Arts: For the First Time, Stephen King Makes NYT's 10 Best Books

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Brow Beat For the First Time, Stephen King Makes NYT's 10 Best Books By Forrest Wickman Posted Wednesday, Nov 30, 2011, at 09:40 PM ET The New York Times' list of "The 10 Best Books of 2011," announced today, includes four first-time novelists and one fifty-first-time novelist. The NYT's own analysis of the list points out that the number of first-time novelists is unprecedented—the only other year more than one first-time novelist made the list was in 2007, when Michael Thomas's Man Gone Down and Joshua Ferris's Then We Came to the End were both selected—but it makes no mention of the one 51st-time-novelist (give or take a novella), Stephen King. The inclusion of a Stephen King novel on the NYT's list, over entries from lauded literary heavyweights like David Foster Wallace, Jeffrey Eugenides, and Haruki Murakami, is surprising but not unheralded. While this is King's first appearance on the NYT's lists, one of the more notable literary developments of recent years has been increased respect for genre fiction, that sphere of publishing in which Stephen King is perhaps our most prominent author. (While his novel on the list, 11/22/63, is not the sort of horror fiction he is best known for, it is a work of alternative history, another often disrespected genre.) In 2004, Time book critic Lev Grossman noted increased interest in genre fiction from literary luminaries like Jonathan Lethem, Margaret Atwood, and Michael Chabon, and suggested that the distinction between popular fiction and literary fiction was breaking down. Chabon himself wrote a sort of book-length manifesto arguing that literary writers ... To continue reading, click here. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES Also In Slate Proof That Republicans Sabotaged the Supercommittee: They Keep Insisting They Didn't Humans Should Build a Beacon so Aliens Can Find Us. Here's How We Can Do It. Joke Thief Carlos Mencia Is Making a Comeback, but It's Hard To Cheer for Him	Advertisement
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