Newsweek, You're On! The Fifty Books For Our Times Reading Project

Every once in awhile a print publication comes up with lists of books. Best books ever. (Although they call it something more official like "Greatest Novels Ever Written") Greatest romance books (always with titles like Wuthering Heights). Best thrillers. (you'll undoubtedly find Poe on a list like that!) Usually these lists have the usual suspects and then a few books normal people have never heard
of before.

Well Newsweek came up with 50 Books for our Times. I jokingly asked on Twitter when a book blogger would come up with a challenge for the list not realizing that an hour later it would be me!

This list is...strange. And some of these books seem really overwhelming. So I suggested on Twitter that we get 50 book bloggers to read one each and report back if it's a book of our times.

And wow did the tweets fly fast as people claimed the books they actually wanted to read!

So....here's the deal. If you want in, to cast your authoritative opinion as a book blogger whether or not one of these 50 books is a Book for our Times, pick a book off the list that hasn't already been chosen and leave a comment with your pick. If you're using Internet Explorer and having a hard time with comments, shoot me an email at mypalamyATgmailDOTcom And then I'll add your name to this list. By the end of this year,read the book, review it, and add some commentary on whether or not you think this is an important book for our times. At the end of the year, I'll write a post recapping everyone's reviews!

If all 50 books get spoken for, we can start having two reviewers per book. Until then, you must pick a book that hasn't been chosen (that you also haven't read) so we can get a perspective on all of the books! EDITED TO ADD: All 50 Books have been spoken for so I am now doubling up...speak up fast! :) Maybe if you have two people for your book, you can do a discussion with your review.


Here's the list
1) The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope -- Becky's Book Reviews
2) The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright -- Reader Buzz and Books 'n' Border Collies
3) Prisoner of the State by Zhao Ziyang -- Wordlily
4) The Big Switch by Nicholas Carr -- Medieval Bookworm and Books'n'Border Collies Guest
5) The Bear by William Faulkner -- This Too...
6) Winchell by Neal Gabler -- The Betty and Boo Chronicles
7) Random Family by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc -- Sophisticated Dorkiness
8) Night Draws Near by Anthony Shadid -- The Things We Read
9)Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely -- Library Queue
10) God: A Biography by Jack Miles -- Biblio Freak Blog
11)The Unsettling of America by Wendell Berry -- Rebelling Against Indifference
12) A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor -- My Friend Amy
13) Underground by Haruki Murakami -- Things Mean a Lot
14) Disrupting Class by Clayton Christenson -- Bedtime Booktalks
15) Air Guitar by Dave Hickey -- Fizzy Thoughts
16) Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman -- Literate Housewife
17) The Trouble with Physics by Lee Smolin -- A Striped Armchair
18) City: Rediscovering the Center by William H. White -- Book Store People and A Sea of Books
19) Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Phillip K. Dick -- Whimpulsive and Rhiannon Hart
20) Benjamin Franklin by Edmund S. Morgan -- Chele's Treasures
21) The Mississippi Books by Mark Twain -- Book Journey
22) Among the Thugs by Bill Buford -- Linus's Blanket
23) Brooklyn by Colm Tumlin -- The Brain Lair
24) Frankenstein by Mary Shelley -- Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin'?
25) Bad Mother by Ayelet Waldman -- Devourer of Books
26) Guests of the Ayatollah by Mark Bowden -- Musings of a Bookish Kitty
27) Whittaker Chambers by Sam Tanenhaus -- Alison's Book Marks
28) Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie -- The Book Girl
29) American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin -- Just A (Reading) Fool
30) The Lost by Daniel Mendlehson -- Maw Books Blog
31) Gilead by Marilynne Robinson -- Lit and Life and Reading at the Beach
32) Pictures at a Revolution by Mark Harris -- 3rs Blog
33) Kim by Rudyard Kipling -- She is Too Fond of Books
34) Walking with the Wind by John Lewis -- Leafing Through Life and Should Be Reading
35) The Line of Beauty of Alan Hollinghurst -- Books I Done Read
36) The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper -- Vasilly/1330v
37) Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi -- Bermuda Onion
38) Underworld by Don DeLillo -- Trish's Reading Nook
39) Why Evolution is True by Jerry A. Coyne -- Stuff As Dreams are Made On
40) American Pastoral by Philip Roth -- Book Magic
41) The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan -- Passion for the Page
42) The Regeneration Trilogy by Pat Barker -- Just Add Books
43) Senator Joe McCarthy by Richard H. Rovere -- Biblio File
44) Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks -- Beth Fish Reads
45) The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery -- Booking Mama
46) Gone Tomorrow by Lee Child -- Jenn's Bookshelf
47) Things Fall Apart by Chinue Achebe -- Worducopia
48) American Journeys by Don Watson -- Thumb Drives and Oven Clocks
49) Cotton Comes to Harlem by Chester Himes -- Rhapsody in Books
50) The New Biographical Dictionary of Film by David Thomson -- Heidenkind's Hideaway

Whew! So, if you want to join us, just leave a comment and tell us which book you'll read! For more information on any of the books, please visit the Newsweek article.