QotD: Modern Classic

What modern book do you think will be read in high school by the next generation of kids? 
Submitted by Tom.


Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World: A Novel (Vintage International)
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World: A Novel (Vintage International)
Is it too much to hope that the mind blowing Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Murakami Haruki would be taught? In addition to the fabulous narrative feats it builds a pathway to philosophy, myth and other literatures. Who knows, maybe it could get kids into Jorge Luis Borges.

No? Fine, I'll be more conservative and go for Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee. It's a deeply moral, chilling, complex tale and pretty adaptable to typical high school How-can-we-turn-this-book-into-a-series-of-study-guide-questions curriculum.

And I'll go one better by naming an early 20th century book that should be taught in classrooms: Ivy Compton-Burnett's Manservant and Maidservant. The insight into dysfunctional family dynamics, the memorable characters, the painful humour, the distinctive style all make me confused as to why this novel is not more well-known.

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Antidepressant-chan
Hardboiled is, sadly, one of the few Murakami books I am yet to read, though I'm quite a fan of his work.
W. B. Mook
[this is good]
Hell yes. Good choice.
Imani
Antidepressant, me too -- I've read all of his novels except Dance Dance Dance and his latest; haven't read the short stories either (I'm worried they aren't going to be as good). Hardboiled is his best novel, IMO, and criminally underrated.

W.B. Mook, thanks! I thought so. ;)
W. B. Mook
I like his short stories even more than his novels, so hopefully that's enough of an endorsement. I just found out about the new collection and I'm still too poor to afford it in hardback.
Imani
Hmm, it's enough to make me look at his older collections that are in paperback. :) Yeah I just bought After Dark in hardcover so I'm too poor to get his new one in the same format. I checked Amazon and the Blind Willow in paperback isn't coming out until October. It feels as if the hardcover has been out for ages.
Antidepressant-chan
Dance Dance Dance was actually the first one I read, and I loved it. (I had began reading the prequel, A Wild Sheep Chase, some time after, but never got to finish it). And his short stories are amazing. Seriously. They're somewhat better than his novels, I find, but only by a small, rather insignificant margin. The Elephant Vanishes is possibly my favorite book of all time. I've read it cover to cover something like three times, though I don't own it yet.
W. B. Mook
I've always wanted to do some kind of online writing project/collaboration based on the journalling technique he uses in "The Fall of the Roman Empire, the 1881 Indian Uprising, Hitler's Invasion of Poland, and the Realm of Raging Winds" but I still haven't figured out a good way to make it interesting as a group project.

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