Best and Worst Books of 2003?

Thousandstars writes "I saw the article on the best and worst movies of 2003, and, being a literature geek, I thought it would also be appropriate to ask for the best and worst books of 2003. In fiction, Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver is toward the top of my best list. How about everyone else?"

Quicksilver

[elhondo]

is at the top of my Best AND Worst list.

ESR's book

[s390]

In the non-fiction category, Eric S. Raymond's "The Art of Unix Programming" gets my vote. It's simply excellent.

china meiville

[joeldg]

anything by him..

author of "Perdido street station"..

Why it don't work like that

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Movies have a definitive time they are out and you usually go see them during that period.

Books are much more flexible, you don't need to constrain yourself to a rigid schedule or anything. I usually go out a few times a year a pick several interesting books that I'll read as time allows me to. When deciding what to get, release date (that is, the 2003 books for example) is not even considered; I just search for interesting stuff or previously unknown stuff from interesting authors.

But it may just be me.

Michael Moore

[shftleft]

Dude where's my country? [amazon.com]

All political pundit books

[Augusto]

They're boring, predictable, and are big ego trips for the authors:

Ann Coulter : Treason : Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism

Al Franken : Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right

Michael Moore : Dude, Where's My Country?

Bill O'Reilly : Who's Looking Out for You?

Eric Alterman : What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias and the News

Sean Hannity : Let Freedom Ring: Winning the War of Liberty over Liberalism

Alan Colmes : Red, White & Liberal : How Left Is Right & Right Is Wrong


And a lot more. Surprisingly, lots of these books sell a lot, preaching to the choir of the converted, yet contributing no new ideas or being slightly interesting.

I haven't read Hillary Clinton's book but...

[rbird76]

it's probably an example of the "I'm going to run for President so I need to appear intellectual by writing a book" thing. It probably was focus-grouped before publication - that way she doesn't have anything in writing to embarrass her later. Since the books written by future/current Presidential candidates seem to have had anything interesting strained out of them to avoid conflicts with future political positions, they're probably best avoided anyway. For politics, there are probably better places to go for informed commentary on their plans, and as personal background it probably isn't very useful.

The more interesting version of her book should come out about thirty years from now.

Re:Votes

[TrueBuckeye]

I think the Fiction book of the year has to be DaVinci Code. Not only has it sat on the NYT bestseller's list for an ungodly number of weeks (I believe since May it has been in the top 10 every week, including #1 again this week), but I don't know that I've seen a book which has gotten a hold of so many people's imagination the way this has.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime

[Voivod]

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon. This book blew my mind. It's the story of a kid with Asperger's Syndrome written from his perspective. You get so lost in his head, the amazing complexity of his world and the techniques he's developed to cope with the people and situations around him, and then you are with him as he is forced out into the raw real world. Perdito Street Station by China Mieville was a strong runner up for me. I think both books are particularly well suited for geeks.

Worst book? I'm past the point where I waste my time with books that suck. I used to push through just to finish the book but now that I'm realizing that life is short I just close the book and move on.

Re:Quicksilver

[elhondo]

I too bought it the day it came out, and finally managed to finish it the other day. Cryptonomicon on the other hand, took me less than a week. Well, I reached the last page anyway; the book doesn't end in any meaningful way, it just runs out of pages. Some of it is great. As with all of Stephenson's books, I learned a thing or two on accident, but man, there was a lot of space between the good points. One critic stated in his review that it was obvious that Neal needed an editor, and that editor needed a machete. It's a good point.

Re:Quicksilver?

[Onan]

As Blaise Pascal put it (in French), "I have made this letter long only because I have not had time to make it shorter."

It was certainly rushed, and a more thorough job might well have produced a shorter work. Stephenson seems to have a terrible time finishing it, pushing back deadlines again and again; the result would probably have been much better if he'd been able to push it back another year or two.

Re:2 cents.

[Arthur Dent]

Her premise isn't that being liberal is treasonous, it's that liberals almost always side with America's enemies. Which is pretty self evident to any rational person.

That's a pretty sweeping charge to make. Do you happen to have more information? Specifics would really help. I'm asking because I really want to know...

Re:Votes

[tsmccaff]

Of course, Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco covers similar ground. Its definitely a better book, not as accessable as Da Vinci Code, but Eco's writing is always joyous and laden with fascinating information.

Re:Some quickies

[BigGerman]

"Potter" is not really a childrens book the way other children's books are.
One of the reasons Potter books are so popular is that it is hard to find any other book for children that would deal with issues that exist in the real world but conviniently avoided by the mass literature, such as social injustice, poverty, bullies, racial tension, etc.
The irony is that the book about wizards is actually more down to earth and more realistic than some other books.
When I was growing up, I had a teacher who looked like, dressed like and behaived like Dolores Umbridge. I was freaked out when I read the Order of Phoenix.

Altered Carbon

[lelitsch]

Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan would make the top of my fiction list for 2003. Starts a bit slow, but I still read it in one night. The basic premise is that rich enough people can digitize their consciousness and travel, or be reincarnated, by just transferring the "stack" to a new human "sleeve". But the fun moments are really the details like self aware hotels, catholics as a small right-to-die sect, outdated robots running gun shops etc. A bit over the top in places, but it hangs together pretty well.

Jasper Fforde

[HiKarma]

Well, it's really an older book series, but since the paperbacks only came out in the USA in 2003, I will put forward the most refreshing and amusing books I've seen in a while, The Eyre Affair and its sequel Lost in a Good Book by Jasper FForde.

A marvelous alternative Britain where everybody is highly literate, and our heroine, Thursday Next, is a Special Operations officer in the LitraTec (Literary crimes) division.

Alas, the latest one, The Well of Lost Plots, can't be recommended quite as highly, even though it centers on a concept near and dear to the /.ers heart (which I can't reveal as it is a spoiler.)

Re:Quicksilver?

[jayhawk88]

Let me guess: the protagonists save the day by creating a giant lake of mercury?

Cryptinomicron: Good book, but still the worst ending of all time.

Re:Crossroads of Twilight (Wheel of Time) sucked..

[starcraftsicko]

Or it could just be that his writing has gone downhill so far that the publisher is trying desperately to put together something that makes sense. R.J. wouldn't be the first author to lose it as he aged and even a great publisher can't cover it up forever.

Re:I haven't read Hillary Clinton's book but...

[scotch]

If it's not a religion, why do they call themselves "pianists", and why do they support, uh, "pianism"?

If it's not a religion, why do they call themselves, uh, skeptics, and why do they support "skepticism"?

If it's not a religion, why do they call themselves "plagiarists", and why do they support, uh, "plagiarism"?

... repeat with optimism, opportunism, naturalism, hedonism, yada yada yada ...

Havne't read much Criton (sphere, not great, but readable), but that single quote makes me think he's a drooling asshat. Comments?

Re:The Last Goobye...

[Moofie]

Or, the poster might be opining that King's work has gone downhill. Dreamcatcher was a conspicuous exception, but much of King's stuff from the last 10 years or so has been really poor. In my opinion.

But I guess it's cool to suppose that other people are being contrary just for contrary's sake.

Re:2 cents.

[Otter]

If you search a bit, you'll find lists of all sorts of inaccuracies and falsehoods in the movie, some nitpicky and some not. An AC already posted a good link.

Some of them (the kids didn't really go bowling that day!) are silly, but the cut and paste jobs on the Willie Horton ad, and particularly the shredding of Charlton Heston's words [hardylaw.net] are utterly, flagrantly outside anything acceptable in documentaries. It is appalling that the documentary community and the Academy tolerated it.

Re:Quicksilver? You are too kind!

[theantix]

* The characters feel similar to those in Cryptonomicon (another crazy Shaftoe, Daniel Waterhouse is akin to the main character from Crypto).

Close, but not strong enough. Apparently Stephenson was bored with the creative process and couldn't be assed to imagine new characters... so let's reissue a new Shaftoe and a new Waterhouse in a new era. Oh, and in case it wasn't clear enough that we are reusing the same characters lets bring back Enoch Root!

But of course there need to be characters that weren't in previous novels... how can Neal accomplish this without excerting any creative effort? Simple, just throw in a bunch of historical characters and make them do silly things. Dull moment in the plot? Hey look, Issac Newton's at the door. Getting bored are we? Let's chill with Ben Franklin! It's not interesting to read because there is nothing new here... it seems like he's competely given up on the creative process altogether.

* One of the hardest things to do right when there are parallel plotlines is connect them in a flowing and lucid manner. Cryptonomicon did an excellent job of weaving the past and present together. In Quicksilver, we get large chunks of uninterrupted narration, but there's very little context switching. This left me a little bored at times.

The problem with this style is not the style itself, but with how Stephenson executes it in this case. In Cryptonomicon I actually cared enough to keep reading the next page, but in this case it was tedious slogging through the pages. I'd put it down and pick it up again a few days later and it would keep jumping around and didn't ever allow me to build any sort of context. This in turn made me care even less which increased the time before I would try picking it up again, which made the context jumping even more painful, etc etc.

As you might be able to tell, I didn't finish the first volume, nor am I remotely interested in the next two. I'm just hoping that after he's done with this stupid "epic" he'll go back to writing books that are readable and interesting and contain characters who aren't simply reruns and references to historical figures. Because I really really liked his work in the past, and I'm bitter now.

And another thing regarding Quicksilver...

[flamingweasel]

All of the above posts are spot on, except they leave out the most excruciating part of the books: the "love scenes," wherin the female main character gets it on with every single male in a position of power over her. Offensive in the extreme, uninteresting, and thrown in every few hundred pages to keep the lowest of lowbrow interested in the plot. Awful. I just stopped a few hundred pages from the end because I was tired of enduring that shit.

Re:2 cents.

[Dan-DAFC]

Bush conducted a war in which under ten thousand people were killed.

I guess Stalin was right [brainyquote.com].

Re:No kidding; GREAT BOOK!

[Anonymous Coward]

Great: A post that mocks Christians is modded up as "Funny" but a post that mocks Jews is modded down as "Flamebait." I think we can see the true nature of /..

Re:Say again?

[Acidic_Diarrhea]

What a sad outlook on life you have. So drops down a few dollars, takes in a movie, enjoys it, and has never been exposed to any of the work of Tolkien. Big deal. Do you expect people to research where each and every movie they watch came from?

Oh my god, there are kids who have watched the movie and don't know about the books! Oh no! That's so awful! Maybe you should assault them - that would teach them, right? It's disgusting that you're taking this elitist view. If you pass some kids who don't know about the books or who haven't been following the development of the movie and who wrote the screenplay and whatnot, why not just give them a friendly tap on the shoulder and tell them? Why be an arrogant asshole about it?

Arrogance like yours astounds me. The books are good but they're not some sort of holy tome that a person must have read in order to be considered even somewhat a functioning member of society. Remember there are probably plenty of classic pieces of literature that you've never read and are not familiar with. If someone made a movie based on one of these works, would you want some guy directing bitterness at you rather than just saying simple like, "If you liked that, you should check out the movie."

Grow up for fuck's sake. And yes, they sell plastic swords. Kids like plastic swords. I'm sorry if that's horrifying to you but you should probably based your religion on a piece of work that hasn't become so embedded in pop culture.

Re:Votes

[Mr_Huber]

Eco's description of the church door near the beginning of _The Name of the Rose_ is one of my all-time favorite pieces of descriptive writing. It simultaneously serves to describe a door, comment on the state of theology at the time of the story, create the atmosphere and character of the monestary and demonstrait the character of the observer.

Re:Worst: Clancy's "Teeth of the Tiger"

[Lagrange5]

Tom Clancy used to be a master of the "techno thriller," a genre he arguably created (if you ignore Forsyth, Ludlum, etc.). His characters were a bit wooden but the plots crackled with action and authenticity, and his morality was predictable but not preachy. His character Jack Ryan started out as a pretty regular, commonsense guy, but his importance became increasingly inflated as Clancy's fame and fortune grew. In recent tomes Clancy's become increasingly verbose and much more willing to espouse his extremist political agenda.

Now the Ryan character is the former U.S. president, and "The Teeth of the Tiger" attempts to catapult Ryan's teenage son Jack Jr. to do the world's work. Sad to report that this is Clancy's worst book yet, and it's a shadow of the brilliance he showed with "The Hunt for Red October."

Too bad Clancy suffers from "successful writer syndrome" (he's too powerful for editors to get through to him) and it now appears that he's relying on ghostwriters to finish his works. It seems he's so rich that nowadays he's got better things to do with his time and money than do what he's best at.

If you want a really good belly laugh, go read the often hilarious reviews of The Teeth of the Tiger [amazon.com] on Amazon. They're a lot more enjoyable than the book itself.

Re:Life of Pi and Middlesex

[echucker]

Ask yourself where the "music" is on MTV anymore while you're at it.

Re:Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

[Reality Master 101]

Don't worry about it -- screw people who don't like it just because it's popular. It's a great series of books. I'm with Stephen King when he says the series is "one for the ages" that will stand the test of time along with Tolkien, Wizard of Oz, or name your classic of literature.

Re:Say again?

[pclminion]

I think you're taking this way too seriously. To give the benefit of the doubt I reread my old post and although it's a little testy I don't see how I personally insulted you in any way. On the other hand you called me elitist, "arrogant asshole," etc.

Look, I don't walk around "in real life" calling people morons, okay? I'm sorry if you miscontrued my comment to be some kind of personal attack against you. There's a text box on the screen, I type a rant into it, it's a web site. I'm sure you've had your moments where you think everybody around you is an idiot, considering your "liberals need not reply" sig (which has mysteriously disappeared from this post).

Also, does that "Foe" setting make you feel any better? Maybe I'll start using it.

of 70 books reviewed this year...

[danny]

Six books I read this year made it onto my all-time best books [dannyreviews.com] list.

• The Marx Family Saga [dannyreviews.com] (Juan Goytisolo)
• The Viceroy of Ouidah [dannyreviews.com] (Bruce Chatwin)
• Ka [dannyreviews.com] (Roberto Calasso)
• China: Empire of the Written Symbol [dannyreviews.com] (Cecilia Lindqvist)
• The Visual Display of Quantiative Information [dannyreviews.com] (Edward Tufte)
• The Earthsea Trilogy [dannyreviews.com] (Ursula Le Guin)

Of course none of those were published this year, but my reading is rarely "cutting-edge".

Danny.