Top 10 Editors’ Best Books of 2003
The Iraq War started in March, and also the Human Genome Project declared it had accomplished its mission of sequencing the total human genetic code in April, even though Arnold Schwarzenegger adopted the release of Terminator three in July with his election as governor of California in October. It was a year of blockbusters in books, with the fifth Harry Potter installment beaten by a surprise hit thriller that advisable a secret background in the Catholic Church. Audrey Niffenegger and Khaled Hosseini created debuts with novels that might become continual bestsellers in softcover, even though our editors’ choice for the very best book in the year was an electrifying story of addiction and recovery whose status as a memoir was still several years from being questioned.
Here are the top 10 editors’ best books of 2003 releases that you can own them right away …
1. A Million Little Pieces
“A Million Little Pieces” is told with brutal, in your face honesty and an almost hyper active writing style. I found it to be absolutely brilliant. This is the story of an addict by an addict and doesn’t try to paint it as anything saintly or appologetic. I was very pleased with this purchase and do not hesitate to recommend “A Million Little Pieces” to other readers. I also recommend “My Fractured Life”, “The Glass Castle”, “Running With Scissors”, “Dry”, and “Smashed.” …
2. The Time Traveler’s Wife
stumbled across this book by mistake and hesitated to read it simply because it was 518 pages. To my surprise, I devoured this book in a few days and felt a pang of sadness when it was finished. The author crafts a story of something that is quite unbelievable and yet deftly makes it so very believable. I was hooked after the first chapter. Niffenegger managed to suck me in to this story so that I felt emotionally bound to the characters and their plight. It’s a tragic story that weaves so much love/pain/joy/disappointment that it fairly bursts with emotion. Read it! …
3. Jarhead: A Marine’s Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles
Swofford captured the paradox of war as well as any book I’d ever read. Not many Marines talk about their love/hate relationship with the Corps outside of our circle and he related this sentiment remarkably well. His analysis of the difference between combat marines and the rest of the Corps sounded like recent phone calls between me and my buddies. If you want to know what war is REALLY about, the day to day uncertainty, fear, boredom, glee, hate, love, and insanity, the BS of politics, incompitant brass leadership, then this book is for you. This isn’t some rah rah book written by some REMF pogue either. Patriotism may get you to the front but your buddies will keep you alive so you can make it back home. …
4. Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game
Excellent book! Even if your not a baseball fan you will love this book. Have you ever felt like everyone one around you is dumb and they are doing things the most inefficient way possible? Even when you or others try to show them the error in their ways with cold hard facts to back it up, but they continue doing it their way saying things like “we’ve always done it this way” “if it’s not broke don’t fix it” etc…. Billy Beane felt the same way, so he went out and showed everyone just how efficiently he could run a baseball team. He had less money, assistants with ivy league degrees instead of baseball pedigree, discarded/has-been/no-name players, and he some how found a way to win tons of games over multiple seasons and get tons of value out of seemingly nowhere. I really liked this book! …
5. Shutter Island tie-in: A Novel
First there were the noir detective books. Then “Mystic River”, which was 70-80% different. “Shutter Island” is a 100% switch from either of those. I was fortunate enough to purchase mine at a book signing where Lehane answered questions for about an hour. He has taught writing extensively and is a very patient, cordial and articulate inverview (not all writers speak well). Lehane said something that helps understand all his work, but especially this one. He said his stories are about people who strive and strive for what they want, only to wind up with what they need instead, and is makes their soul whole. “Shutter Island” is a very tight (we know what the main character, Teddy, knows – period), freightening story. Still, Lehane laces his outstanding literary skills and fantastic story line with his usual humorous passages, and his wonderful, punchy descriptive metapors. “Shutter Island” is not literally a haunted castle story. All the characters are “real” (human) and there are no ghosts or other-world beings. But it is absolutely, positively the best haunted castle tale I have ever read. This book goes on my list of all-time favorites …
6. The Fortress of Solitude
What is it like to grow up a white child in a black world, “yoked” in a double-bind that keeps you small and paralyzed? It’s not something you can talk about, and I never saw anyone so astutely describe the experience until I read this book. Lethem’s semi-autobiographical novel reveals itself gradually, like a multi-layered painting. During his early childhood, the protagonist lurches zombie-like through a thick fog, smothered by grim surroundings and events that he cannot control or even understand. Gradually, as he matures, the fog starts to lift. And we see how his victimization has carved into Dylan’s psyche a complex love-hate obsession with blacks and a burning need to be a hero – or maybe to get revenge …
7. The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America
Author Erik Larson had set the bar pretty high for himself after his previous book, “Issac’s Storm,” was such a huge critical and commericial success. Surely, he couldn’t top that, could he? Well, with “The Devil in the White City,” Larson has produced a book at least the equal of, if not better than, his previous effort. As a work of history, this book has it all. It resurrects for the modern reader the memory of an all-too-forgotten historical event (the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair) and combines it with the sensational and gruesome story of the firt American equivalent of Jack The Ripper. Overall, an outstanding work of narrative history that is like to be high on most reviewer’s lists of the Best Nonfiction Books of 2003 …
8. Liars and Saints: A Novel
With a matter-of-fact, curt style of writing, Maile Meloy succintly tells the story of four generations of a catholic family from California. Despite the brevity with which she writes the novel, Meloy still manages to explore the fears, thoughts, and emotions of her characters in an insightful and intelligent manner. By covering so many generations and telling the story from each person’s perspective, she allows for the reader to gain an understanding of the overall dynamic between the characters. It is an extremely engaging, easy to read story that thoughtfully explores the lives of a superficially normal but deeply complex family …
9. Positively Fifth Street: Murderers, Cheetahs, and Binion’s World Series of Poker
Fifth Street replaces “The Biggest Game in Town,” as the ultimate insider’s guide to the World Series of Poker. There is no better chronicle of the multi-million dollar event in or out of print today. McManus has accomplished something that no other poker player/writer could – he went to Vegas to write about the biggest poker game in the world – and he almost won it. For that reason alone, his book has to be considered the most authentic volume on the subject. It’s also a pretty captivating piece of journalism …
10. Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx
I grew up in one of the neighborhoods portrayed in this book, and while I believe the author has accurately described Jessica, Coco and their friends and relatives, these people are not representative of everyone who lives in the South Bronx. There are many, many people in these neighborhoods who shun the drug-dealing and thug lifestyle. These people work hard at low paying jobs (think doormen, porters, mailroom clerks, cashiers) and scrimp and save to send their children to Catholic school. They don’t hang out on street corners and they don’t allow their children to do so either. And they are the victims of people like Boy George and Cesar, they are the ones whose apartments are robbed, whose children are beaten on the way home from school, whose daughters are harassed …
