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

[nolly.livejournal.com]

I wasn't a big fan of the first Orphan's Tale book, either. Mostly, it just didn't seem earth-shatteringly wonderful to me the way the people recommending it to me found it.

Then I met her at a con, and I understood why. Any author who dismisses another author's female lead as "a man in a skirt" is far too invested in gender essentialism for me to be in sync with. It wasn't just that bit of conversation, but that's the easiest to repeat / summarize -- basically, the way she views the world is just too incompatible with my worldview, and not in the fun brain-expanding way.

It was kind of like when I read The Left Hand of Darkness, except in that case, I chalked up the lack of mind blowing to the fact that it was several decades old at the time, and my perspective was not that of the original audience. Again, it's not that either one is a bad book, just that I was told each would blow me away, and neither did.

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

I could see it going either way -- depends what kind of book it was. For fantasy, where the society is often faux-medieval, yeah, the society itself is going to force a lot of cultural differences between men and women that you can't just ignore when writing your characters. For far-future SF, which I hope is more-or-less gender neutral, it's kind of a horrific comment to make. For most things, I think it's going to be a little in between. Although most of my life I try to live in a gender-neutral or even gender-transcending kind of way, it would be lying to say that there aren't deep parts of me that have been shaped by my environment to be specifically culturally female.

...Who was she talking about? Now I want to go read that book, which sounds like I would probably enjoy it -- which I suspect wasn't her intention :)

Left Hand of Darkness did blow me away, but I read that one in high school, when it was much easier to do :)

[nolly.livejournal.com]

The conversation was about China Mieville in general, and specifically, The Scar, which has a female protagonist. This was in June of 2009. So...modern-ish setting, but not our society or world at all.

I read Left Hand in 10th grade, after a member of a traveling theater troupe enthusiastically recommended it. I liked it, but it didn't blow my mind.