Notable Books List for 2001 announced

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ALA News Release


For Immediate Release


January 2001

Notable Books List for 2001 announced

The Notable Books Council of the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), has compiled its 2001 list of outstanding books for the general reader. These titles have been selected for their significant contribution to the expansion of knowledge and for the pleasure they can provide to adult readers. Following is “The List for America's Readers.”

Fiction

  • Atwood, Margaret, "Blind Assassin," Doubleday, $26 (ISBN: 0-8021-1658-2).

  • Busch, Frederich, "Don’t Tell Anyone," Norton, $25 (ISBN: 0-3930-4973-6).

  • Chabon, Michael, "Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay," Random, $26.95 (ISBN: 0-6794-5004-1).

  • Coetzee, J. M., "Disgrace," Viking, $23.95 (ISBN: 0-1402-90640-9).

  • Crace, Jim, "Being Dead," Farrar Straus and Giroux, $26.96 (ISBN: 0-3741-1013-1)

  • DeWitt, Helen, "Last Samurai," Hyperion, $24.95 (ISBN: 0-7868-6668-3)

  • Kalpakian, Laura, "Delinquent Virgin," Graywolf, $14 (ISBN: 1-5559-7295-0)

  • King, Thomas, "Truth and Bright Water," Atlantic Monthly, $24 (ISBN: 0-871-1391-2)

  • Kneale, Matthew, "English Passengers," Doubleday, $25 (ISBN: 0-3854-9743-1)

  • Nelson, Antonya, "Living to Tell," Scribner, $24 (ISBN: 0-6848-3933-4)

  • Ondaatje, Michael, "Anil’s Ghost," Knopf $25 (ISBN: 0-3754-1053-8)

  • Paine, Tom, "Scar Vegas," Harcourt Brace $22 (ISBN: 0-1510-04889-7)

  • Smith, Zadie, "White Teeth," Random $24.95 (ISBN: 0-3755-0185-1)

  • Williams, "Joy, Quick and the Dead," Knopf $25 (ISBN: 0-6794-4646-X)

Non-Fiction

  • Barzun, Jacques, "From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, 1500 to the Present," HarperCollins, $36 (ISBN: 0-0601-7586-9)

  • Eggers, Dave, "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius," Simon & Schuster $23 (ISBN: 0-6848-6347-2)

  • Fleming, Fergus, "Barrow’s Boys," Atlantic Monthly, $26 (ISBN: 0-8711-3804-2)

  • Kaplan, Alice Yaeger, "Collaborator: The Trial and Execution of Robert Brasillach," University of Chicago, $20 (ISBN: 0-2264-2414-6)

  • Ridley, Matt, "Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters," HarperCollins, $26 (ISBN: 0-0601-9497-9)

  • Sciolino, Elaine, "Persian Mirrors, The Elusive Face of Iran," Free Press $26 (ISBN: 0-6848-6290-5)

  • Shakespeare, Nicholas, "Bruce Chatwin," Doubleday, $35 (ISBN: 0-3854-9829-2)

  • Thubron, Colin, "In Siberia," HarperCollins $26 (ISBN: 0-0601-9543-6)

Poetry

  • Heaney, Seamus, "Beowulf: A New Translatio," Farrar Straus and Giroux, $25 (ISBN: 0-3741-1119-7)

  • Kunitz, Stanley, "Collected Poems of Stanley Kunitz," Norton, $27.95 (ISBN: 0-3930-5030-0)

  • Murray, Les, "Learning Human: Selected Poems," Farrar Straus and Giroux, $27 (ISBN: 0-3742-6073-7)

This list is available three ways: the
Notable Books Web page on the RUSA/ALA Web site, ALA Fax-on-Demand service and in a camera-ready kit from ALA. For the Fax-on-Demand service, call 1-800-545-2433, press 4, then enter document number 403. The Notable Books list is included in
ALA’s Guide to Best Reading in 2001. This kit contains all the reading lists from ALA, for children through adult readers, and has camera-ready brochures and bookmarks for each list. The kit will be available after June 1. Call ALA Order Fulfillment, 1-800-545-2433, press 7 to order. The kit is $29.95.

Since 1944, the goal of the Notable Books Council has been to make available to the nation’s readers a list of 25 very good, very readable and, at times, very important fiction, nonfiction and poetry books for the adult reader. The Council consists of members selected from the membership of RUSA/CODES (Collection Development and Evaluation Section). RUSA is a division of the ALA.