Books Ive Read This Year 2003 pt. 2
Explore a curated list of books read in 2003, featuring literary classics like *Everything Is Illuminated* by Jonathan Safran Foer, Chabon’s *Kavalier & Clay*, Faulkner’s *Light in August*, and more.
Book
The Partly Cloudy Patriot
by Sarah Vowell
The author shares her perspective on such topics as the 2000 election, present-day civil rights activists, and the relationship between the United States and Canada.
Book
Ugly American
by William J. Lederer
The ineffectual Ambassador is just one of the handicaps facing the Americans as Southeast Asia becomes increasingly involved with Communism.
Book
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
by Michael Chabon
This brilliant epic novel set in New York and Prague introduces us to two misfit young men who make it big by creating comic-book superheroes. Joe Kavalier, a young artist who has also been trained in the art of Houdiniesque escape, has just smuggled himself out of Nazi-invaded Prague and landed in New York City. His Brooklyn cousin Sammy Clay is looking for a partner to create heroes, stories, and art for the latest novelty to hit America the comic book. Inspired by their own fears and dreams, Kavalier and Clay create the Escapists, The Monitor, and Luna Moth, inspired by the beautiful Rosa Saks, who will become linked by powerful ties to both men. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is the winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Book
Light in August
by William Faulkner
From the Nobel Prize winner—one of the most highly acclaimed writers of the twentieth century—a novel set in the American South during Prohibition about hopeful perseverance in the face of mortality. Light in August features some of Faulkner’s most memorable characters: guileless, dauntless Lena Grove, in search of the father of her unborn child; Reverend Gail Hightower, who is plagued by visions of Confederate horsemen; and Joe Christmas, a desperate, enigmatic drifter consumed by his mixed ancestry. “Read, read, read. Read everything—trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it is good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out the window.” —William Faulkner
Book
Everything Is Illuminated
by Jonathan Safran Foer
With only a yellowing photograph in hand, a young man -- also named Jonathan Safran Foer -- sets out to find the woman who may or may not have saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Accompanied by an old man haunted by memories of the war; an amorous dog named Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior; and the unforgettable Alex, a young Ukrainian translator who speaks in a sublimely butchered English, Jonathan is led on a quixotic journey over a devastated landscape and into an unexpected past.
Book
The Dante Club
by Matthew Pearl
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes and James Russell Lowell team up with 19th-century publisher J.T. Fields to catch a serial killer in post-Civil War Boston.
