From the Top 10 Archives - Jen's Ten Favorite Books of 1999

I was asked to post my old top 10 lists on the blog, so this will be the first in a series of blogs where I revisit a top 10 list from the past.  As a reminder, these are books I read in the year in question, not necessarily books that were published that year.

For this one, I'm going to go all the way back to my very first top 10 list, from 1999.
I no longer have the e-mail I sent, so not sure exactly who I sent it to, but I know it was a lot smaller of a distribution list than I have today.  And man, 1999 was a long time ago.  And it was a very eventful year for me personally too - I moved in with Dan, graduated from law school, studied for and took the bar exam, went on a month-long post-bar exam trip to Spain and Portugal, started work as an associate at Hughes Hubbard and Reed, and got engaged on my 25th birthday!  Somehow amidst all that other stuff, I managed to read 54 books.  Which is a lot considering all I had going on back then, but slightly less than half of what I read in 2017, which means this top 10 list was a little less choosy than the 2017 list.

Here's my list from 1999, in alphabetical order by author's last name:

In the Time of the Butterflies - Julia Alvarez
The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing - Melissa Bank
Was It Something I Said? - Valerie Block
Making History - Stephen Fry
A Widow For One Year - John Irving
The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver
Charming Billy - Alice McDermott
Birds of America - Lorrie Moore
The Pact - Jodi Picoult
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - J.K. Rowling


How Does This List Hold Up Over Time?

I have to say, considering I made this list 18 years ago, it holds up shockingly well.  "A Widow for One Year," "Making History," "The Pact," "The Poisonwood Bible," and "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" all remain pretty vivid in my memory.  So if half the books on the list still resonate all these years later, that seems pretty good!  I remember the fact that I liked "In the Time of the Butterflies," "A Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing," "Birds of America," and "Was It Something I Said?" and could tell you the tiniest bit about each one, but don't really remember the details of the books.  There is only one book on this list that I straight up don't remember at all - "Charming Billy."  Not even reading a description of the book brings back the faintest memory of it!

Genres

Got a range of books here - two historical fiction ("In the Time of the Butterflies" and "The Poisonwood Bible"), two books of short stories ("A Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing" and "Birds of America"), one historical fiction/science fiction mash up ("Making History," which involves time travel), and a middle grade fantasy novel ("Harry Potter," of course!), plus four contemporary fiction books.

Popularity

I wasn't exactly breaking new ground with a few of these!

"Harry Potter" obviously was a huge worldwide phenomenon, and I was a little later to the party than some, given that it was first published in the US in 1997.  But I loved it from the start and have enjoyed it equally as much reading it again as a read aloud with first Allison and then Jonah, although I have to say that the first book really takes a little longer to get going than it should.

"The Poisonwood Bible" was also a bestseller, and even was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.  One of those books seemingly everyone read either at the time or over the years.

"The Pact" is also pretty well known, I think, and Jodi Picoult has gone on to write A LOT of best-selling books, but I think I was somewhat on the forefront in the time recommending that people read it.  I'm pretty sure my personal paperback copy of this book was loaned to numerous people.  This was also the first of 4 times (so far) that Jodi Picoult appeared on my top 10 list.

"The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing" was also pretty popular at the time, kind of a chick-lit book of short stories.

Other Random Stuff

The internet barely existed in 1999, let alone the idea of e-readers, so needless to say I read these all in hard copy!  I just checked and these books are all on my living room book shelves (even "Charming Billy" which I don't remember!), except for "Making History" which I definitely owned but lent to someone, I just can't remember who.  "The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing" is actually a hardcover, which is unusual for me as I almost always waited til a book came out in paperback to buy it.

In my blog post on vacation reading, I mentioned that I remember reading both "A Widow for One Year" and "Making History" on my post-bar exam trip to Spain and Portugal I also mentioned above.  Aside from loving both of those books, I'll always associate them with that trip which probably makes the memories even fonder!  Dan and I both read and loved both of them.

Note that I'll give all these posts the tag "Top 10," so you should be able to click on the label  "Top 10" at the bottom of the post and see all my other Top 10 posts.  And if you just want to see all my old Top 10 lists now without waiting, you can also click through to my Goodreads profile - I have a separate shelf for each of my old lists.