Best Works of American Fiction of the Past 25 Years

I love to read. A provocative novel or short story can provide a lasting kind of satisfaction that, at least for me, other forms of art cannot. As a writer, I use others' work to inspire and draw upon. I learn from them, from their styles and approaches. As Picasso said, "Good artists copy, great artists steal."

I also love "best of" lists. While they are almost always arbitrary and meaningless, they are fun nonetheless, and can help to organize, at least crudely, large bodies of disparate things. Perhaps most important, lists often serve as recommendations. If other people enjoy something, I might also.

So when I saw that The New York Times Book Review surveyed 125 writers and book critics to find the "best work of American fiction of the last 25 years," I got excited. More books for me to read!

My excitement was founded. The list is full of authors which I have seen in passing, but have never read. They're being added to my to-read list, posthaste.

On the top of The Times's list is Toni Morrison's Beloved. The four top runners-up are Don DeLillo's Underworld, Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, John Updike's Rabbit Angstrom (which is actually four novels: Rabbit at Rest, Rabbit is Rich, Rabbit Redux, and Rabbit Run), and Philip Roth's American Pastoral.

Philip Roth's and Don DeLillo's novels show up over and over again in the list of other works that received multiple votes. While I am very aware of Philip Roth, Don DeLillo is an author with whom I am wholly unfamiliar. I will seek him out.

I am always looking to expand my author readership. I love reading a novel and then, if I like the author, looking for more of his of her novels, taking in everything by the author that I can find.

And so, onto my to-read list, Philip Roth and Don DeLillo are added.

More specifically, I'm adding the list's top-five books, which I will read in the near future. I hope to use them as a springboard to more books. To review, the list of books, in the order I plan on reading them:

• American Pastoral, by Philip Roth
  
• Underworld, by Don DeLillo
  
• Beloved, by Toni Morrison
  
• Blood Meridian, by Cormac McCarthy
  
• Rabbit Angstrom, by John Updike
  

A. O. Scott, the New York Times film critic, wrote an essay about the list and offered an explanation for the top-rated works.

"The best works of fiction, according to our tally," A.O. Scott writes, "appear to be those that successfully assume a burden of cultural importance. They attempt not just the exploration of particular imaginary people and places, but also the illumination of epochs, communities, of the nation itself. America is not only their setting, but also their subject."

The List of Results
A.O. Scott's NYTimes Essay on the List
The List of Judges

Scott's essay, and the list, will appear in the print edition of The New York Times Book Review on May 21.