So I just updated my reading spreadsheet to track some new stats and found out that about 60% of all the books that I read this year were published in the 2020s. And while I like reading contemporary fiction, I know there are a lot of good books that weren't published in the last few years. I've added some books to my Interested and TBR list, but I'd love to have more.

So, I'd like to ask the community: What are your favorite books that were written pre-2020? Bonus points if they were written in the 20th century.

I've noticed that when a book is set anywhere other than the US (and, to a lesser extent the UK), there is a high probability that the flag of that country will be one of the top emojis.

I understand if this is the case if the book is openly about that country (eg a book about Chinese history having a Chinese flag emoji), but I do feel like books set in the US and the UK (and many Western countries tbh in several cases) are less likely to be shoehorned as fiction about their country of setting. For example, a coming-of-age book set in the US would not have an American flag as one of the top emojis, but the same story set in Pakistan probably would.

Does anyone else have any thoughts about this? I just want to hear others thoughts to know if I'm going crazy

At what point does an author's right to revise their own work conflict with a reader's right to the book they actually purchased?

Do you think authors should be able to make substantial, retroactive changes to a published book--including removing or rewriting entire scenes--without releasing or clearly marketing the revision as a new edition? And should those changes be pushed to copies readers have already purchased?

I'm asking because I've seen this come up with a popular romantasy series where the author is retroactively removing all of the sex scenes and changing them to fade-to-black. It's sparked a lot of discussion about authors' rights, readers' rights, ownership, and whether a published book is ever really "finished."

I'm deliberately not asking about this specific author or situation, which is why I'm posting this in Club. I'm more interested in the broader question: Where do you draw the line? Are authors free to change anything they want after publication because it's their work, or does a reader have some reasonable expectation that the version they purchased will remain the version they purchased?

And if you think authors should be able to make these kinds of changes, what would you consider significant enough to warrant labeling or selling the revision as a separate edition?