With the pace and volume of volumes, it is very hard to find the classics of tomorrow. I think you have to keep consuming. And some just depends on the genre. John Grisham is a great procedural crime novelist -- do his novels really touch greater themes? Maybe/maybe not... do they have to? Do I really need to touch upon the fundamental understanding of the universe or can I flow with the zeitgeist of the moment??
I'm generally on the side of "light entertainment" whether for books or movies or other media. Most of the time, I want the
Princess Bride, not
Schindler's List. I'm ok with that. I will go into things that disturb me but that is not my happy place
Modern opinions shaping our views of things, I can't read/enjoy Sir Walter Scott because of the rampant bigotry in the novels like
Ivanhoe. I can read
Gone with the Wind because it is a romance (and quite possibly the Great American Novel) and not history.
Some people only have one great song or story in them. Others have many. It is certainly easier to judge someone with 60 years of multiple works, than it is a Harper Lee or her childhood friend Truman Capote for being a celebrity more than an artist...
It is easier in audio to forgive writing mistakes and to just go along with the story. But the Twilight books by Stephanie Myers are still horribly written... tell a good engaging story but just badly written. There are many authors that are very popular because they do tell good stories, even if they tell them badly.
Style matters, Hemmingway can tell great stories, greatly written, but his writing style is very sharp and abrupt, is like gun fire as opposed to James Fennimore Cooper and his 113 word 26 punctuation mark sentences.
Of modern "great" authors, I think Umberto Eco deserves comment. From the success of
The Name of the Rose to
Focault's Pendulum, to his later works he has a great collection of work and writing.
Haven't read anything by her recently, but
Possession by AS Byatt was a major read to me when it came out. LOL, not nearly as earth-shattering maybe but as big to me as discovering Ayn Rand in my teens and 20s... (which going back to Rose Lane is a connection). Not an easy read and I don't know how well I would follow in audio but gorgeously written.