Best Fiction?

Wow, does this make me feel.....stupid? out of it? uninformed? The New York Times' Books in Review posts the winners of their survey of prominent writers to identify the best book of American fiction in the last 25 years. The winner: Toni Morrison's Beloved. There are several runners-up.

I haven't read one of these books.

I have not even read many of these authors. There are really only two on the list that I've really wanted to get copies of to read: Tim O'Brien's and John Kennedy Toole's books. Well, Morrison's, too, of course....

I have so many books that it will take me years to read them all. I rarely take books from the library since I don't need them. I buy books at used book sales, so don't have a choice in what books I find (same thing with most of my books, many of which came from book reviewer discards). I know I miss out on some great books I should read, but serendipity is great: I've found authors and books I never would have read, and enjoyed the heck of them.

I'm reading a 20-year-old American epic now that I found among my old stash of paperbacks: ...and Ladies of the Club, an 1100-page documentation of small-town life in late 19th-Century Ohio. Wonderful!