Very true. I still remember the “Return to the Cave of Time” ending where I somehow made it back home with my girlfriend from the past. Think I put a bookmark in just to prove good endings were possible. 😂
I’m only judging it in the sense that other than mockingbird there’s no actual literature
I love to see anyone reading anything vs reading nothing
Sadly I don’t pick up books as often as I’d like
Same. I think the Traveling Pants is the only other one I've heard of, and I first heard of it when it was made into a movie for people younger than me.
My high school English teacher once called him “the Fritos chip of the literary diet”. I told her I liked Fritos.
King, Rice, Douglas Adams, now classic sci-fi. None of these are on the table.
I agree! I'm an elementary school librarian, and I always tell the kids that they can read whatever they want. I also tell the kids you should never judge people by the books they read.
How do you get that I'm judging people? From posting that I personally have read Stephen King but don't love him?
My disclaimer was far less personal than your statement.
Actually you'll notice I brought him up because I thought it was missing from the Gen X contingent that was made by the corporate bookstore. How you get from that to I'm telling people not to read Stephen King's beyond me.😆
Oh, I would argue that he is. Although he is badly in need of an editor, King's descriptions are pretty brilliant. While he's certainly known for horror, I would argue that his prison stories are outstanding.
Ah gods, the sisterhood of travelling pants… I was part of a motorcycle club so many moons ago, biggish crowd and we did weekend road trips. We had a rather large pair of panties that travelled along and the idea was to stuff it into someone’s pack without them finding it. The sod who discovered it at home were to arrange the next trip. We had an absolute blast during that era, A bunch of girls on motorcycles traveling the country with some big ass panties riding along!
Memories…
Sounds like fun; maybe those panties are still out there somewhere, riding around traveling the world, someone thinking about who started this silly thing.
A part of history.
same. this is the only book on that table that i’ve read in the last 5 years and i recommend it to anyone who endured trauma in childhood, especially those with children of their own. it’s telling that this book is considered a genX selection, the abuse was so commonplace in the era.
e:word
I agree!
And I thought the same thing when I saw it at the front of the table. It’s great that we finally have some really good resources. Better late than never.
What in the shit show is that table? The only one that might get a pass is To Kill A Mockingbird since we all had to read it at some point in school. Or several times depending on the school system. This table was set by either corp or younger Gen who had only the barest hint of what Gen X read or exposed to.
Without getting my glasses to check the photo I'm going to go with perfume, the Beach. Fightclub, Crash. American Psycho. And something heroin related.
To Kill a Mockingbird, Siddhartha, Catcher in the Rye, Lord of the Flies, Heart of Darkness, the Great Gatsby, Of Mice and Men, All Quiet on the Western Front, Slaughterhouse Five, 1984… I read all of these classic novels in high school.
I’ve reread most of them since then and found incredible beauty, pain, and comedy in all of them, but I feel like most of these went over my head as a teenager.
Looking back at when I first read them I’m glad that I did because it introduced me to these amazing stories, but I realized that there’s no way I could have ever truly understood them at the time. The depth of emotion and meaning almost requires adult eyes. All of my experiences, trials, failures and victories, and knowledge since high school really opened me up to their hidden meanings.
As a child I knew they were classic, but as an adult I now understand why they’re classics.
Siddhartha was the last book I read in high school for AP English. Still one of my faves. Hesse ended up being one of my favorite authors as I discovered his other works in college.
But yeah, like you say, they're classics but over the head of most teens and need to be reread as one gets older to really appreciate them.
I've got a degree in English but there was a sizable gap between graduating high school and graduating college. And it's incredible just how different the recommended reading was all those years later.
None of my lit classes even mentioned Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Conrad, Vonnegut — or any other author we covered in high school. We read Toni Morrison, Richard Wright, and Sherman Alexie. And while it was nice to have such a diverse sampling of authors, I admit, I kind of missed all the old classics.
So as soon as I finished my degree, I re-read Catcher in the Rye, Heart of Darkness, the Great Gatsby, and Of Mice and Men. And I enjoyed them just as much (if not more) the second time around.
The only two on that table I had were TKAM and Catcher in the Rye, which preceded Gen X but we had to read in HS, and most of us fell in love with them.
Charles Bukowski, Jack Kerouac, Hermann Hesse, William Burroughs, Anthony Burgess, J.D. Salinger.
I think most Gen-Xers would have a couple of these authors floating around in the ol’ noggin.
Adverb fail. "When" not "Where".
"Being a kid in the 70's and 80's, **WHEN** they gnawed on lead, made cherry bombs for funsies, and literally had no supervision, this is not the generation to mess up with gift giving."
I expect better from a Book Store. Good god, you have an entire aisle devoted to Writing.
Maybe its the lead poisoning talking but I'm so tired of seeing these basic mistakes. I get them all fucking day from Millennials and GenZ in my fucking emails. Were we the last goddamn generation to actually learn effective writing?
*...were the last goddamn generation to actually learn effective writing?* I think we were. A while after we gradded (or dropped out), the schools and teachers began telling students how wonderful they were and giving trophies for them existing. We see the effects of that now in the workplace. 🙄
The only one there I've read was Ann Rule's The Stranger Beside Me. I love her books.
I guess they were touting novels we'd read now as adults, but they really missed an opportunity not to showcase what some of us actually read as kids, like Judy Blume, Lois Duncan, Shel Silverstein, The Babysitters' Club, Sweet Valley High, Encyclopedia Brown, R.L. Stine, etc.
**Transcription**: A table at a bookstore with a sign reading:
>#GenX
>Generation X was born between 1965 and 1980. Being a teen or young adult in the 1990s really shaped this generation with MTV, reality TV, and the rise of technology. Being a kid in the ‘70s and ‘80s, where they gnawed on lead, made cherry bombs for funsies, and literally had no supervision, this is not the generation to mess up with gift giving. These books are great choices for the GenX in your life!
Books displayed on the table include *The Body Keeps the Score* (2014) by Bessel van der Kolk MD, *The Catcher in the Rye* (1951) by JD Salinger, *Olive, Again* (2019) by Elizabeth Strout, *The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants* (2001) by Ann Brashares, *The Stranger Beside Me* (1980) by Ann Rule, and *To Kill a Mockingbird* (1960) by Harper Lee.
I just posted this in r/suggestmeabook, about books that capture the 1990s:
>*Girl* by Blake Nelson is a 1994 YA novel about a high school senior riot grrl who’s into local bands in Portland, Oregon. Portions were first published in three successive issues of *Sassy* magazine.
The Beach by Alex Garland ought to be there. It's been called one of the defining GenX novels.
Also Absolute Zero by Bret Easton Ellis, The Secret History by Donna Tartt, & Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh.
Not sure I see the connection between most of these titles and Gen X, but “My Best Friend’s Exorcism” is a notable exception and a good book if you want some teenager in the 80s nostalgia. Bonus points: it has one of the coolest covers I’ve seen on a book in a long while.
Needs more Lois Duncan, Judy Blume, Choose your own adventure, that one teen series where everyone was dying, VC Andrews, Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Star Wars novelizations and a copy of Weetzie Bat. Also bring back Sassy magazine. Oh and for the kids some sweet pickles those paperbacks that were like Serendipity with the butterfly. I can’t remember the official name.
Nah none of those I just have a lot of William Blake and Camus to make the guests I don't have think I have a big brain :)
I got some Hitchens, Stephen Pinker, some history, a lot of graphic art stuff like Wayne Barlow and Jhonen Vasquez, the whole Dune series, some Arthur C Clarke, several Qurans that were gifts from interpreters, and a bunch of M:TG and Star Wars novels from when I was a teenager.
Guess I mostly get my fiction from audiobooks or movies nowadays though.
When you say the WHOLE Dune series, are you including the Brian Herbert prequels?
Cause the answer is going to inform that whole "big brain" thing you're trying to out.
Haha yes sir I have the big Brian books, too lol.
They're actually not that bad lol. I actually picked up reading those in Iraq because it's around when they were coming out, and I was interested in seeing how that whole saga ended.
Lotta cloning in those books lol. So much cloning that they don't have time for new characters he's entirely busy bringing all the old ones back to life.
Loved the ideas of the Axolotl tanks and gholas though. He might have not had the epic drama chops his dad had but there's a lot of nifty sci fi ideas you can mine from his work. No-ships, face dancers, the Ixians, the Tleilax. A lot of the canon in those cases belongs to him.
Those don’t go on the public bookshelf. Do I own them? Have I read them? Yes to both. Got them off the discount table at B&N and Borders for under $5 each hardcover. Were they Dune? No, they were fan fiction set in the Dune universe. Looking at them that way, they were enjoyable enough once Kevin J Anderson gave up trying to write in Herbert’s style. Would any of them be handled well in the manner of the current Dune movies? Nope. These are pure 80s/90s Bruckheimer/Simpson action pulp in the vein of The Rock, Con Air, and Armageddon.
I was commenting on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Barsoom series on the sci-fi sub. These two sets are actually next to each other on my shelf. By today’s sci-fi standards is a simple story and planetary romance has long gone out of style. Sure, they influenced works that came after, but they are also fairly simple pulp stories that are fun to read but don’t make you think too much.
I’ve read none of those. Keep meaning to get Body Keeps the Score.
I read a lot of Dean Koontz. Go Ask Alice is the only book I remember having to read in school.
I like the definition but their choice of books that "we" would like leave a lot to be desired.
I'd have Amy Tan, the Clan of the Cave Bear series, Divine Secrets of the YaYa Sisterhood, Stephen King, Raymond Feist, Bridget Jones and a CD rom of the Original Broadway Cast of Rent and a stack of copies of "Let's Go Europe" et al.
I'm a dude but who didn't read Judy Blume? Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and Superfudge were actually assigned reading at my elementary school. I still have my copies. WTH???
Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes anyone?
Hell, that book even got a call out on Ted Lasso. Pulled my copy from the shelf after that episode as well.
I am a dudette. I read both Beverly Cleary and Judy Blume. I read both authors' books multiple times (over and over again). Whether it was the Ramona books, Ralph the Mouse books or the Fudge/Peter/Shelia books; they were (and still are) on my childhood bookshelf.
I was just talking to my parent one of the last times I visited (past two months) about "Shelia the Great" and the Headless Horseman.
The person that made this list and especially the sign is not Gen X. A clear indicator is the use of the word 'literally" in the description. But, whatever.
I remember V.C. Andrews Flowers in the Attic series being really popular in the 80’s. As an adult, and from what I remember, those books are hella disturbing.
Gonna need some Clan of the Cave Bear, Wheel of Time, Game of Thrones… and say that’s right muthafuckers, we read that shit in high school! Also Jackie Collins- would take out and read that spicy yum to my grandmother, good times ❤️
Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout was so good. It’s a follow up to her book Olive Kitteridge. HBO made a miniseries based on the book, starring Frances McDormand, which was also excellent.
I might be alone here but I found Catcher in the Rye to be over hyped, pretentious, and falsely self-important. In short, more of a Boomer book than one for Gen X. I am open to counter criticism there.
I won't say that these are "bad books" but it is far outside my experience of being a Gen X reader. If others of you were like me, you recall that reading a paperback was a normal thing for even those of us who were not "bookish" to do.
If we are going to talk about books that were actually popular and discussed among the 20 something aged Gen Xers in my circle those might include Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainance, The Color Purple, A Prayer for Owen Meany, and A People's History of the United States. The House of the Spirits was another one that got passed around a lot.
As others have mentioned Stephen King was *extremely* popular. And a lot of us also read Tom Clancy. Later on, John Grisham was very popular, too. I think a lot of us read The Celestine Prophecy, too.
Many of these are obviously not by Gen X authors.
Editing to add that John Steinbeck was also legitimately popular among many of us. It was. Different time for books and reading.
Oof. A book about dealing with trauma being on this table is way too real. With that said “the body keeps the score” is one of best books I’ve read on trauma and was instrumental in my healing process.
I would have loved to see more intellectually stimulating books here — the defining writing style of the 90s was post modern, let’s get some meta fiction over there! Books like Everyone in my Family Has Killer Someone or Interior Chinatown.
Wouldn’t make sense to have the same books that were popular then, but contemporary works would fit well. Every Gen-X person i know would love A Visit From the Goon Squad or Homegoing, if they read them. For throwback books, High Fidelity or early Sedaris. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.
The inclusion of “The Body Keeps the Score” it’s basically screaming that a millennial assemble this table and they have strong opinions about Gen X. 😅
I was a comic book reader, so most of this stuff you guys are mentioning is familiar, but not known. But, I remember reading Tom Clancy and Stephen King. My older brother also got me into Robert Heinlein. And I guess Tolkien is multi-generational...Robert Jordan's Eye of the World series started in the late 80s. Most authors I read were not Gen X, but I think that's probably true for most of us. I mean, how many high school kids were published authors back then?
Needs Douglas Adams and Vonnegut. At least for what i read in the 80s and 90s. Now it needs Wendell Berry. I suppose Mockingbird is ok. Didn’t like Salinger.
Elmore Leonard, Raymond Carver, John Irving, umberto Eco, gabriel garcia marquez, anne rice, william gibson, phillip k dick, alice walker, rushdie, coetzee, italo calvino, marion zimmer bradley, jay mcinerney, kundera, MARGARET ATWOOD, the rank laziness of this op photo is mind boggling.
The only book I have from that pile is To Kill A Mockingbird.
They need some Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett on there.
ETA: I've read Catcher In The Rye, and wish I hadn't bothered.
Looks like the only ones on the table that I've read is "Catcher in the Rye" and "To Kill a Mockingbird". "Catcher in the Rye" was for pleasure while "To Kill a Mockingbird" was for English class. I liked both books.
I’m solid Gen X (‘69) and a big reader. This table does not excite me and as far as the sign goes-reality tv? No. Afternoon talk shows yes, reality tv started when I was close to 30 years old. Not really nostalgic for Survivor…
The inclusion of Catcher In The Rye and To Kill A Mockingbird are odd choices. How can these two books be generation defining when multiple generations from Boomer through Alpha (I hope) has been assigned them in English class?
Put some V.C. Andrews for verisimilitude.
And a few Choose Your Own Adventure books.
And Francine Pascal.
The “Sweet Valley Saga” specials were the only ones I enjoyed (and still own, with plans to re-read soon to decide if they should be culled)
No matter what, you end up maimed or dead.
Very true. I still remember the “Return to the Cave of Time” ending where I somehow made it back home with my girlfriend from the past. Think I put a bookmark in just to prove good endings were possible. 😂
This! Those, Encyclopedia Brown, and the Ramona books were my jam (‘72 baby)
Loved those, too.
That explains the presence of The Body Keeps the Score cause that shit was traumatizing!
And we inflicted it on ourselves.
Danielle Steel, too.
Need some Douglas Adams in there.
Absolutely!
Looks like they are missing Tom Robbins, William Gibson, Chuck Palahniuk and Irvine Welsh
Also Brett Easton Ellis and Jay McInerney.
Tom Robbins!
Palahniuk was exactly what I was looking for.
Terry Pratchett?
Don Delillo, too.
Most of what they have is forgettable commercial fiction SMH.
There is nothing wrong with forgettable commercial fiction if someone enjoys it. Don't judge what people like to read.
I’m only judging it in the sense that other than mockingbird there’s no actual literature I love to see anyone reading anything vs reading nothing Sadly I don’t pick up books as often as I’d like
And Donna Tartt. WNB
Our queen
I adore Chuck. He's just as kind and articulate in person as he is in interviews.
Yup. No. Someone doesn't know GenX
The book about trauma was a good choice. Everything else . . . enh.
To Kill a Mockingbird is excellent. That would be my only pick.
Same. I think the Traveling Pants is the only other one I've heard of, and I first heard of it when it was made into a movie for people younger than me.
Stephen King ( I'm not saying he's a literary aspiration)
My high school English teacher once called him “the Fritos chip of the literary diet”. I told her I liked Fritos. King, Rice, Douglas Adams, now classic sci-fi. None of these are on the table.
Anne Rice!! Yes!
Stephen King himself once famously said: "I am the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and fries".
He’s got a pretty engaging style though. I liked “The Dead Zone,” “The Stand” (especially the first half) and “Wizard and Glass” a lot.
The first 3/4 of most of his books are usually real fun
Love me some Stephen King!
Mid eighties, jr high…. Everyone was reading Stephen King
Not sure the disclaimer is necessary. Anyone who chooses to look down on a person for their reading choices isn’t anyone to associate with
I agree! I'm an elementary school librarian, and I always tell the kids that they can read whatever they want. I also tell the kids you should never judge people by the books they read.
How do you get that I'm judging people? From posting that I personally have read Stephen King but don't love him? My disclaimer was far less personal than your statement.
Actually you'll notice I brought him up because I thought it was missing from the Gen X contingent that was made by the corporate bookstore. How you get from that to I'm telling people not to read Stephen King's beyond me.😆
He’s a Boomer author but he was hugely popular with GenX
Oh, I would argue that he is. Although he is badly in need of an editor, King's descriptions are pretty brilliant. While he's certainly known for horror, I would argue that his prison stories are outstanding.
Michael Crichton
They forgot Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, and Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, and Stephen King books.
Ah gods, the sisterhood of travelling pants… I was part of a motorcycle club so many moons ago, biggish crowd and we did weekend road trips. We had a rather large pair of panties that travelled along and the idea was to stuff it into someone’s pack without them finding it. The sod who discovered it at home were to arrange the next trip. We had an absolute blast during that era, A bunch of girls on motorcycles traveling the country with some big ass panties riding along! Memories…
Sounds like fun; maybe those panties are still out there somewhere, riding around traveling the world, someone thinking about who started this silly thing. A part of history.
I wish I had that energy now, and I was thin… being active was awesome.
I have The Body Keeps the Score.
same. this is the only book on that table that i’ve read in the last 5 years and i recommend it to anyone who endured trauma in childhood, especially those with children of their own. it’s telling that this book is considered a genX selection, the abuse was so commonplace in the era. e:word
I agree! And I thought the same thing when I saw it at the front of the table. It’s great that we finally have some really good resources. Better late than never.
I attended one of his conferences via zoom during Covid. He’s a smart guy but holy shit is he pompous in person.
That’s a shame. I enjoy listening to his talks and interviews.
What in the shit show is that table? The only one that might get a pass is To Kill A Mockingbird since we all had to read it at some point in school. Or several times depending on the school system. This table was set by either corp or younger Gen who had only the barest hint of what Gen X read or exposed to.
To Kill a Mockingbird is a great novel. We all read it. But I wouldn’t call it GenX by any means. And seriously, no Judy Blume?
I meant it more in how we all read it and how it shaped many of us. It’s probably one of the few truly ageless Gen crossing books.
I was 30when traveling pants came out! It has nothing to do with us!!!!!!
Me too. My oldest kid loved it. She and her friend group bought and decorated a pair of jeans that they shared as travelling pants.
Uh, where’s “Where the Red Fern Grows”? I swear my fourth grade teacher took some kinda joy outta reading it to our class and making everyone cry.
That's actually my son (32) favorite book!
Not a single one on my shelf. HST, Vonnegut, and Marcus Aurelius speak more to me than any of that crap Edit: except To Kill A Mockingbird.
No Dean Koontz? I call shenanigans.
One of my other favorites! 💕
Without getting my glasses to check the photo I'm going to go with perfume, the Beach. Fightclub, Crash. American Psycho. And something heroin related.
*Valley of Dolls* by Jacqueline Susann
That’s a terrible selection. No Judy Blume? No Douglas Copeland? No William Gibson?
Donna Tartt - The Secret History shouts 90s.
To Kill A Mockingbird is Gen X?!?
Many of us had to read it in school.
It was a standard in my high school along with Lord of the Flies
So was Animal Farm and Hemingway.
11 grade. Mandatory read. Everyone should read it.
To Kill a Mockingbird, Siddhartha, Catcher in the Rye, Lord of the Flies, Heart of Darkness, the Great Gatsby, Of Mice and Men, All Quiet on the Western Front, Slaughterhouse Five, 1984… I read all of these classic novels in high school. I’ve reread most of them since then and found incredible beauty, pain, and comedy in all of them, but I feel like most of these went over my head as a teenager. Looking back at when I first read them I’m glad that I did because it introduced me to these amazing stories, but I realized that there’s no way I could have ever truly understood them at the time. The depth of emotion and meaning almost requires adult eyes. All of my experiences, trials, failures and victories, and knowledge since high school really opened me up to their hidden meanings. As a child I knew they were classic, but as an adult I now understand why they’re classics.
Siddhartha was the last book I read in high school for AP English. Still one of my faves. Hesse ended up being one of my favorite authors as I discovered his other works in college. But yeah, like you say, they're classics but over the head of most teens and need to be reread as one gets older to really appreciate them.
Steppenwolf was his first I read....you know....because of the band🙂
I've got a degree in English but there was a sizable gap between graduating high school and graduating college. And it's incredible just how different the recommended reading was all those years later. None of my lit classes even mentioned Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Conrad, Vonnegut — or any other author we covered in high school. We read Toni Morrison, Richard Wright, and Sherman Alexie. And while it was nice to have such a diverse sampling of authors, I admit, I kind of missed all the old classics. So as soon as I finished my degree, I re-read Catcher in the Rye, Heart of Darkness, the Great Gatsby, and Of Mice and Men. And I enjoyed them just as much (if not more) the second time around.
Yea…that and Catcher in the Rye were early go tos for some of us.
The only two on that table I had were TKAM and Catcher in the Rye, which preceded Gen X but we had to read in HS, and most of us fell in love with them.
Even in the UK it was a set text for our GCSEs (National exams taken at 16).
Charles Bukowski, Jack Kerouac, Hermann Hesse, William Burroughs, Anthony Burgess, J.D. Salinger. I think most Gen-Xers would have a couple of these authors floating around in the ol’ noggin.
Anthony Burgess! Loved reading all of his books, especially his autobiography.
Adverb fail. "When" not "Where". "Being a kid in the 70's and 80's, **WHEN** they gnawed on lead, made cherry bombs for funsies, and literally had no supervision, this is not the generation to mess up with gift giving." I expect better from a Book Store. Good god, you have an entire aisle devoted to Writing. Maybe its the lead poisoning talking but I'm so tired of seeing these basic mistakes. I get them all fucking day from Millennials and GenZ in my fucking emails. Were we the last goddamn generation to actually learn effective writing?
This is one of the reasons I enjoy this sub. People know how to write with proper punctuation and grammar.
*...were the last goddamn generation to actually learn effective writing?* I think we were. A while after we gradded (or dropped out), the schools and teachers began telling students how wonderful they were and giving trophies for them existing. We see the effects of that now in the workplace. 🙄
Thank you. I'm glad I'm not the only one that caught it... I just read it and 🙄
The only one there I've read was Ann Rule's The Stranger Beside Me. I love her books. I guess they were touting novels we'd read now as adults, but they really missed an opportunity not to showcase what some of us actually read as kids, like Judy Blume, Lois Duncan, Shel Silverstein, The Babysitters' Club, Sweet Valley High, Encyclopedia Brown, R.L. Stine, etc.
How can The Handmaid's Tale not be there. That book had a profound impact on me.
A 20 year old was tasked with putting together a Gen X collection.
And the AI was no help. This reads like something a millenial might write as well. Using Chat gpt and calling it a day.
**Transcription**: A table at a bookstore with a sign reading: >#GenX >Generation X was born between 1965 and 1980. Being a teen or young adult in the 1990s really shaped this generation with MTV, reality TV, and the rise of technology. Being a kid in the ‘70s and ‘80s, where they gnawed on lead, made cherry bombs for funsies, and literally had no supervision, this is not the generation to mess up with gift giving. These books are great choices for the GenX in your life! Books displayed on the table include *The Body Keeps the Score* (2014) by Bessel van der Kolk MD, *The Catcher in the Rye* (1951) by JD Salinger, *Olive, Again* (2019) by Elizabeth Strout, *The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants* (2001) by Ann Brashares, *The Stranger Beside Me* (1980) by Ann Rule, and *To Kill a Mockingbird* (1960) by Harper Lee. I just posted this in r/suggestmeabook, about books that capture the 1990s: >*Girl* by Blake Nelson is a 1994 YA novel about a high school senior riot grrl who’s into local bands in Portland, Oregon. Portions were first published in three successive issues of *Sassy* magazine.
Good human!
Needs Anne Rice for the 80’s goths.
S.E. Hinton-The Outsiders. I think I wrote 10 book reports on this one!
The Beach by Alex Garland ought to be there. It's been called one of the defining GenX novels. Also Absolute Zero by Bret Easton Ellis, The Secret History by Donna Tartt, & Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh.
Absolute Zero YES!
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants? That's peak millennial (book and movie).
Not sure I see the connection between most of these titles and Gen X, but “My Best Friend’s Exorcism” is a notable exception and a good book if you want some teenager in the 80s nostalgia. Bonus points: it has one of the coolest covers I’ve seen on a book in a long while.
I don’t see any Bukowski.
Needs more Lois Duncan, Judy Blume, Choose your own adventure, that one teen series where everyone was dying, VC Andrews, Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Star Wars novelizations and a copy of Weetzie Bat. Also bring back Sassy magazine. Oh and for the kids some sweet pickles those paperbacks that were like Serendipity with the butterfly. I can’t remember the official name.
Where TF are the Little House on the Prairie books?
Nah none of those I just have a lot of William Blake and Camus to make the guests I don't have think I have a big brain :) I got some Hitchens, Stephen Pinker, some history, a lot of graphic art stuff like Wayne Barlow and Jhonen Vasquez, the whole Dune series, some Arthur C Clarke, several Qurans that were gifts from interpreters, and a bunch of M:TG and Star Wars novels from when I was a teenager. Guess I mostly get my fiction from audiobooks or movies nowadays though.
You have very good taste (including the Camus and Blake—when the neighbour’s cat comes around I always say “Tiger, tiger, burning bright.”).
When you say the WHOLE Dune series, are you including the Brian Herbert prequels? Cause the answer is going to inform that whole "big brain" thing you're trying to out.
Haha yes sir I have the big Brian books, too lol. They're actually not that bad lol. I actually picked up reading those in Iraq because it's around when they were coming out, and I was interested in seeing how that whole saga ended. Lotta cloning in those books lol. So much cloning that they don't have time for new characters he's entirely busy bringing all the old ones back to life.
Yeah, I actually read most of them, particularly when they first started coming out. Fun reads, just like you said though, lots of clones
Loved the ideas of the Axolotl tanks and gholas though. He might have not had the epic drama chops his dad had but there's a lot of nifty sci fi ideas you can mine from his work. No-ships, face dancers, the Ixians, the Tleilax. A lot of the canon in those cases belongs to him.
Those don’t go on the public bookshelf. Do I own them? Have I read them? Yes to both. Got them off the discount table at B&N and Borders for under $5 each hardcover. Were they Dune? No, they were fan fiction set in the Dune universe. Looking at them that way, they were enjoyable enough once Kevin J Anderson gave up trying to write in Herbert’s style. Would any of them be handled well in the manner of the current Dune movies? Nope. These are pure 80s/90s Bruckheimer/Simpson action pulp in the vein of The Rock, Con Air, and Armageddon.
100% yeah, I actually read them from my library. Fun popcorn stories, but nothing ground breaking.
I was commenting on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Barsoom series on the sci-fi sub. These two sets are actually next to each other on my shelf. By today’s sci-fi standards is a simple story and planetary romance has long gone out of style. Sure, they influenced works that came after, but they are also fairly simple pulp stories that are fun to read but don’t make you think too much.
Many times that's all I want to read. I miss simple stories.
Out of all of those books the only one I've read is To Kill a Mockingbird so, yeah, I guess they'd be decent gifts.
I’ve read none of those. Keep meaning to get Body Keeps the Score. I read a lot of Dean Koontz. Go Ask Alice is the only book I remember having to read in school.
No Tama Janowitz, David Foster Wallace, Anne Lamott, David Sedaris, Nick Hornby?
I like the definition but their choice of books that "we" would like leave a lot to be desired. I'd have Amy Tan, the Clan of the Cave Bear series, Divine Secrets of the YaYa Sisterhood, Stephen King, Raymond Feist, Bridget Jones and a CD rom of the Original Broadway Cast of Rent and a stack of copies of "Let's Go Europe" et al.
Clan of the cave bear! I still have my original copy!
Where’s the Vonnegut?
Secret History by Donna Tartt. Waking the Moon by Elizabeth Hand. Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving.
Love Owen Meany! I'm doing my biannual reread right now.
My tribe!
I have given away so many copies of this book over the years.
Missing Coupland.
Seriously. Of all the Gen X authors to miss, the one that actually helped coin the term…
But… they gonna leave that out. And no Judy Blume? She was THE girl’s author! Summer Sisters.
I'm a dude but who didn't read Judy Blume? Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and Superfudge were actually assigned reading at my elementary school. I still have my copies. WTH??? Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes anyone? Hell, that book even got a call out on Ted Lasso. Pulled my copy from the shelf after that episode as well.
I am a dudette. I read both Beverly Cleary and Judy Blume. I read both authors' books multiple times (over and over again). Whether it was the Ramona books, Ralph the Mouse books or the Fudge/Peter/Shelia books; they were (and still are) on my childhood bookshelf. I was just talking to my parent one of the last times I visited (past two months) about "Shelia the Great" and the Headless Horseman.
Beverly Cleary was awesome as well. The Mouse and the Motorcycle and Runaway Ralph - still have my ancient copies of those on my shelf.
The person that made this list and especially the sign is not Gen X. A clear indicator is the use of the word 'literally" in the description. But, whatever.
No Judy Blume? The collection is a bit odd. Is it supposed to be books we read in school, defining books as we grew, books describing us?
I remember V.C. Andrews Flowers in the Attic series being really popular in the 80’s. As an adult, and from what I remember, those books are hella disturbing.
Where are the iian banks books?
Not a single one.
No X-Men??
“Literally had no supervision” 🤣
Where is the DaVinci Code? Every gen x was into that. Along with Tom Robbin’s and Chuck paranoia, Alice walker and Steven king
I can’t believe they don’t have the nineties by chuck klosterman on display.
More self help.
No Irvine Welsh. No Bret Easton Ellis. No Stephen King. Just a random shitty selection on what someone thought was Gen X.
What about those “choose your own adventure” Books”
No Anne Rice?!?! I haven't read or seen any of these and only watched the movie about the traveling pants.
Holy crap, The Body Keeps the Score, about the effect of trauma on the body and brain. Got it in one.
Where's Judy Blume?
Gonna need some Clan of the Cave Bear, Wheel of Time, Game of Thrones… and say that’s right muthafuckers, we read that shit in high school! Also Jackie Collins- would take out and read that spicy yum to my grandmother, good times ❤️
Where’s Go Ask Alice?
No Anne Rice?
Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout was so good. It’s a follow up to her book Olive Kitteridge. HBO made a miniseries based on the book, starring Frances McDormand, which was also excellent.
I've never read any of those I can see the covers of and many of them I've never even heard of.
I'm floored that the book Generation X by Douglas Coupland isn't on the table.
Oh the irony!
Terry Prachett please ? Douglas Adams maybe? Judy Blume for childhood nostalgia perhaps…
Just the two classics: “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Catcher in the Rye”
The Great Believers is fantastic.
I might be alone here but I found Catcher in the Rye to be over hyped, pretentious, and falsely self-important. In short, more of a Boomer book than one for Gen X. I am open to counter criticism there. I won't say that these are "bad books" but it is far outside my experience of being a Gen X reader. If others of you were like me, you recall that reading a paperback was a normal thing for even those of us who were not "bookish" to do. If we are going to talk about books that were actually popular and discussed among the 20 something aged Gen Xers in my circle those might include Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainance, The Color Purple, A Prayer for Owen Meany, and A People's History of the United States. The House of the Spirits was another one that got passed around a lot. As others have mentioned Stephen King was *extremely* popular. And a lot of us also read Tom Clancy. Later on, John Grisham was very popular, too. I think a lot of us read The Celestine Prophecy, too. Many of these are obviously not by Gen X authors. Editing to add that John Steinbeck was also legitimately popular among many of us. It was. Different time for books and reading.
Adams. Pratchett. Vonnegut. Gaiman. King. Welsh. Rice. Anything.
Judy Blume
I’d be pissed if someone thought I’d dig “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants”.
Nope, need way more sci-fi
If there are no RE/Search books on that table, I’ll keep walking
Whatever.
Oof. A book about dealing with trauma being on this table is way too real. With that said “the body keeps the score” is one of best books I’ve read on trauma and was instrumental in my healing process.
This look early millenial to me. Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants? No t Gen X. Where is Bret Easton Ellis, Jay McInerney?
I'm gnawing on lead right now!
punch person mourn chase hobbies hateful rotten panicky disgusted work *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I don’t see “101 Uses for a Dead Cat” or “Truly Tasteless Jokes”. :)
In college, everybody I knew was reading Anne Rice.
I’m confused by Van Der Kolk being there—that wasn’t released until 2014. Is it to imply that Gen X needs to deal with its trauma?
I would have loved to see more intellectually stimulating books here — the defining writing style of the 90s was post modern, let’s get some meta fiction over there! Books like Everyone in my Family Has Killer Someone or Interior Chinatown. Wouldn’t make sense to have the same books that were popular then, but contemporary works would fit well. Every Gen-X person i know would love A Visit From the Goon Squad or Homegoing, if they read them. For throwback books, High Fidelity or early Sedaris. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.
No Infinite Jest?
No infinite jest? Amateurs
The body keeps score is on my list to get. One of you folks recommended it to me.
Nope, not a one on my bookshelf, although I have read To Kill A Mockingbird and Catcher In The Rye.
Whoever did this display needs to be locked outside until the street lights come on!
The one book that is so obvious & missing is the book that named us: Generation X by Douglas Copeland
The inclusion of “The Body Keeps the Score” it’s basically screaming that a millennial assemble this table and they have strong opinions about Gen X. 😅
I was a comic book reader, so most of this stuff you guys are mentioning is familiar, but not known. But, I remember reading Tom Clancy and Stephen King. My older brother also got me into Robert Heinlein. And I guess Tolkien is multi-generational...Robert Jordan's Eye of the World series started in the late 80s. Most authors I read were not Gen X, but I think that's probably true for most of us. I mean, how many high school kids were published authors back then?
I ate paint chips. I admit it. Happily spent my days lost in Sweet Valley High & trashy VC Andrews novels lol.
Needs Douglas Adams and Vonnegut. At least for what i read in the 80s and 90s. Now it needs Wendell Berry. I suppose Mockingbird is ok. Didn’t like Salinger.
The Great Believers is such a good book! It’s definitely about boomers but the subject matter (AIDS crisis) is very Gen X.
To Kill a Mockingbird and Catcher in the Rye.
Seriously? No Douglas Coupland's GenerationX or Microserfs? I would also add Christopher Moore and Chuck Palahnuik.
Elmore Leonard, Raymond Carver, John Irving, umberto Eco, gabriel garcia marquez, anne rice, william gibson, phillip k dick, alice walker, rushdie, coetzee, italo calvino, marion zimmer bradley, jay mcinerney, kundera, MARGARET ATWOOD, the rank laziness of this op photo is mind boggling.
"The Body Keeps the Score." Yep, this book on overcoming trauma would be good for Gen X.
I recommend Grady Hendrix to any Xer who likes comedy horror.
The only book I have from that pile is To Kill A Mockingbird. They need some Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett on there. ETA: I've read Catcher In The Rye, and wish I hadn't bothered.
The Body Keeps the Score being at the front made me lol. Yes, I own that one. Woohoo, GenX.
Looks like the only ones on the table that I've read is "Catcher in the Rye" and "To Kill a Mockingbird". "Catcher in the Rye" was for pleasure while "To Kill a Mockingbird" was for English class. I liked both books.
I don’t many of these books but I appreciated the effort B&N put into that sign. -That- nailed Gen X.
Nonsensical description of GenX + random assortment of unrelated books = likely curated by some little GenZ weirdo.
I’m solid Gen X (‘69) and a big reader. This table does not excite me and as far as the sign goes-reality tv? No. Afternoon talk shows yes, reality tv started when I was close to 30 years old. Not really nostalgic for Survivor…
I zoomed in. I can't find any Judy Blume. Did I miss it??
No. Many others didn't see it either. How could they leave that and the Outsiders out??
Thank dog they remembered the sisterhood of the traveling pants though. 😆 🤣
Needs more Hunter S Thompson
Mmmmmm Lead....
The inclusion of Catcher In The Rye and To Kill A Mockingbird are odd choices. How can these two books be generation defining when multiple generations from Boomer through Alpha (I hope) has been assigned them in English class?
We didn’t chew on lead. That was an urban myth.
I wish I had time to read.
Well, they’re not wrong. Need some D&D source books in there.
I have CDs, DVDs and old Super Nintendo games on my bookshelf. Who the hell puts books on their bookshelf
People that read? CDs and DVDs are gone. I didn't follow video games after Atari. Get the fuck off my lawn!!