Here's my list from 2000, in alphabetical order by author's last name:
Daughter of Fortune - Isabel Allende
Bee Season - Myla Goldberg
Local Girls - Alice Hoffman
Who's Irish - Gish Jen
Interpreter of Maladies - Jhumpa Lahiri
Jewel - Brett Lott
While I Was Gone - Sue Miller
Lucy Crocker 2.0 - Caroline Preston
Drowning Ruth - Christina Schwartz
I Capture the Castle - Dodie Smith
How Does This List Hold Up Over Time?
I have to say, after being pleasantly surprised looking back at how much of my 1999 list still resonated with me, 2000 was a heck of a lot less indelible. I'm considering doing a 20 best books of 20 years of lists once I complete my 2018 list (which will be my 20th list!), and I don't think any of these even stand a chance at making the cut. Not that they were bad books, they just are not as memorable to me.
I remember loving "Interpreter of Maladies," "Local Girls," "Lucy Crocker 2.0," and "I Capture the Castle," but I really don't remember much about them. The first two were short story collections, which may be part of why they're a little hazy - probably harder to remember plot details. I kind of remember "Bee Season." The other 5 books I seriously have no memory of!
Genres
What the heck was up with my obsession with short story collections in the early years of my Top 10 lists? Three of these books - "Local Girls," "Who's Irish," and "Interpreter of Maladies" were books of short stories, as were 2 of the books on my 1999 list - so that makes for a full 25% of the books on these two years' worth of lists.
"Daughter of Fortune," "Jewel," and "Drowning Ruth" are all historical fiction. "I Capture the Castle" is what I would classify as a classic, as it was written in the 1930s. I don't think I would call it historical fiction since it was written in the time period which it is about! And the remaining three books are contemporary fiction.
Popularity
I don't think any of these books were crazy blockbusters. "Interpreter of Maladies" is the best known of these books, and it also won the Pulitzer Prize in 2000. Sue Miller, Alice Hoffman, and Isabel Allende are all well-known authors, but these are definitely not their most famous books. "Jewel" was an Oprah's book club selection, and I think "Bee Season" and "Drowning Ruth" were books people were talking about at the time, but not books that went on to be super-famous over the years. Some of the rest are a bit obscure.
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.
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