Feature: The New Canon

The New Canon is a regular feature, contributed by Ted Gioia, focusing on great works of fiction published since 1985. These books represent the finest literature of the current era, and are gaining recognition as the new classics of our time. Here you will find Cormac McCarthy, Ian McEwan, Philip Roth, Toni Morrison, Haruki Murakami, J.K. Rowling, Michael Chabon, Margaret Atwood, and many other leading literary lights of the new millennium. These works span the globe and cut across genres and boundaries, but are distinguished by their quality and creativity. Want to take the pulse of the modern novel? Check out the best of the best at The New Canon.

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Ted Gioia

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• The New Canon: Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

  In Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy shifts quickly from loving descriptions of flora, fauna, and rocks into accounts of bloodthirsty violence.

  Review by Ted Gioia — on Dec 26, 2008

• The New Canon: The Secret History by Donna Tartt

  In The Secret History, Donna Tartt charts the path by which a clique of college students become cold-blooded killers.

  Review by Ted Gioia — on Nov 28, 2008

• The New Canon: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon

  The line between comic book heroics and real life exploits is often blurred in Michael Chabon's fanciful novel

  Review by Ted Gioia — on Nov 21, 2008

• The New Canon: Blindness by José Saramago

  José Saramago explores the chaos that ensues when an epidemic of blindness spreads rapidly through society.

  Review by Ted Gioia — on Nov 17, 2008

• The New Canon: The Road by Cormac McCarthy

  In Cormac McCarthy's The Road, a man and his son struggle for survival in the aftermath of a devastating cataclysm.

  Review by Ted Gioia — on Oct 20, 2008

• The New Canon: The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa

  In "The Feast of the Goat," Mario Vargas Llosa delivers a gripping account of a political cult of personality run amok.

  Review by Ted Gioia — on Oct 15, 2008

• The New Canon: House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

  Breaks almost every rule of fiction, from the typographical to the metaphysical.

  Review by Ted Gioia — on Oct 08, 2008

• The New Canon: Atonement by Ian McEwan

  Ian McEwan's masterful novel starts out like a Jane Austen country romance but ends up a post-modern meta-fiction.

  Review by Ted Gioia — on Oct 04, 2008

• The New Canon: Possession - A Romance by A.S. Byatt

  A.S. Byatt masterfully juxtaposes a modern day love story and a secret Victorian romance in a novel of academic intrigue.

  Review by Ted Gioia — on Sep 29, 2008

• The New Canon: Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

  In an age of down-scaled novels, David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest was four pounds of prose, and no fat!

  Review by Ted Gioia — on Sep 21, 2008

• The New Canon: Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

  In Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami creates a strange world where magical dream landscapes intersect modern urban life.

  Review by Ted Gioia — on Sep 17, 2008

• The New Canon: The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem

  Jonathan Lethem mixes superheroes and magical realism with a stark coming-of-age story.

  Review by Ted Gioia — on Aug 30, 2008

• The New Canon: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

  In her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Marilynne Robinson finds transcendent poetry in the musings of a dying minister

  Review by Ted Gioia — on Aug 25, 2008

• The New Canon: The Human Stain by Philip Roth

  In The Human Stain, Philip Roth builds a rich multilayered novel from a tragic life observed from afar.

  Review by Ted Gioia — on Aug 22, 2008

• The New Canon: The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

  In The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood raises issues about theocratic impulses and women's rights that are still relevant today.

  Review by Ted Gioia — on Aug 18, 2008

• The New Canon: Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez

  Love in the Time of Cholera is one of the great love stories . . . or is it?

  Review by Ted Gioia — on Aug 05, 2008

• The New Canon: The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

  The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen deserves to remembered for more than just the "Oprah incident."

  Review by Ted Gioia — on Jul 31, 2008

• The New Canon: Beloved by Toni Morrison

  No novel of recent years has been more honored than Toni Morrison’s Beloved, but is it part of the Canon or the Anti-Canon?

  Review by Ted Gioia — on Jul 26, 2008

• The New Canon: Underworld by Don DeLillo

  Everything from Frank Sinatra to the nuclear arms race finds its way into Underworld, Don DeLillo's massive novel.

  Review by Ted Gioia — on Jul 22, 2008

• The New Canon: The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster

  Paul Auster's The New York Trilogy is detective fiction with a distinctly post-modern flavor.

  Review by Ted Gioia — on Jul 18, 2008