My favorite reads from 2000-2010

[cahn]

Because julianyap wanted to know! Unfortunately it's hard for me to categorize things based on when they were published rather than when I read them, so... here we are. Books actually published in 2000-2010 are indicated by asterisks.


Dante Alighieri (Ciardi translation), The Divine Comedy - It's hard for me to believe that eleven years ago I had not read the Divine Comedy at all, and that ten years ago I hadn't read the Ciardi translation, which is the best one. If you ever have to or want to read it, this is the one to get.

Dorothy Sayers, Gaudy Night - Speaking of Dante, I must be the only person in the world who knew Sayers as a Dante translator first, then for her Christian apologetics, and only then for her Lord Peter novels. Of which Gaudy Night is hands down the best.

Lois McMaster Bujold, the Vorkosigan series and Curse of Chalion* - It's also hard to believe that I had barely heard of Bujold when I started grad school (I was vaguely aware she wrote the Cordelia books). D force-fed these to me while we were dating in a medium-distance relationship, bringing one a week when he came to visit. Warrior's Apprentice I was all "eh, whatever." By Mirror Dance I was all, "Hey, you could bring two of these next week if you want." Right in the middle of Memory I realized I desperately loved all these characters. (And almost went insane after reading the first ten chapters of Civil Campaign online while waiting for the weekend and my next fix.)

Now, of course, I love all of the books. Bujold is sneaky -- she's so smooth, and they go down so easily, that you don't even realize how deep the books are, both in terms of science-extrapolation and character/theme, until you go back and look at them.

(And yes, lightgetsin, I know I promised you a discussion of religion in Curse of Chalion. Someday...)

Megan Whalen Turner, The Attolia/Queen's Thief series* - I didn't like Thief much, but I love King of Attolia to lots of little bits and pieces. These books actually grew on me quite a bit -- right after reading I would not have said they would have even made a year best-of, but after I let them grow on me for a while I decided I loved them like anything.

Ted Chiang, especially Stories of Your Life and Others - Yet another one where it is hard for me to imagine a time where I didn't have Ted Chiang's work in my life. I am actually not sure when I read the title story -- it might have been slightly before 2000, but I suspect not. The book, of course, didn't come out until 2002. "Story of Your Life" is one of those stories I think everyone ought to read.

Jhumpa Lahiri* - which I don't have any more to say about than I said here. Amazing stuff.

Barry Hughart, Bridge of Birds - another one D force-fed to me while we were dating. Only he didn't have to force this one on me. Everyone needs to go read this right now; it's the most underrated book I know.

Cynthia Voigt, A Solitary Blue -- I had read some of her Kingdom novels, and when I was growing up I saw the Tillerman books everywhere, but I'd never actually read one before 2009. I'm glad I didn't. I would not have gotten them as a kid. Reading A Solitary Blue as an adult blew me away.

Octavia Butler, Xenogenesis trilogy -- A tour-de-force, full of interesting thoughts on gender, race, alienness, ownership, the Other, rationality, emotionality, freedom, and, oh, the list goes on, without EVER becoming preachy. This is how it's done right.

Intuition, Allegra Goodman* -- just squeaked in there. I'm not sure I liked it quite as much as the others on this list, but it kept lurking in the back of my head whenever I thought about making this list, so I threw it in. More here.

Nonfiction:

Atul Gawande, Checklist Manifesto* -- Changed the way I thought about how large projects are organized. Really interesting.

Huron, Sweet Anticipation* -well, okay, probably no one else but me will like this textbook on cognitive psychology on music, but I loooooved it more than anything.

John Gottman, Why Marriages Succeed or Fail - the only relationship book I have ever found that is actually useful. I bought one for my sister when she was dating T and exhibited every single danger signal he talks about.

Well. I'm sure I'm leaving stuff out, but this is a beginning, anyway. Are there books published in the last ten years that didn't make it on this list and a) you know I've read it and are interested in discussing why it's not on, or b) you think I should read, because if I had read it, it would be on this list, or c) why is this sentence so atrociously convoluted?

Comments

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

Hee, Ford. I have most-not-all of his work, too. Funny: I fell in via his two old-series Trek novels; it was apparent even to kid!me that he, Duane, Hambly, Kagan, and a couple others were writing above the level of the rest of them. (It was fortuitous that one of the library staff liked those novels, too, and not only arranged for the branch to buy them but set them aside for me. After he'd read them himself.)

Valente is a do-or-don't taste for lots of folks--and I suspect you're right that we don't overlap completely re: kinds of hard reads. The only Powers I've tried is Galatea 2.0, which another friend spoke highly of but which I found kind of meh (some fifteen years ago). Still, it's good to have things on one's to-read list.

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

Hey, I got to him from library TOS novels too! And Duane, Hambly, Kagan, yep, those were the ones where I went and found their other books. I've still got my library book sale copies of Final Reflection and Ishmael, in fact.

Okay, here's a question which maybe you can answer (if you have time, of course, which I'm sure is in short supply). What is going on in "Preflash"? I understand (after a number of readings over a number of years) that Griffin's injury as well as Carrick's and Malaryk's deaths are all ordered by the Nefarious Powers that Be (the ones, presumably, the three of them were trying to expose as war correspondents) and carried out by the same henchman-assassin.

But why do Rain and Suzy have no video? Because they don't care about anything? Have no soul? How does Rain know about Griffin's power? And where the heck did the griffin at the end come from?? What does Rain mean by saying "It can be more fun than anything"? Or by the part where Griffin understands how Carrick did what he did? (p. 121 in HoF)

Anyway. I've just never quite connected all the dots in that story.

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

I would need to reread, which would be fine if I could figure out where my copy of the book is. Not sure which box. :(

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

Ah, no problem. I totally understand the books-in-random-boxes thing :)