has incredible subtlety of prose, Gentlemen in Moscow can talk about the most mundane detail and say so much with so little, and Piranesi is extremely unique concept which doesn't come around often. They're all strong novels by all important measures too, but I think these aspects lift them above others into realm of something enduring.
I know some people dislike them, but hey, I dislike most classics, it's not just about liking the book it's about book doing something for literature and saying something important and I think all three of these do.
Comment by Daebongyo574 at 23/02/2025 at 14:08 UTC
8 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Comment by Potatoskins937492 at 23/02/2025 at 15:49 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Comment by MadameBattleMonkey at 23/02/2025 at 16:28 UTC
3 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. Not my favorite by him, but it stands out as something unlike anything else from that era.
Comment by piraveenthiru at 24/02/2025 at 11:55 UTC
3 upvotes, 1 direct replies
I'm on the hunt for timeless masterpieces that haven't yet received the spotlight they deserve, especially those written by **non-English authors**.
What are some underrated classics that you believe should have a bigger presence in our literary conversations? I'm open to all suggestions; whether they're hidden gems in translation or overlooked works from various cultures.
Comment by Mugshot_404 at 23/02/2025 at 16:34 UTC
5 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Surprised no-one's mentioned yet *One Hundred Years Of Solitude* by Gabriel García Márquez. I think it's pretty much already regarded as a classic.
Comment by Bulawayoland at 23/02/2025 at 18:41 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man has already been mentioned.
Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart and The Arrow of God will be thought classics, I'm sure.
James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room is a maybe. His essays contributed so much to the civil rights struggle but his best thoughts aren't all together in any one piece, so he may miss out because of that.
NoViolet Bulawayo's We Need New Names, I think yes.
Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook, definitely.
Two things seem really remarkable to me: how few books I can remember loving that were published after 1960 and how few I have tried, of the suggestions that have already been made. I mean, I'm a reader. That's really almost all I do. And yet... almost none of these books have inspired any interest. Well, you know... maybe I'm just not very interesting lol
Comment by ksarlathotep at 23/02/2025 at 17:13 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I think the Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante will be considered classics of the 2010s in 50 years. I think they'll be mentioned in textbooks.
Comment by Garp74 at 23/02/2025 at 14:08 UTC*
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
1960 on is hard for me, and I'm 51. I just don't have the kind of memory, or the fluency with some older books, to make an informed judgement. But I imagine it includes writers like:
More doable for me is thinking about writers of the last quarter century:
I imagine that English literature teachers will assign Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex a lot in the future. But I DNF'd it halfway, so ...
Comment by Choice-Flatworm9349 at 23/02/2025 at 14:42 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I read *Prophet Song* by Paul Lynch and I thought that, however good or bad it may be, it is probably the type of book that gets carried along with an 'era', like Koestler maybe. In literary terms it was fine, perhaps not very exciting - but it was so 'of its time', it had given itself so much over to being contemporary rather than 'literary', that it should always be culturally interesting. A lot of inter-war stuff was quite similar, read more for study than for fun.
Comment by chortlingabacus at 23/02/2025 at 22:27 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Several should become and several more I wish mightbecome but the one that I think might very well, and deservedly, become is *Life a user's manual* by Georges Perec.
Comment by whiskybaker at 24/02/2025 at 02:42 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
This is actually a theme for the Toronto Public Library 2025 reading challenge! Thanks.
Comment by Home_racker at 25/02/2025 at 06:03 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Blood Meridian, Underworld, White Noise, Jesus' Son, Beloved, The Things They Carry, Slaughterhouse Five, Gravity's Rainbow, The Sower's Parable, The Handmaid's Tale, Dune, Infinite Jest, Fight Club, there's just too many to name, honestly.
So instead I'll just name a few possible candidates from the past twenty years: 2666, A Brief History of Seven Killings, The Argonauts, We the Animals, The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis, My Brilliant Friend, Citizen, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous.
Comment by TeleportDog at 25/02/2025 at 09:35 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr probably will (and definitely should!). Such a beautiful book, really stunned me. The show on the other hand... Bit disappointing!
Comment by kodran at 25/02/2025 at 18:12 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
One time I read someone here say that David Mitchell probably as a classic still waiting to be written and I agree. He has the potential. If I had to pick from his published worked instead of the realm of the hypothetical, I'd pick number9dream.
The Gormenghast books probably.
Also some things by M. John Harrison.
Comment by outlierlearning at 25/02/2025 at 22:20 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Home by Marilynne Robinson
Comment by iProXi at 26/02/2025 at 10:37 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Is it possible to find Richard Fariña‘s “Been Down So Long…” anywhere?
I live in Europe and wanna read it in English but it seems it’s impossible to find, unless I want to order it from the US for $50+ (plus postage!)
Is this book out of print or something?
Comment by yellowharlee727 at 23/02/2025 at 15:43 UTC
2 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Comment by Comprehensive-Fun47 at 23/02/2025 at 21:49 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
The Joy Luck Club comes to mind because I'm currently reading it. I believe it is already considered a modern classic.
Foster and Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan will have staying power.
Comment by zelmorrison at 24/02/2025 at 05:07 UTC
-1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu should definitely be a classic. I want to experience being annihilated by a dual vector foil ^_^
Comment by dancognito at 23/02/2025 at 12:09 UTC
-5 upvotes, 1 direct replies
They're not even my favorite, though I do enjoy them quite a bit, but I kinda think Andy Weir's books are going to be around for a while. There's just something about Project Hail Mary that taps into humans struggle to survive that seems relevant even if we aren't traveling in space.
Comment by [deleted] at 24/02/2025 at 05:59 UTC
-3 upvotes, 1 direct replies
[removed]