On Sunday, the New York times published the results of a survey taken by the experts--“writers, critics, editors and other literary sages"--seeking to identify the single best work of fiction in the past quarter century.  And the chosen ones…

1.  Toni Morrison--Beloved

2.  Don Delillo--Underworld

3.  Cormac McCarthy--Blood Meridian

4.  John Updike--Rabbit Angstrom

5.  Phillip Roth--American Pastoral

The article goes on to give more runners-up, including Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping and John Kennedy Toole’s Confederacy of Dunces.  I’m sure there are myriad responses to these choices floating about (and why else do it but for a response?  The selections were anything but surprising) but the only one I’ve seen is Megan O’Rourke gives a good defense of the ignored “small novel” here.  Interestingly, not a single one of the honored books made the Modern Library’s much publicized Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century (Beloved and Blood Meridian made the Reader’s choice list), which means, at the very least, there are plenty of other books we should keep on our meaning-to-read list.  Know any?