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2000–2001 Booklist

1984 by George Orwell
A terrifying vision of a totalitarian future.
Abide with Me by E. Lynn Harris
Continue following the lives of E. Lynn Harris' five thirty-something African American characters in his Invisible Life trilogy.
Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood
A fictionalized account of Grace Marks, one of the most notorious women in 19th century Canada, who was convicted of the murders of her employer and his housekeeper and mistress.
The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton by Jane Smiley
A story of a young woman of courage who follows her husband's murderers in 1855.
The Archivist by Martha Cooley
A librarian meets a younger woman, triggering memories and emotions long repressed.
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Explore Sylvia Plath's largely autobiographical novel.
Blanche on the Lam by Barbara Neely
Meet the middle-aged housekeeper who becomes a reluctant sleuth.
Blind Justice by Bruce Alexander
The first of a mystery series featuring Sir John Fielding, the blind jurist who created the Bow Street Runners in 18th century London.
Boychiks in the Hood: Travels in the Hasidic Underground by Robert Eisenberg
An informative jaunt through the religious experience, ceremony, and tradition of esoteric Hasidic communities.
The Brothers K by David James Duncan
A family saga that is a complex tapestry of family tensions, baseball, politics and religion, by turns hilariously funny and agonizingly sad.
Canyon Solitude: A Woman's Solo River Journey Through the Grand Canyon by Patricia C. McCairen
A journey of personal growth and physical challenge.
Chocolat by Joanne Harris
When Vianne Rocher and her daughter arrive in a small village and open a chocolate shop opposite the church during Lent, it's war between Vianne and the local priest.
The Colony of Unrequited Dreams by Wayne Johnston
A fictional biography of Joe Smallwood, Newfoundland's most controversial political figure and first Premier after confederation with Canada in 1949.
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Two African American sisters, one a missionary in Africa and the other a child-wife living in the South, support each other through their correspondence, beginning in the 1920s.
Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War by Tony Horwitz
A tour of the Old South which explores why Americans are still engrossed with the Civil War and how it resonates today.
Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner
A rich story of the lifelong friendship between two couples.
Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende
A Chilean immigrant in San Francisco goes to the Gold Rush fields disguised as a man to follow her lover.
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
The strikingly autobiographical the history of David's life from birth to manhood and of the unforgettable characters he meets on his journey.
The Debt to Pleasure by John Lanchester
This sensuous book is part cookbook, part novel and part eccentric philosophical treatise.
The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
A Booker Prize-winning novel which traces the intersection of four damaged lives in an Italian villa at the end of World War II.
Evensong by Gail Godwin
Meet Margaret Bonner, an Episcopal pastor in an isolated community and see what happens when three misfits appear on the scene and become catalysts for change.
Falling Leaves: The Memoir of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter by Adeline Yen Mah
Mah's painful chronicle of nonstop emotional abuse from her wealthy father and his beautiful, cruel second wife.
Five Fortunes by Beth Gutcheon
Follow the enduring friendships of a group of women.
A Gesture Life by Chang-Rae Lee
This story explores the outsider's dilemma and the heartbreaking bargains he will make to adapt to his surroundings.
The Giant's House by Elizabeth McCracken
An unusual love story set in the 1950s about a librarian on Cape Cod and the tallest boy in the world.
Giants in the Earth: A Saga of the Prairie by O. E. Rolvaag
A classic story of a Norwegian pioneer family's struggles with the land and the elements of the Dakota Territory.
The Ginger Tree by Oswald Wynd
In 1903, a young Scots girl sails to China to marry a British attache but horrifies the British community by having an affair with a young Japanese nobleman.
Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland
The story of an "unknown" painting from its present owner back three centuries to its creation by the Dutch master Vermeer.
Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
A memoir of her two-year stay as a teenager at a psychiatric facility.
Go and Come Back by Joan Abelove
A Peruvian teenager is drawn to the two American anthropologists who have come to study her tribe.
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Armed with only with the invincible innocence of childhood, a brother and sister fashion a world for themselves in the shadow of their wreck of a family.
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius: Based on a True Story by Dave Egger
A novel-like object that is at once autobiographical, ironic and self-referential.
Hemingway's Chair by Michael Palin
An English postal worker tries to save his post office from modernization by emulating his hero, Ernest Hemingway.
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
The story of an English Generation X record store owner who's having a tough time making the transition to adulthood.
The Hours by Michael Cunningham
Deeply moving, interwoven stories of three women in this novel that is an acknowledgement of Woolf. A Pulitzer Prize winner. A PEN/Faulkner award for fiction winner.
In the Wilderness: Coming of Age in Unknown Country by Kim Barnes
A haunting memoir of faith and loss in the Idaho woods.
Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain
A humorous travel narrative published in 1869 based on his letters to newspapers about his 1867 steamship voyage to Europe, Egypt and the Holy Lands.
Interpreter of Maladies by Lhumpa Lahiri
A stunning collection of short stores from a wonderfully distinctive new voice. A Pulitzer Prize winner, a PEN/Hemingway Award winner.
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn
A compelling story of a gorilla that possesses immense wisdom and the man who becomes his pupil.
Johnny's Girl: A Daughter's Memoir of Growing Up in Alaska's Underworld by Kim Rich
A memoir of a childhood always one step ahead of the law, surrounded by gamblers, crooks and pimps.
Kindred by Octavia Butler
A time-traveling story of a contemporary African American woman who tries to resolve the mystery of her "out-of-time" experiences. Octavia Butler was awarded the PEN USA West's 2000 Lifetime Achievement Award.
The Last Picture Show by Larry McMurtry
The story of teens making the transition from children to adults in a sleepy Texas town.
The Law of Similars by Chris Bohjalilan
A state prosecutor risks his career to protect his homeopath-turned-lover.
Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula LeGuin
A classic science fiction tale written in 1969 by a Portland author.
Lifesaving by Judith Barrington
This poet 's coming-of-age story tells of her search for identity while denying her parents' deaths in a cruise ship sinking.
Longitude by Dava Sobel
An award-winning science journalist tells the fascinating and convoluted story of the 18th century contest to devise a practicable method of determining longitude on the seas.
The Magician's Assistant by Ann Patchett
After the magician Parsifal's death, Sabine, his assistant for 20 years and wife of a few months, discovers that the family he said was dead is very much alive.
A Map of the World by Jane Hamilton
A haunting drama about a rural farm family and a disastrous event that initiates their fall from grace.
Mariette in Ecstasy by Ron Hansen
The story of a beautiful young postulant in a New York convent in 1906 who shocks the members of her convent when she manifests signs of the stigmata.
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
The story of a celebrated geisha, told with authenticity and lyricism.
Merchant of Menace by Jill Churchill
A Jane Jeffry mystery.
The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould
A masterful demolition of the IQ industry.
The Mistress of Spices by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
In this novel of magical realism, Tilo must choose between a life of special powers or one of ordinary love and compassion.
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Probably Woolf's most famous stylistic accomplishment, this brilliant novel explores the hidden springs of thought and action in one day of a woman's life.
My Soul to Keep by Tananarive Due
A story of supernatural elements that are rooted in African and African American heritage and culture.
Native Speaker by Chang-Rae Lee
The story of Korean American Henry Park, a perpetual outsider who's always looking at American culture from a distance.
O, Jerusalem by Laurie King
Another adventure of the team of Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes, this time in the bazaars of 1918 Jerusalem.
Paddy Clarke, Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle
The story of a 10-year-old Irish lad teetering on the nervous verge of adolescence as he bewilderingly tries to make sense of his changing world. A Booker Prize winner.
The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger
This true account describes the storm of the century and a doomed fishing boat.
Plainsong by Kent Haruf
A heartstrong story of family and romance, tribulation and tenacity, set in the High Plains east of Denver.
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
Follow the experiences of an overbearing missionary and his family in the Belgian Congo struggling for independence.
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Read the classic, ironic comedy of manners.
The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester
A true tale of murder, insanity and the making of the Oxford English Dictionary.
The Reader by Bernard Schlink
A story of love, sex, reading and shame in postwar Germany.
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
Where women are banished during their monthly cycles, childbirth and illness, the red tent is where women take comfort and courage from one another in a celebration of the ancient continuity and unity of women.
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
A compelling portrait of the perfect English butler who tries to give meaning to his tightly repressed existence through the self-effacing, almost mystical practice of his profession.
Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie
The magical story of how misfit storyteller Spokane Indian Thomas Builds-the-Fire's life changes when blues legend Robert Johnson gives Thomas his enchanted guitar.
Salvation on Sand Mountain: Snake Handling and Redemption in Southern Appalachia by Dennis Covington
One man's search for his roots, and ultimately, his spiritual renewal.
The Samurai's Garden by Gail Tsukiyama
A Chinese man recouperates from TB on the eve of WWII in his family's summer home in Japan, where he meets four of the local residents.
The Sea Runners by Ivan Doig
Four men escape from indenturement with the Russian frontier regime in Sitka, Alaska in 1850 and head toward the American fur-trading post in Astoria.
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
A spoiled invalid and his orphaned cousin join forces to restore his mother's garden and by doing so, restore their family.
The Seville Communion by Arturo Perez-Reverte
A literary mystery set in Spain involving the politics of the Roman Catholic Church and the art world.
The Shipping News by Annie Proux
In this atmospheric story, an inarticulate, misery-ridden widower takes up residence in Newfoundland. A National Book Award winner.
The Sky Fisherman by Craig Lesley
A moving family portrait etched in the rugged terrain of a small Oregon town.
Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy by Jostein Gaarder
Young Sophie begins an unusual correspondence with a mysterious philosopher after receiving two thought-provoking letters in her mailbox.
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
A charismatic Jesuit priest leads a 21st-century scientific mission to a newly discovered extraterrestrial culture.
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Faidman
An American woman's friendship with a Hmong refugee family whose daughter suffers from severe epilepsy leads her to explore cultural differences.
The Structure of Scientific Evolutions by Thomas Kuhn
A classic on the history and development of science. The New York Times Book Review called it "Perhaps the best explanation of [the] process of discovery."
The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith
A story of a sociopath who seduces readers into empathizing with him even as his actions defy all moral standards.
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Even though Janie Crawford has married three men and been tried for the murder of one of them, she feels no need to justify herself to the town. But she tells all to her friend, Phoeby, with the implicit understanding that Phoeby will tell them what she says.
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
The most widely read work of African fiction, about the missionary experience from an African point of view.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
A timeless story of growing up in the South during the Depression. A Pulitzer Prize winner.
Tom's Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce
A mesmerizing tale of a boy's journey across the boundaries of reality. A Carnegie Medal winner.
Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott
This collection of vignettes affirms faith and community in the midst of drug-induced angst.
A Tribe Apart: A Journey into the Heart of American Adolescence by Patricia Hersch
An up-close-and-personal look at what it means to be a teen in today's American high schools.
Tumbling by Diane McKinney-Whetstone
The story of Herbie and Noon in South Philadelphia during the 1940s and '50s that combines the mood of the urban community with the vitality of its inhabitants.
We Band of Angels by Elizabeth Norman
A gripping history of American nurses who provided selfless care under extreme hardship during WWII.
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire
The story of Elphaba, the little green-skinned girl who grew up to be the infamous Wicked Witch of the West, a smart, pickly and misunderstood creature who challenges all our preconceived notions about the nature of good and evil.
Wild Child: Girlhoods in the Counterculture by Chelsea Cain
Daughters of the hippie generation speak about the legacy of their upbringing.
Winter Count by Barry Lopez
Real and wondrous stories of animal and landscape by one of America's most important nature writers.
You Have to Stand for Something, or You Will Fall for Anything by Star Jones
A provocative book of inspiration and motivation that draws on the remarkable life experiences and opinions of the lawyer-turned TV-personality.

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