5. Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections (2001)
喬納森·弗蘭岑，《糾正》（2001年）

Franzen's edgy multigenerational family saga, winner of a US National Book Award, was among the first novels to capture the zeitgeist of the century's first decade. As Alfred and Enid Lambert and their three adult children gather at the end of the 20th Century for "one last Christmas", the father's Parkinson's disease progresses, and the US is on the verge of economic meltdown. "The Correction, when it finally came, was not an overnight bursting of a bubble but a much more gentle let-down, a year-long leakage of value from key financial markets," writes Franzen. "Franzen secured his place as a major American writer." Laurie Hertzel, senior books editor of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune adds, "This big, sprawling, fat novel touches on some of the most important themes of the early years of this millennium – economic uncertainty, the conflicts between parents and their drifting middle-aged children and the enormous issues of an aging society past its prime. He does it with great storytelling and a lot of humour." (Picador)
這本小說榮獲美國國家圖書獎，講述了一個尖銳的幾世同堂的家庭故事，成為首批緊隨21世紀最初10年時代精神的小說之一。20世紀末，阿爾弗雷德、伊妮德·蘭伯特同三個已成年的孩子齊聚一堂，一起慶祝可能是最后一個闔家團圓的圣誕節。此時，父親阿爾弗雷德的帕金森綜合征更加嚴重了，而美國也正處于經濟危機的邊緣。弗蘭岑寫道：“《糾正》不是指主要金融市場一夜之間突然發生泡沫破滅，而是更溫和的衰退，持續一年的價值漏損。” 《明尼阿波利斯星壇報》資深圖書編輯勞里·赫茨爾評論道：“弗蘭岑再次證明了其作為美國重要作家的實力。這本小說布景廣闊，觸及了新千年早期最重要的一些主題——經濟動蕩、父母和漂泊不定的中年兒女之間的沖突，以及黃金時代過去后老齡化社會之中的諸多問題。弗蘭岑用幽默的筆法寫了一個好故事。” （Picador出版社）

6. Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (2000)
邁克爾·夏邦，《卡瓦利爾和克雷的神奇冒險》 (2000年)

Joe Kavalier, a Houdini-like escape artist, smuggles himself out of Nazi-occupied Prague in 1939 and ends up in New York City. With his Brooklyn cousin Sammy Clay he invents a superhero character called the Escapist and launches the golden age of comic books. "Chabon's capacious, propulsive and many-storied novel is exquisitely written, emotionally rich and historically and morally profound," says Booklist senior editor Donna Seaman, who made the Pulitzer Prize winner her number-one choice. "It can also be seen as a bridge between the 20th and 21st centuries in its perspective on WWII and the birth of comic-book superheroes as a new. Chabon's novel has greatly influenced other outstanding works of 21st Century fiction. But The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is also a timeless inquiry into our tragic proclivity for hate and war, our abiding need for stories and our persistent longing for magical powers and transcendence." (Random House)
喬·卡瓦利爾是一位藝術家，1939年，他奇跡般地從布拉格的納粹集中營逃脫，最終抵達紐約。卡瓦利爾和住在布魯克林的表兄弟薩米·克雷聯手設計了一個叫“逃脫俠”的超級英雄，由此開啟了漫畫書的黃金時代。這本書曾榮獲普利策獎，《書目雜志》資深編輯多納·西曼將這本書列為他的書單的第一位，“夏邦采用了寬廣博大、層層推進的創作手法，寫法上精巧，情感上豐沛，歷史和道德意義深遠。二戰期間誕生了超級英雄漫畫，這本小說從這個角度搭建起了20世紀和21世紀的橋梁，并極大地影響了21世紀其他的優秀作品。但《卡瓦利爾和克雷的神奇冒險》也提出了一個永恒的疑問，關于仇恨和戰爭的悲劇性、人類對傳奇故事持久不竭的需求，對神奇力量、超脫存在的持久不變的渴望。”（Random House出版社）

7. Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad (2010)
詹妮弗·伊根，《惡棍來訪》（2010年）

Egan's Proustian meditation on time, fame and music won the National Book Critics Circle and Pulitzer awards. Who's the goon of the title? "Time is the stealth goon, the one you ignore because you are so busy worrying about the goons right in front of you," she says. Egan concocts her narrative around punk rocker-turned-music producer Bennie Salazar, his sticky-fingered assistant Sasha and a circle of wannabes, has-beens and hangers-on. Colette Bancroft, book editor of The Tampa Bay Times, named Egan's novel her top pick "not just because it is a splendidly written experiment in form that succeeds resoundingly, but because the 21st Century is its essential subject matter. Egan juxtaposes timeless literary themes, most notably the inexorable journey from youth to age, with an exploration of the ways in which a rapidly changing world reshapes the human experience. It's a novel that is prescient, surprising, wise and simply a blast to read." (Anchor)
伊根對時間、聲譽和音樂進行的普魯斯特式思考成就了此書，并因此榮獲美國國家書評人獎和普利策獎。那標題中的惡棍是誰呢？“時間是最大的惡棍。人們總是因為忙于擔憂眼前的‘惡棍’而忽略了時間這個隱藏的惡棍。”作者講述了一些列故事：曾經的朋克搖滾歌手、現在的音樂制作人——本尼·薩拉查，有盜竊癖的女助手薩莎，以及一群想成名的人、曾經成名的人和無處不在的瘋狂的粉絲。《塔帕灣時報》的圖書編輯科萊特班·克羅夫特在他的書單中將《惡棍來訪》列為第一位，“不僅僅因為這本小說的寫作手法頗具實驗性且異常成功，更因為此書的基本主題是21世紀。伊根將永恒的文學主題——不可阻擋的韶華易逝，以及如何在急速變化的世界中改變自己適應社會并列起來，給讀者帶去了睿智的、有先見之明的，但又驚奇簡單的閱讀體驗。”（Anchor出版社）

8. Ben Fountain, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk (2012)
本·芳汀《比利·林恩漫長的中場休息》，（2012年）

Eight rookies from the US army's Bravo squad, fresh from a firefight with Iraqi insurgents, in which one of their fellow soldiers died and another was disabled, are dubbed war heroes by the Fox News cable channel. Their two-week stateside victory tour ends with a halftime salute at a Dallas Cowboys game. Fountain captures the excesses of Texas, American football, business and war, and gives us a memorable narrator in 19-year-old Billy Lynn, with his combination of lust, bedazzlement and post-traumatic stress disorder. "It is sort of weird," he tells a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, "being honoured for the worst day of your life." (Ecco)
在與伊拉克反叛分子交火中，美軍一個突擊小隊的一名士兵犧牲，一名受傷，幸存者中的八名士兵卻因為福克斯電視臺的宣傳而成為國家英雄。他們回到美國本土，進行為期兩周的“勝利展演”，最后一站是在達拉斯牛仔隊橄欖球比賽的中場進行亮相。芳汀用19歲少年比利·林恩的口吻講述了這個令人難忘的故事，他的渴望、他的困惑迷茫和他的創傷后應激障礙交織在一起，融合進了無節制發展的德州、橄欖球、商業和戰爭里面。比利告訴達拉斯牛仔隊拉拉隊隊長：“在你最糟糕的一天獲得榮譽，真是瘋了！”（Ecco出版社）