Underworld is a 1997 novel by American writer Don DeLillo. The novel is centered on the efforts of Nick Shay, a waste management executive who grew up in the Bronx, to trace the history of the baseball that won the New York Giants the pennant in 1951, and encompasses numerous subplots drawn from American history in the second half of the twentieth century. Described as both postmodernist and a reaction to postmodernism, it examines themes of nuclear proliferation, waste, and the contribution of individual lives to the course of history.
The Blind Assassin is a novel by the Canadian writer Margaret Atwood. It was first published by McClelland and Stewart in 2000. The book is set in the fictional Ontario town of Port Ticonderoga and in Toronto. It is narrated from the present day, referring to previous events that span the twentieth century but mostly the 1930s and 1940s. It is a work of historical fiction with the major events of Canadian history forming an important backdrop, for example, the On-to-Ottawa Trek and a 1934 Communist rally at Maple Leaf Gardens. Greater verisimilitude is given by a series of newspaper articles commenting on events and on the novel's characters from a distance.
You Shall Know Our Velocity! is a 2002 novel by Dave Eggers. It was Eggers's debut novel, following the success of his memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (2000).
The Line of Beauty is a 2004 Man Booker Prize-winning novel by Alan Hollinghurst.
Everything Is Illuminated is the first novel by the American writer Jonathan Safran Foer, published in 2002. It was adapted into a film of the same name starring Elijah Wood and Eugene Hütz in 2005.
Monica Ali is a British writer of Bangladeshi and English descent. In 2003, she was selected as one of the "Best of Young British Novelists" by Granta based on her unpublished manuscript; her debut novel, Brick Lane, was published later that year. It was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. It was adapted as a 2007 film of the same name. She has also published four other novels. Her fifth novel, Love Marriage, was published by Virago Press in February 2022 and became an instant Sunday Times bestseller.
Nowhere Man is a 2002 novel by Aleksandar Hemon named after the Beatles song "Nowhere Man". The novel centers around the character of Jozef Pronek, a Bosnian refugee, who was already the subject of Hemon's novella Blind Jozef Pronek & Dead Souls published in his short story collection The Question of Bruno (2000).
The Fortress of Solitude is a 2003 semi-autobiographical novel by Jonathan Lethem set in Brooklyn and spanning the 1970s, '80s, and '90s. It follows two teenage friends, Dylan Ebdus and Mingus Rude, one white and one black, who discover a magic ring. The novel explores the issues of race and culture, gentrification, self-discovery, and music. The novel's title is a reference to the Fortress of Solitude, a fortress constructed for Superman.
My Life is a 2004 autobiography written by former U.S. president Bill Clinton. It was released on June 22, 2004, around three years after Clinton left office. The book was published by the Knopf Publishing Group and became a bestseller; the book sold in excess of 2.3 million copies. Clinton received a $15 million advance for the book, the highest such fee ever paid by a publisher.
The Story of Lucy Gault is a novel written by William Trevor in 2002. The book is divided into three sections: the childhood, middle age and older times of the girl, Lucy. The story takes place in Ireland during the transition to the 21st century. It follows the protagonist Lucy and her immediate contacts. The book was shortlisted for the Booker and Whitbread Prizes in 2002.
The Time of Our Singing (2003) is a novel by American writer Richard Powers. It tells the story of two brothers, Jonah and Joseph Strom, who are involved in music, dealing heavily with issues of prejudice. Their parents, David Strom and Delia Daley, met at Marian Anderson's concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial after she had been barred from any other legitimate concert venue. The story goes back and forth between the generations, describing the unusual coupling of a German-Jewish physicist (David) who has lost his family in the Holocaust and a black woman from Philadelphia (Delia), both of whom have strong musical backgrounds. They impart their love of music to their family. Their two boys study music and become professional musicians: one a singer, the other a pianist. The parent's third child, their daughter Ruth, becomes a militant black activist.
The Autograph Man, published in 2002, is the second novel by Zadie Smith. It follows the progress of a Jewish-Chinese Londoner named Alex-Li Tandem, who buys and sells autographs for a living and is obsessed with celebrities. Eventually, his obsession culminates in a meeting with the elusive American-Russian actress Kitty Alexander, a star from Hollywood's Golden Age. In 2003, the novel won the Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Literary Prize. The novel was a commercial success, but was not as well received by readers and critics as her previous and first novel, White Teeth (2000). Smith has stated that before she started work on The Autograph Man she had writer's block.
The Great Fire (2003) is a novel by the Australian author Shirley Hazzard. It won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction and a Miles Franklin literary award (2004). The novel was Hazzard's first since The Transit of Venus, published in 1980.
Love, Etc is a novel by Julian Barnes published in 2000, although it is also the title of a French film based on his earlier novel Talking It Over.
The Third Reich Trilogy is a series of three narrative history books by British historian Richard J. Evans, covering the rise and collapse of Nazi Germany in detail, with a focus on the internal politics and the decision-making process. The three volumes of the trilogy – The Coming of the Third Reich, The Third Reich In Power, and The Third Reich at War – were published between 2003 and 2008. The books are illustrated with maps created by András Bereznay.
What I Loved is a novel written by American writer Siri Hustvedt first published in 2003 by Hodder and Stoughton in London. It is written from the point of view of Leo Hertzberg, an art historian living in New York. The author herself grew up in Northfield, Minnesota, and then moved to New York in 1978. In a discussion of the September 11 attacks, she describes New York as "as much an idea as an actual place".
The Impressionist is Hari Kunzru's debut novel, first published in 2003. Kunzru received the Betty Trask Award and the Somerset Maugham Award for the book's publication.
Family Matters is the third novel published by Indian-born author Rohinton Mistry. It was first published by McClelland and Stewart in 2002. Subsequent editions were published by Faber in UK, Knopf in US and Vintage Books in India. The book is set in Shiv Sena-ruled Bombay.
Bella Bathurst is an English writer, photojournalist, and furniture maker. Her novel The Lighthouse Stevensons won the 2000 Somerset Maugham Award.
Giving Up the Ghost, published in 2003, is a memoir by Hilary Mantel.
