ILX BOOKS OF THE 00s: THE RESULTS! (or: Ismael compiles his reading list, 2010-2019)

i voted for this. must re-read again sometime. nabisco typically otm. speaking of post communist writers, what is pelevin's 00's work like? ive only read the clay machine gun.

62. London: The Biography - Peter Ackroyd (2001)
(37 points, three votes)

http://www.urban-logic.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/taking-down-the-houses-of-001.jpg

Parenthetic Hound (woofwoofwoof):
Yeah yeah bastardization/dilution of Sinclair psycho-g, but a book full of interesting info, and bound up for me with my move to London.

London: The Biography is excellent, Tom got it for me for my birthday and whilst I had not previously been much of a fan of Peter Ackroyd's stuff it is a well researched and very accessible tome. That said, I suggest you don't try to necessarily read it as a narrative, rather dip into and grab the chapters which interest you first. I found I covered the whole book better when I started to do that - and I keep going back to it. (Esp Underground rivers & stuff).
― Pete, Tuesday, December 11, 2001 1:00 AM (8 years ago)

Now I'm reading London: The Biography which is good bc I seem to have a lot of free time suddenly and an 800 page book works well. I enjoy it, but I wonder, is it just PR for London? When I think in terms of NY I can't think of a similar book being written. It seems to be so much glorification, which is fine, when he is just repeating Dickens or Smollet or whatever, but I wonder, does he actually love London so much? It seems a bit of a stretch, but it makes for interesting reading.
― Mary (Mary), Wednesday, June 11, 2003 4:59 PM (6 years ago)

It was quite difficult to find a picture that wasn't of Tower Bridge.

got about 40 pages into "Tree of Smoke" and quit. there were a couple nice parts but i just couldn't motivate myself to read another 600 pages of mediocre vietnam drama.

I don't remember anything about London ;_;(*) should prob try dipping into it again.

(*) except for "God a'mercy, horse!"

i just remember the bit about the biggest public toilet ever

i didn't know 'tree of smoke' was a vietnam novel. i thought people had stopped bothering with those

Go on, enlighten us re this moumental khazi. I really wish that bridge was still there, by the way, it would be the greatest attraction in all the world.

Yeah, fuck that skimpy Millennium bollocks - shoulda had a full scale replica of the old London Bridge.

London, despite reservations about both author and method, is great, especially to dip into - the thematic slices work really well and it's choc full of great details.

I really fancy it now: unusually, 800 pages here seems like a badge rather than something vaguely shameful. I know the author's name too, but not quite sure why - I'm sure he's a larger-than-life character in some way.

Loved Death and the Penguin. But surprised its from the 2000's? I remember reading it at the tailend of the nineties, I guess my memor is playing tricks on me. Anyways, yeah that penguin is really great, love the fact that the guy writes obituaries of living people. Reread the book a few years ago in the middle of the night and I just might read it once more thanks to this thread, to see if its still a thoroughly enjoyable book.

I never knew there were other pictures of him 'til now. He's no Joe Stalin.

― Ismael Klata, Thursday, January 21, 2010 2:34 AM (8 hours ago)

In my first real adventures on the internet ca. 94-95, I found had uploaded a paparazzi pic of TP & Wife and baby stroller taken somewhere uptown. Dude did NOT look happy abt it.

61. The Year Of Magical Thinking - Joan Didion (2005)
(38 points, four votes)

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01185/arts-graphics-2008_1185430a.jpg

Moreno:
People always warn you when they recommend this cause it's some harrowing shit she dealt with, but it never gets too heavy. She stays observational but never impersonal. Just a beautiful book about how people cope with loss.

Last week I read Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking and cried many times, often out loud on buses.
― zan, Tuesday, December 6, 2005 3:36 PM (4 years ago)

The Year of Magical Thinking I thought I'd leave this for after this period of intense work and beginning new pregnancy, but then I was in a bookshop, saw it, read a few pages standing. and decided i could not not reading it immediately, i owed it to it.
― misshajim (strand), Friday, March 31, 2006 10:35 AM (3 years ago)

Just started The Year of Magical Thinking, which is as good as everyone says.
― Ray (Ray), Monday, April 24, 2006 6:15 PM (3 years ago)

I really fancy it now: unusually, 800 pages here seems like a badge rather than something vaguely shameful. I know the author's name too, but not quite sure why - I'm sure he's a larger-than-life character in some way.

Is this Ackroyd, Ismael? I don't know that he's especially larger than life, but Hawksmoor rocks, if you haven't read it.

I'll look into it

60. White Teeth - Zadie Smith (2000)
(40 points, two votes)

http://m1.wholesite.com/2009/12/8/e046b24e-6d7b-a6c4-29f0-1d3567909ffa/480x277_zadie_smith_main.jpg

Zadie Smith

here's a prejudice - whenever I see people reading 'one of those books EVERYBODY'S reading', be it 'White Teeth' or 'Captain Corelli' or 'Memoirs of a Geisha' or 'Bridget Jones', I assume the person is really really stupid and boring, and if I ever (God forbid) end up talking to the person it will take a long time for them to change my mind, if ever.
― dave q, Monday, July 30, 2001 12:00 AM (8 years ago)

White Teeth's a bit of a funny one. I found it extremely readable, despite the irksome feeling that was rather Rushdie lite. I was puzzled by this, until it was pointed out by one of my old college friends that Smith writes like so many of our other contemporaries wrote and spoke. The familiarity the language makes it almost too easy to keep reading.
― Richard Tunnicliffe, Sunday, July 15, 2001 12:00 AM (8 years ago)

Some of the best bits of white teeth (see book thread) are about a Jehova's Witness called Hortense. Very believable seeing as that's just what Witnesses in north london are likely to be called. unfornutnately I have no funny story about getting rid of witnesses because just offering to read a watchtower will normally send em packing.
― Ed, Tuesday, July 17, 2001 12:00 AM (8 years ago)

Did anyone else thing White Teeth was really awful? An utterly hollow, badly plotted, dunderheaded book.
― Alan Trewartha, Wednesday, June 12, 2002 12:00 AM (7 years ago)

I was dearly hoping White Teeth might lead into an actual New Thing in lit. It was the first thing I'd read in a long time that took such a sense of pleasure in the act of storytelling; it read like Dickens, so far as I was concerned; or rather, it read like a happy kid doing Dickens, taking pleasure less in the story/characters/dialogue than in the process of writing them out, building them up. (It read like fiction might be what I'm saying.)
I was hoping for a groundswell of this sort of thing -- blow away the stilted cleverness of certain McSweeneyites and their even worse bids at weightiness and take us back to the simple fact of young people having fun painting odd funny pictures of what life is actually like ... White Teeth seems the flagship -- it was like the best-ever "I've been working on a novel" that a friend in an undergrad writing course would hand you.)
― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, November 13, 2002 5:53 PM (7 years ago)

huh, I thought that would've been way higher. While it's certainly flawed it would've been dangling around somewhere in my list, and I assumed that would be the case for many. Perhaps the long discussions of it here I remember were really just Pinefox talking to himself about how awful it is.

I really like White Teeth but I love On Beauty - I just read an article on Smith which suggested she considered the latter to be almost a repudiation of the former (or The Autograph Man maybe) but I think of it as just a major refinement, focusing the same sense of imaginative fun that nabisco gets at in the quote above on a better story and better characters.

Completely agree. White Teeth was fine with the autobiographical stuff, then spiralled into absurdity with the strawman middle class family, KEVIN, etc. On Beauty has so much more poise and storytelling muscle, and so much more to say - about class, education, physicality, betrayal. I was surprised how much I loved it.

Ha - here's the sentence I omitted from nabisco's quote: "But it looks as if Zadie wants to hop straight ahead to being Serious and Meaningful and Too Be Reckoned With, and I'm not up-to-speed enough to know what else could fill this gap."

I'm surprised this is so low too - loads of the quotes I didn't use are about how ubiquitous it was, at Ned's library, in the hands of every commuter on the tube, etc. etc. It didn't get nominated until really late on either. I suspect people mostly think of it as 90s, same as may have happened to No Logo.

I'm sorry about the pace of all this, by the way - I've been exceptionally busy and it's all I can do to get four or five of these up a day. I'm going to Spain for a few days, and then have a pretty busy schedule after that, so chances are that after today there'll be nothing for a week or so. I had hoped to get down to number 50 today and then have an interlude, but I don't think I'll even manage that.

here's a prejudice - whenever I see people reading 'one of those books EVERYBODY'S reading', be it 'White Teeth' or 'Captain Corelli' or 'Memoirs of a Geisha' or 'Bridget Jones', I assume the person is really really stupid and boring, and if I ever (God forbid) end up talking to the person it will take a long time for them to change my mind, if ever.
― dave q, Monday, July 30, 2001 12:00 AM (8 years ago)

I have this problem, totally. I am rubbish and mean.

And Ismael, don't worry about it - I think we're all just grateful that you took the time out to do it in the first place.

i'm not, the pacing is ruining this for me tbh

i read everything but the last twenty pages of white teeth. i remember there was this bit gonna happen where all the characters were gonna be in the same place for different reasons and shit was gonna go down

i remember there was this bit gonna happen where all the characters were gonna be in the same place for different reasons and shit was gonna go down

that can probably go here tbh top100- stock plot devices for important works of literature

Okay, I'm going to have to leave it at number 60 and get back to it probably in a week or so. Thanks for reading this far!

Ismael's taking a chance that we don't take over the running of this competition ourselves - a pirated top 60! Number 1 - the Sinai Diving Guide!!

A close second: Porn Studies!

59. All Pets Go to Heaven - Sylvia Browne (2009)
http://sitb-images.amazon.com/Qffs+v35lepZl2QzJTOeYZYkRMuqFus/v0sAzgLbvSMZQWXtCgLlyDKUfoCfzTqR3YTmyzitBiA=

"the truth that exists in the forth dimension"

o dear. I wish I could lol, but as an animal lover who accepts that past pets NO LONGER EXIST stuff like that just makes me sad. Incidentally, my extensive wikiresearch reveals that Caroline Myss' PhD is in Intuition and and Energy Medicine from the unaccredited Greenwich University. I trust the shit out of her.

Thanks for doing this Ismael.

I was about to defend Greenwich University, but then I realised that Greenwich University in Australia is not the same as the University of Greenwich, UK. I am probably not the first person to be confused by that.

58. The Wit of Martin Luther - Eric W. Gritsch (2006)

(42 points, 4 votes)

Marty Rocks, September 22, 2007 (on Amazon)
"I was amazed to find that this incredible theologian was also a great wit. Eric Gritsch has woven a rye story of the human and funny side of Martin Luther."

J. Ferguson (on Amazon)
"This book tells of the humorous side of Martin Luther. There are points in this book that make me chuckle, but the way it is written is a bit complicated, definitely not in simple English. Overall, the reader can get what the writer is saying, but it is not an easy read."

Christianbook.com
"Eric Gritsch ties Luther's wit and humor to his sharp polemical exploitation of the absurd or incongruous in service to his Reform. At a deeper level Luther's wit and witticisms reflected his keen appreciation of human frailty and the unknowability of things divine. Luther, Gritsch shows, especially relished humor in his interpretation of the Bible, in his pastoral relationships, and in his encounters with death. Ultimately humor in face of mortality is a gauge of human freedom, a "lightening up" that makes of life a divine comedy."

http://i50.tinypic.com/2s6wk02.jpg

oh and thanks Ismael, hope you enjoy yr holiday. We'll do our best to read everything on the list so far while you're gone. Also, to finish the list for you.

57. Fan-Tan - Marlon Brando and Donald Cammell (2005)
http://home.comcast.net/~flickhead/brando001.jpg

(47 points, 3 votes)

"...it's one of those books that I just had to keep going with, to find out how much worse it could possibly get, and in this regard, the book never once failed me." -Amazon reviewer

56. Black Velvet Masterpieces: Highlights from the Collection of the Velveteria Museum - Caren Anderson and Carl Baldwin (2008)
(55 points, 4 votes)

http://www.roadsideamerica.com/attract/images/or/ORPORvelveteria_ks3643.jpg

55. Alien Agenda: Investigating the Extraterrestrial Presence Among Us - Jim Marrs (2000)
(62 points, 5 votes)
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31TRyRSqGAL.jpg

"He incorporates an ample amount of information from UFO books of the 1960s and 1970s--strange lights on the moon, the ancient-astronaut theories of Erich von Daniken, cattle mutilations, Nazi saucers at the South Pole, the contactees of the 1950s--and updates it credibly with UFO data from the 1980s and 1990s, providing a reasonable survey of abductions, secret underground UFO bases, the MJ-12 group, crop circles, remote viewing, and channeling."

54. A to Izzard: A Harry Stephen Keeler Companion - Fender Tucker (2009)
(131 points, 10 votes)
http://site.xavier.edu/polt/keeler/jackets/ducaglio.jpg

An indispensible guide to the genius of Keeler.

Bloody hell, I forgot that loljoekanswers took over and was thinking proper wtf

53. The Adventures of Larry The Lemur - Ralph Castenada (2004)
(140, 8 votes)
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51yRP7Xdi4L._SS500_.jpg

Arguably one of the best set of Lemur-based adventures of recent years.

52. Making Waves (The Autobiography) - David Hasselhoff (2006)

142 points, 11 votes

http://i46.tinypic.com/aaf47n.jpg
http://i49.tinypic.com/bej75s.jpg
http://i49.tinypic.com/wqq836.jpg
http://i46.tinypic.com/2569tfb.jpg

3.0 out of 5 stars Speedo might've been a little tight while writing this one, July 8, 2007
By Nerd Alert "Xon" (California) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Don't Hassel the Hoff: The Autobiography (Hardcover)
"I didn't want to buy this book; I didn't want to read this book, but I couldn't pass it up. It was like standing in line at the grocery store and trying so hard not to look at the tabloids but failing and finally tearing through the magazine to see who got a new set of boobs.
The good part is you won't be bogged down with a complicated writing style or busy flipping back and forth between "the Hoff" and a dictionary. The juvenile writing style will allow you to fly through this book. On another good note, you will laugh out loud many times at how unbelievably arrogant this guy is. He is friends with every star, the ladies love him, Dirk Nowitzki shoots free throws at 90% because of his music, he leveled the Berlin Wall, oh and he is the most watched TV star of all time. Those are only some of his accomplishments, it takes nearly 300 pages to fit all of them in.
Seriously though, the Hoff could've gotten a little more personal with his life. This book is mostly filled with fluff and doesn't go into much detail about anything the reader might find really interesting. He dances around any wxtra relationships he might've had along the way and side-steps anything that might be controversial. It's like listening to a politician promote himself. He actually goes into great detail about Knight Rider and Baywatch episodes and their meanings, give me a break.
But here I am writing about it, so I guess I'm the sucker. If you find pop-culture funnny maybe you should pick this up for some comic relief. But hide the dust jacket because your friends are certain to give you a hard time for reading about this clown.

Now all I need is a Steven Segal book and I'll be set."

xposts ah! Thanks for that, I heard about Mr Keeler somewhere but then forgot his name. Another victory for the ILX books of the 00s list B-).

Enough pop culture -- now the list gets down to serious business. What made the past ten years of history so historical?

51. The Leadership Genius of George W. Bush - Carolyn B. Thompson and James W. Ware (2002)
(161 points, 13 votes)
http://www.g-8.de/Content/EN/StatischeSeiten/G8/Lebensl_C3_A4ufe/Bilder/george-w-bush,property=poster.jpg

50. An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror - David Frum and Richard Perle (2003)
(168 points, 2 votes)
http://www.chris-floyd.com/war/images/030925_ss_iraq_01_jpg.jpg

"But the greatest contribution of "An End to Evil" is its full-throated, passionate defense of the rightness of our cause." - Mona Charen

49. Why the Real Estate Boom Will Not Bust - And How You Can Profit from It: How to Build Wealth in Today's Expanding Real Estate Market - David Lereah (2006)
(190 points, 26 votes)
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_nSTO-vZpSgc/Svdd19dkzTI/AAAAAAAAHRw/emL5TPScBXU/s400/building+topple1.png

“An invaluable book... Today’s real estate markets are booming and Lereah makes a convincing case for why the real estate expansion will continue into the next decade. This book should prove to be a truly practical guide for any household looking to create wealth in real estate.” —Dewey Daane, former governor of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors

48. "Dow, 30,000 by 2008!" Why It's Different This Time - Robert Zuccaro (2008)
(198 points, 31 votes)
http://static.howstuffworks.com//gif/stock-market-trends-2.jpg

"The author is an intelligent fellow with a gift for writing, it is just that he was completely wrong on everything. [...] Now his two mutual funds are out of business." - Amazon reviewer

47. Apollyon Rising 2012: The Lost Symbol Found and the Final Mystery of the Great Seal Revealed - Thomas Horn (2009)
(214 points, 17 votes)
http://www.the2012countdown.com/images/122-doomsday2012.jpg

After the wild fantasies of Frum and Perle, it's refreshing to come back to earth with this pragmatic analysis of the approaching New World Order.

"Horn provides other surprising connections to the year 2012 in the Capitol Dome and structures immediately surrounding D.C., ultimately laying the groundwork for what he calls "the true lost symbol, which Dan Brown completely missed." This symbol is connected to the Capitol Dome as the ancient structural representation of the womb of Isis, and the Obelisk, the ancient representation of the erect male phallus of Osiris. How this is connected to the year 2012 and the return of Osiris/Apollo/Nimrod in Apollyon Rising 2012 is disturbing, especially the magic square in the base of the Washington Monument that "binds" the Bible's influence."

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_YT5lMzCouRo/SLCEdRZpufI/AAAAAAAACYI/EVJZu4yktS4/s400/snapshot20080817214639.jpg

"Mine eyes!"

You guys. It'll be Tuesday before I can get stuck back into this properly I think. Developments in my absence distress me - I'm glad to see Larry the Lemur and I think his presence graces us, but I cannot and will not compete with Hoff.