From the Top 10 Archives - Jen's Top 10 Favorite Books of 2001

Part of an ongoing trip through time looking back at my top 10 book lists, today we'll re-visit my 10 favorite books from 2001.  As a reminder, that means books I read in 2001, not necessarily books published that year.

Here's my list from 2001, in alphabetical order by author's last name:


The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood
The Feast of Love - Charles Baxter
A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You - Amy Bloom
The Red Tent - Anita Diamant
The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen
The River King - Alice Hoffman
Use Me - Elissa Schapell
Horse Heaven - Jane Smiley
The Bonesetter's Daughter - Amy Tan
Doomsday Book - Connie Willis

How Does This List Hold Up Over Time?
The book on this list that I remember most and am most likely to continue to recommend to people today is definitely "Doomsday Book."  I also remember "The Red Tent," the bible story-inspired bestseller.  I remember loving "The River King" and "A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You."  I remember liking "The Blind Assassin," "The Feast of Love," and "The Corrections, and I remember reading "Horse Heaven" on my honeymoon, but don't remember much about the plot of any of those.  "Use Me" and "The Bonesetter's Daughter" are definitely lost to the mists of time in my memory.

Genres
Well, my early years' obsession with short story collections continues, as "A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You" and "Use Me" are both short story collections.  "Doomsday Book" is both science fiction and historical fiction as it is about time travel to the 14th century.  "The Red Tent" is historical fiction, and though I don't really remember "The Blind Assassin" or "The Bonesetter's Daughter," from reading the descriptions of them they sound like they were both historical fiction as well.  The other 4 books are contemporary fiction.

Popularity
"The Red Tent" and "The Corrections" were both big bestsellers in their time, though I don't feel like people still talk about them much today.  "The Blind Assassin" and "The Bonesetter's Daughter" are not the most famous books by Margaret Atwood or Amy Tan, respectively, but still were read by a lot of people.  "Use Me" appears to be the most obscure, having been rated by only about 500 people on Goodreads.

Other Random Stuff

I've apparently always favored female writers for my top 10 lists - I think I also read a lot more books by women?  Anyway, there are two male authors on this list, compared to two male authors on my 1999 list and none on my 2000 list.

A couple of award winners on this list - "Doomsday Book" won both the Hugo and the Nebula Awards, and "The Blind Assassin" won the Man Booker Prize.  "The Corrections" won the National Book Award and was nominated for the Pulitzer.

I think all of these books, except "The Bonesetter's Daughter," are still on my bookshelf.  (Seriously, did I actually read that book? 😉)

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.