Too much football (discussion of point spreads began 40' in), and just as I began to read it RDC found a new, lush, Jeremy Irons narration of Lolita on Audible so pretty much I got through it as quickly as possible. An interesting companion to Blink, also suffering from the plural of anecdote not being data problem, and more inherently contradictory than I could wish.
Why Time put out a list of 100 books from 1923 to now instead of waiting until its centennial I don't know. But I am helpless, and I looked at the list. I've read 60, and of the remainder, 29 were already on my list and I added the other 11.
"Best English-language novels"? Not most influential, or most innovative, or most ground-breaking, but best? Coincidentally I did just read Watchmen, a graphic novel, and while it's interesting in an alternative history kind of way, and maybe deserves to be on some list somewhere for Different or Redefining Literature, the graphic novel format does not allow for "best language." Or "best in language."
Similarly, Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret was shockingly honest and new and revolutionary, and it redefined or shepherded in the pubescent novel (as Catcher in the Rye did the adolescent), but "best language" it is not.
Blind Assassin is not Margaret Atwood's best. Even Oryx and Crake was better. Not to quibble with the Booker committee, but this and not Cat's Eye or Robber Bride for best novel or best language?