As the year ends, we get inundated with best of lists. Here’s one that always makes me feel like an illiterate piker, the New York Times’ 2007  100 Notable Books of the Year. This year I did worse than usual. So far, I’ve read a grand total of four–and one of those is Deathly Hallows, which I suspect the Book Review included just to keep common folks from getting shut out. 

Normally, they throw genre readers a few bones with a Stephen King or Walter Mosley’s latest, but this year the NYT went strictly hardcore. No sf, mystery, or horror fiction and one graphic novel, Adrian Tomine’s Shortcomings. As a result, not only is there not much on the fiction list that I have read, there’s not much on there that I think I want to read. I love Richard Russo and Bridge of Sighs is waiting on my shelf. I’m sure I’ll eventually read Chabon’s book. Maybe the Ha Jin book when it comes out in paperback. In non-fiction, I’ve heard great things about the Ralph Ellison biography. That’s about it.  I’d be fascinated to meet someone who’d read a significant amount of the fiction listed here. To be fair, the non-fiction seems a bit more mainstream.

Are any of you reading what our New York Times overlords are telling us to read?