#825 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Wednesday December 27)
#825 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Wednesday December 27)
Good morning,
After six decades of the 20th century, here are my favorite books of the 2000s!
The decade of 2001 (the “aughts”) began with a President who withstood the most contentious and close campaign in over 100 years. But after Bush v. Gore finally was resolved, the President began with an inclusive mantra of “compassionate conservativism.” Shortly thereafter, in September 2001, our country sustained multiple audacious attacks on our soil and things changed forever. Little did we know that the feeling of collaborative working together would devolve into two wars that would drain our coffers and continue for years. More important, these wars challenged the limits of American power, posed issues of our humanity (in the form of “enhanced interrogation,” the Abu Graib prison, and the limited legal rights at Guantanamo Bay), and stretched our national consensus to a period of all-out war between the parties, the ramifications of which continue to this day. This also was the decade of Katrina, the start of the ubiquitous march of school and other mass shootings and the financial meltdown that brought the decade to a close.
Here are some of the best books of the 2000s:
· The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen. I’m not sure why I’m starting with a book I didn’t love but it won the National Book award, so what do I know?! Most of the characters “correct” themselves, as the economy goes through its own corrections at the turn of the millennium.
· Atonement, by Ian McEwan. A novel of love, sex, war, misinterpreted visions, mistakenly delivered letters, and a crime and wrongful conviction that transcends decades and lives. For some reason, I was drawn to comparisons to the McMartin preschool and wrongfully convicted innocents having served years of incarceration.
· The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier & Clay, by Michael Chabon. A Pulitzer prize winner about a couple of poor Jewish kids who invent superheroes. The story of their lives in mid-century America through the prism of the graphic novel genre.
· Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides. Pulitzer Prize winner about Greek immigrants and gender identity.
· Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro. National Book Critics Circle Award winning dystopian novel. While I preferred 2021’s Klara and the Sun better, this is the story of a teacher (known as “Guardians”) who discovers her students are clones raised to be organ donors. It gets weirder after that.
· The Plot Against America, by Philip Roth. In a majestic career, this is one of Roth’s best. Charles Lindbergh defeats Roosevelt in the 1940 election and the United States moves along a road of appeasement. Antisemitism, collaboration, and political intrigue.
· The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, by Mark Haddon. A hero with Asperger’s solving a murder mystery.
· Freakonomics, by Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. Behavioral economics in novel ways. Cheating teachers and sumo wrestlers, how little parenting matters, abortion reducing crime, the economics of drug dealers, and other areas one may not have considered as economically rational.
· The Year of Magical Thinking, by Joan Didion. This profound meditation on life, love, and loss was written by the great Joan Didion the year following the loss of her husband, author John Gregory Dunne, during which she was caring for her daughter, Quintana Roo. Her daughter died not long thereafter, after flu that became pneumonia and then septic shock and further complications. A brilliant book on so many levels, including how to carry on.
· Devil in the White City, by Erik Larson. This is the first of Erik Larson’s remarkable string of historic non-fiction books that read like novels. This one juxtaposes the 1893 Chicago Columbian Exposition and a serial killer. A finalist for the National Book Award in Non-fiction. Thunderstruck, In the Garden of Beasts, Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania, and The Splendid and the Vile are similarly enthralling history.
· Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel. The graphic novel memoir that gave birth to the Tony Award winning musical of the same name.
· The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. Another apocalyptic novel. I love these (what’s wrong with me?)! This won the Pulitzer Prize.
· The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell. I’ll never forget when I read of the reemergence of “Hush Puppies,” shoes left for dead in the 1970s, only to be resurrected by a “critical mass” of trendsetters in the 1990s. Viral change explained before social media took the baton and accelerated its effect. Connectors, mavens and salesmen move our world.
· John Adams, by David McCullough. One of the spate of presidential reexaminations that came out in the 1990s and 2000s—and one of the best. In my opinion, John and his son, John Quincy Adams, were among the greatest minds, most ethical politicians, and most stubborn in their convictions. Their lives are examples from which much about leadership can be learned.
Next week, the the 2010s, followed the following week by the 2020s, and finally back to the 1930s (to fill out the 100-year project). After that, I’ll be moving over the following several weeks to lists of “bbest” books with specific focus (e.g., dystopia, sports, books particular to Brad, our Covid book club books, biographies).
Have a great day,
Glenn