Originally posted by karajorma
That would be a good arguement if I was on about the list. But I was mainly refering to Flipside's comment about experts always choosing old things.
Besides I'd be willing to bet that the number of books published in the 20th century is far higher than the number in any other 2 centuries you care to choose. 
With that kind of productivity you'd expect more than a handful of books to make it.
Compare the number that are from the 20th century with those from the 19th. That's rather odd isn't it. More books written in the 20th century but somehow the 19th was better.
Besides I don't consider books 100 years old to be modern. Try 20-30 years old.
Hollywood makes about 90 times more films than in the 1920ies. That doesn't mean they are all better.
, most are worse. The thing is, when something is expensive to make, you always aim for quality. When it becomes cheap, you aim for the big buck. So most of the thousands of books published today suck. Which is by no means an excuse to refrain from reading modern literature,
as you yourself said, no-one can claim to be an expert in literature unless one did that. Still, I myself can't think of any book, that I'd place among the likes of Faust and Hamlet, that was written in the last 20 years or so. And also, one of the things that gives a book value, is it's longevity, whether the issues in the book are still there five or ten years down the road, or if the book can be interpreted to adress the new problems of society. And mostly time is needed to say that.
On another note, Remarque's "All quiet on the western front" is a notable omission from the list.
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