What I was reading

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.