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I'm going to create a few of these threads for the last few decades, because I'm curious what we think are the best years for books within each of those decades.

My reason for doing this is because I love film as well, and it's quite easy to look at some years in film (2007, being the most recent example, with 2011 being quite good as well) and see that in some years something was in the water. The year's output featured so many great films it was simply a great year for film. Of course, great movies -- maybe even better movies -- are made in other years, but here I'm looking at the concentration of greatness.

So I'm wanting to do something similar for books, where I don't think it's quite as apparent (perhaps because it's a silly exercise, not that that has stopped me before).

Here is the thread for the years 2000-2009.

Let's try to look at the year of first publication for this. If a book was published in the UK in 2005 but in the US in 2008 (or never), then it is a 2005 book. If a book was written in German in 2000 but published in English in 2002, then it is a 2000 book.

Will this result in anything interesting? I'm not sure! Let's try though.

I'll use this post to keep track of the years 2000-2004. If you mention a book in one of these years, I'll put it here.

2000:

2001

2002:

2003:

2004:

I'll use this post to keep track of the years 2005-2009. If you mention a book in one of these years, I'll put it here.

2005:

2006:

2007:

2008:

2009:

This sounds fun Trevor! Could it be the start of a Mookse Madness 2020 plan?

Maybe! It’s not settled or anything, but it’s a thought!

I started by coming up with my top 10 or so books of the decade and then seeing when they were published. One year stands out:

2004: Gilead, 2666, Wizard of the Crow, Seeing, The Illiterate and volume 2 of the Your Face Tomorrow: Fever and Spear / Dance and Dream / Poison, Shadow, and Farewell trilogy

Obviously only first of those was available in English in that year, so it isn't a year I look back on fondly from personal reading, but on the criteria given, no contest.

Other top 10 books
2001: Austerlitz
2002 & 2007: For Marias volumes 1 & 3
2005: Shalimar the Clown
2008: Seiobo There Below
2009: Death by Water although much of his 2000 work is as yet untranslated
Hard to date - The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll as seemed to be a new installment every year

Great list, Paul, and it does look to me like 2004 has an early lead! I hadn’t put all of those together before, but that includes a few of my top ten books of all time. A reason I did this was to put books together that might not otherwise be put together. So far so good!

Again purely in terms of my 5-star reads, 2002 leads with 9 (special mentions for The Time of Our Singing, The Devil That Danced on the Water, A Whistling Woman, What I Loved, The Story of Lucy Gault, If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, Spies - in fact that looks a very impressive list!). 2009 is second with 8.

2000: Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood, House of Leaves
2001: Bel Canto, Hotel World
2002: Kafka on the Shore, Unless
2003: The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America, The Housekeeper and the Professor
2004: Cloud Atlas, Gilead, Eventide, Hannah Coulter
2005: Never Let Me Go, The History of Love, The Accidental
2006: The Road, Fun Home: A Family TragicomicHalf of a Yellow Sun, The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Winter's Bone
2007: The Reluctant Fundamentalist, The Vegetarian
2008: Olive Kitteridge
2009: Brooklyn, 1Q84

Longlist:
2000 - The Blind Assassin, True History of the Kelly Gang, White Teeth
2001 - Austerlitz, Hotel World
2002 - The Time of Our Singing, The Devil That Danced on the Water, A Whistling Woman, What I Loved, The Story of Lucy Gault, If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, Spies
2003 - Islands of Silence, Purple Hibiscus
2004 - Maps for Lost Lovers, 2666, The Line of Beauty, Wizard of the Crow, Cloud Atlas
2005 - Arthur & George, Findings, The Dream Life of Sukhanov
2006 - Half of a Yellow Sun, Human Love, The Faculty of Dreams,The Echo Maker, Black Swan Green
2007 - Flights, Between Each Breath, The Widow and Her Hero, Miss Webster And Chérif
2008 - The Sorrows of an American, Home, The Museum of Innocence
2009 - The Winter Vault, The Children's Book, Wolf Hall, The Life of an Unknown Man

Wizard of the Crow was 2004 - Murogi wa Kagogo - the English translation was in 2006.

Here's my list:

2000: When We Were Orphans, Plowing the Dark
2001: Remainder
2002: Train Dreams, The Time of Our Singing, Kafka on the Shore
2003:
2004: Cloud Atlas, The Line of Beauty, Tree of Smoke
2005: Findings, No Country for Old Men, Never Let Me Go
2006: Against the Day, The Echo Maker, Nocilla Dream
2007: Flights, In the Café of Lost Youth, Shining at the Bottom of the Sea
2008: Nocilla Experience, The Sorrows of an American
2009: Nocilla Lab, 1Q84 #1-2

The Gathering - Anne Enright - 2007

I'll Go To Bed at Noon - Gerard Woodward - 2004 (August was first in the series, published 2001, I think, if that matters - I think it shouldn't and this is a perfect example of why it shouldn't)

Paul wrote: "Wizard of the Crow was 2004 - Murogi wa Kagogo - the English translation was in 2006."
My dates are all taken from my spreadsheet, which uses the "original date pub" field from GR at the time I added the book to my list - perhaps that was wrong in this case, but it still shows 2006 on the version I shelved!

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I have amended - although the original version isn't even on ŷ������

Paul wrote: "ŷ������ was wrong - people tend to forget it is a translation



I have amended - although the original version isn't eve..."
OK, I'll move it

I wonder how many other books I can change their original publication date to 2004 - this is preparation for 2020 Mookse Madness after all, where everything goes.

Mother's Milk - Edward St Aubyn - 2005

Mailman - J Robert Lennon - 2004

On Beauty - Zadie Smith - 2006

Spies - Michael Frayn - 2002

Kieron Smith, Boy - James Kelman - 2008

Youth - JM Coetzee - 2003
Summertime - JM Coetzee - 2009

If this really is prep for MM '20, we'll get some Coetzee this time hopefully! And some Toibin!!!!

Pilcrow - Adam Mars-Jones - 2008
Red Dog, Red Dog - Patrick Lane - 2008
Home - Marilynn Robinson - 2008
And Then There was No One - Gilbert Adair - 2008
Old School - Tobias Wolff - 2003

2000: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Provinces of Night
2001: Life of Pi, American Gods, Bel Canto, The Shadow of the Wind, Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood
2002: Stories of Your Life and Others, The Time of Our Singing, Ernie's Ark, One Foot in Eden
2003: Purple Hibiscus, The Kite Runner, Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books, The Master Butchers Singing Club
2004: Gilead
2005: Anansi Boys, The Book Thief The History of Love, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Any Bitter Thing
2006: The Book of Lost Things, The Road The Flying Mountain, The World Made Straight
2007: The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, The Book of Air and Shadows
2008: Olive Kitteridge The Cellist of Sarajevo, Visitation, People of the Book, The Years
2009: The Gray House, Let the Great World Spin, The Windup Girl, The Year of the Flood

Trevor, does seconding, etc. nominations add more weight or are you counting each book only once? I don't want to be repetitive.

Not necessarily. I'm really just trying to tally books right now. We'll start talking about weight in any year later on, in which case all arguments are valid.

The temptation is to carry on expanding my lists to match the length of yours Carissa, but then where would we stop??