From the Top 10 Archives - Jen's 10 Favorite Books of 2003

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 2003.  As a reminder, that means books I read in 2003, not necessarily books published that year.

Since I started writing down all the books I read for fun all the way back in 1992, I can tell you that 2003 was the year I read the least amount of books ever - only 44 books.  I know a lot of people would consider that a huge reading year, but for me that's not so many!  So this top 10 list therefore represents almost 1/4 of the books I read in 2003.

Here's my list from 2003, in alphabetical order by author's last name:

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay - Michael Chabon
Mary and O'Neil - Justin Cronin
The Eyre Affair - Jasper Fforde
Three Junes - Julia Glass
The Secret Life of Bees - Sue Monk Kidd
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
Atonement - Ian McEwan
The Dive From Clausen's Pier - Ann Packer
Blessings - Anna Quindlen
Some Things That Stay - Sarah Willis

How Does This List Hold Up Over Time?

Given the fact that, as I noted above, almost 1 in 4 of the books I read in 2003 made this list, it actually holds up surprisingly well!  The only one of these books I really don't remember is "Blessings."  "Mary and O'Neil," "Three Junes," and "Some Things That Stay" I remember loving even though I couldn't tell you off the top of my head what they are about, and the rest I actually kind of remember at least the basics of what they are about.

Genres

This list has 4 historical novels (Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, The Secret Life of Bees, Atonement, and Some Things That Stay), one fantasy novel (The Eyre Affair), one book of short stories (Mary and O'Neil), one book that kind of defies genres (Life of Pi), and the other 3 are contemporary fiction.

Popularity

Some years of my top 10 list are very obscure, some are full of famous books.  This one has quite a few books that seemingly everyone was reading at the time - "Life of Pi," "The Secret Life of Bees," and "Atonement" most of all, and to a lesser extent "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay," "The Eyre Affair," "Three Junes," and "The Dive From Clausen's Pier."  "Some Things that Stay" is the most obscure, with only 924 ratings on Goodreads.  "Blessings" and "Mary and O'Neil" were pretty obscure too, though Anna Quindlen was famous even then, and Justin Cronin went on to write bestsellers later.

Other Random Stuff

A few prestigious prize winners on this one - "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay" won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, "Three Junes" won the National Book Award, and "Life of Pi" won the Man Booker.

The highest rated of these books on Goodreads is "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay" with an average of 4.17 out of 5 stars, and the lowest rated is "The Dive From Clausen's Pier" with a 3.41 average.

This list is notable in that half of the books are written by men.  I definitely read more books by women generally, and my top 10 lists usually reflect that.

Regular readers of this blog know that I'm always going on and on and on about how much I love Justin Cronin's "The Passage" trilogy - well, 2003 marks Justin Cronin's debut on my top 10 lists, and for a VERY different kind of book - a short, quiet, but lovely book of linked literary short stories.  None of the other authors has made a repeat appearance on my Top 10 lists thus far - though if I had had a top 10 list back in 1995 Anna Quindlen would have been on it for "One True Thing."

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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.