According to The Guardian, “these are the 50 books that defined” the Noughties. I decided to transcribe the list because I felt like it. Titles in crimson I have read.
2000
White teeth by Zadie Smith
No logo by Naomi Klein
Not sure why I have never got to this one. It’s sitting there on the shelf with its distinctive cover.
The tipping point by Malcolm Gladwell
A heartbreaking work of staggering genius by Dave Eggers
Started but didn’t finish this. The dissolute lifestyle the author lead with his young brother Toph stressed me out. I kept expecting Toph to die of salmonella poisoning or a skateboarding accident, or something.
The amber spyglass by Philip Pullman
How to Be a Domestic Goddess: Baking and the Art of Comfort Cooking, by Nigella Lawson
Do people actually read cookbooks? I mean, I might use a cookbook but I don’t sit and read it from cover to cover. In any case I don’t have this one.
Experience by Martin Amis
2001
The corrections by Jonathan Franzen
I seem to remember that I liked this but surprisingly don’t recall much of it now.
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Austerlitz by WG Sebald
A life’s work: On becoming a mother by Rachel Cusk
2002
Nickel and dimed: undercover in low-wage USA by Barbara Ehrenreich
London orbital: A year walking around the M25 by Iain Sinclair
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
I really enjoyed the first half or so of this book but by the last quarter found the twists and turns of the plot too unbelievable.
Persepolis: The story of a childhood and the story of a return by Marjane Satrapi
2003
The Da Vinci code by Dan Brown
I don’t get the Dan Brown phenomenon. If I were to write a novel it wouldn’t be a best seller, and my writing skills are probably on par with Mr Brown’s. (That is to say, Not Very Good. Just so you don’t think I am trying to claim any literary skills.)
Landing light by Dan Paterson
The curious incident of the dog in the night-time by Mark Haddon
The kite runner by Khaled Hosseini
Eats, shoots & leaves by Lynne Truss
2004
The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States
Small Island by Andrea Levy
The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Being Jordan by Katie Price
Earth: An Intimate History by Richard Fortey
2005
Freakonomics by Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner
Untold Stories by Alan Bennett
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
Postwar by Tony Judt
Saturday by Ian McEwan
2006
The God delusion by Richard Dawkins
I think we have a copy but I haven’t really wanted to read this. I am an atheist who is generally quite uninterested in arguments or discussions about religion.
The road by Cormac McCarthy
Recently read and enjoyed this. I can visualise the movie.
The looming tower by Lawrence Wright
The weather makers by Tim Flannery
The revenge of Gaia by James Lovelock
2007
Harry Potter and the deathly hallows by JK Rowling
I don’t think I own a copy of this one. When I did eventually read it I found it over-long and didn’t particularly enjoy it. I think I am one of those contrary people, for whom anything that receives a lot of hype in the media, almost immediately becomes unworthy of much of my attention. (e.g. I am the only person I know who still hasn’t seen Titanic, and is unlikely to.)
The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale
The Blair Years: Extracts from the Alastair Campbell Diaries
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
2008
Change We Can Believe In, The Audacity of Hope and Dreams from My Father, by Barack Obama
Why are these three books listed as one title?
The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century by Alex Ross
Netherland by Joseph O’Neill
The Forever War by Dexter Filkins
Home by Marilynne Robinson
This is in my To Read pile.
The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science by Richard Holmes
2009
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
2666 by Roberto Bolaño
Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín
11 out of 50 titles read.
This post, brought to you by someone who is on holidays and thus has time to indulge in list-making. Having a dual-screen set up also helped. I would have been far too impatient to keep flicking from tab to tab to transcribe the titles from the original article and post this, otherwise.
