Saturday by Ian McEwanRead about another entry on the list.
Comfortable life meets violent crisis in the shadow of 9/11 and the Iraq war (the Saturday in question is 15 February 2003, the day of the anti-war march in London). McEwan’s book was widely read and admired in the US – many thought it surpassed any homegrown efforts. No twisted metal, no choking clouds of toxic smoke and no falling bodies but the drift of Saturday is clear, humane and important. It is a book that teaches how we can live in altered times and it never lets go of the strange fact of our capacity to endure and cope and still have perfectly cheerful Saturdays in spite of everything.
Saturday also appears among Chibundu Onuzo's top ten megacities in fiction and Jimmy So's five best 9/11 novels, and on John Mullan's lists of ten of the best good doctors in literature and ten of the best prime ministers in fiction.
--Marshal Zeringue
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