25 Books to Remember from 1999

The Alphabet of Desire
Hamby, Barbara | NYU Press, © 1999 | 811 Hamby
Breathless and bountiful, these poems give "shape and significance to the strange and the familiar."
Reserve This Title

Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity
Bagemihl, Bruce | St. Martin's Press, © 1998 | 591.502 B
One step beyond nature or nurture, a controversial study of the sexual diversity of life on earth.
Reserve This Title

Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War
Bowden, Mark | Atlantic Monthly Press, © 1999 | 967.7305 B
This account of the Battle of Mogadishu, Somalia, examines the issues and actions that led to one of the worst American military encounters since Vietnam.
Reserve This Title

Close Range: Wyoming Stories
Proulx, Annie | Scribner, © 1999 | Fic P
Idiosyncratic tales from the American West where there is "nothing much but weather and distance."
Reserve This Title

The Colony of Unrequited Dreams: A Novel
Johnston, Wayne | Doubleday, © 1998 | Fic J
A fictional biography of Newfoundland politico Joe Smallwood and Shelagh, his friend, enemy and love.
Reserve This Title

Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II
Dower, John W. | W. W. Norton, © 1999 | 952.04 D
A fascinating and fresh account of the watershed sociological and economic upheaval in Japan during the American Occupation.
Reserve This Title

Ethel & Ernest
Briggs, Raymond | Alfred A. Knopf, © 1998 | 941.082 B
A graphic novel that touchingly illustrates how people gradually come to terms with a changing world.
Reserve This Title

For the Relief of Unbearable Urges
Englander, Nathan | Alfred A. Knopf, © 1999 | Fic E
Nine remarkable short stories rooted in the Orthodox Jewish experience.
Reserve This Title

Freedom Song: Three Novels
Chaudhuri, Amit | Alfred A. Knopf, © 1998 | Fic C
Life in contemporary India is brilliantly explored in these three short works.
Reserve This Title

Interpreter of Maladies: Stories
Lahiri, Jhumpa | Houghton Mifflin, © 1999 | Fic L
A dazzling debut collection of short stories which illuminate the immigrant experience.
Reserve This Title

Into the Porcupine Cave and Other Odysseys: Adventures of an Occasional Naturalist
Warner, William W. | National Geographic, © 1999 | 508 W
Essays which document a born naturalist's lifetime of experiences with the natural world.
Reserve This Title

Liar's Moon: A Long Story
Kimball, Philip | Henry Holt, © 1999 | Fic K
This highly original novel introduces characters who bear witness to the myths and realities of the American West.
Reserve This Title

The Migration of Ghosts
Melville, Pauline | Bloomsbury, © 1998 | Fic M
Guyanese and European tales of magic and mystery.
Reserve This Title

Morgan: American Financier
Strouse, Jean | Random House, © 1999 | B Morgan S
The intriguing story of the merchant banker who helped shape the American capitalist economy.
Reserve This Title

On the Bus with Rosa Parks: Poems
Dove, Rita | W. W. Norton, © 1999 | 811 Dove
The former Poet Laureate's new collection sheds light on both history's most famous and most forgotten characters.
Reserve This Title

The Orchid Thief
Orlean, Susan | Random House, © 1998 | 635.9344 O
A vivid and bizarre tale of obsession and theft set in and around the swamps of South Florida.
Reserve This Title

Plainsong
Haruf, Kent | Alfred A. Knopf, © 1999 | Fic H
A small town on the Colorado plains is the setting for this tale of an unlikely group of people leading unsettled lives.
Reserve This Title

A Prayer for the Dying
O’Nan, Stewart | Henry Holt, © 1999 | Fic O
Jacob Hanson, sheriff, undertaker and pastor, copes with a mysterious fatal disease in a small town in Wisconsin.
Reserve This Title

Redemption Song: Muhammad Ali and the Spirit of the Sixties
Marqusee, Mike | Verso, © 1999 | B Ali M
An exploration of the global impact of Ali's conversion to Islam, his anti-war efforts, and his civil rights activities.
Reserve This Title

Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette
Thurman, Judith | Alfred A. Knopf, © 1999 | B Colette T
An intelligent biography which explores the many facets of the life and work of the great French novelist.
Reserve This Title

Sonny Liston Was a Friend of Mine: Stories
Jones, Thom | Little, Brown, © 1999 | Fic J
Twelve stories that reveal the underside of American society through characters fighting to prove themselves despite unforgiving odds.
Reserve This Title

T. S. Eliot: An Imperfect Life
Gordon, Lyndall | Norton, © 1998 | B Eliot G
A biography of a troubled poet whose personal and professional lives were tragically contradictory, but whose work provided a moral compass for the 20th Century.
Reserve This Title

Those Bones Are Not My Child
Bambara, Toni Cade | Pantheon Books, © 1999 | Fic B
A posthumously published novel based on the Atlanta child murders of the early Eighties.
Reserve This Title

Waiting
Jin, Ha | Pantheon Books, © 1999 | Fic J
A married army doctor falls in love with a nurse during the Cultural Revolution in China.
Reserve This Title

Woman: An Intimate Geography
Angier, Natalie | Houghton Mifflin, © 1999 | 612.62 A
A map of a woman's body, with its landmarks of anatomy, function, and feeling.
Reserve This Title

Back to the Branch Libraries home page

Books to Remember is an annual list of 25 titles chosen for their distinct and lasting contribution to literature and/or general knowledge for adult readers. Selection criteria include literary excellence, information value and importance, sincerity and honesty of presentation, skill in presentation, and importance in historical context.

These books were selected by the following committee from the staff of The New York Public Library: Tim Gleisner, Todd Gwinn, Lawrence Kapture, Chair, Barbara McGlamery, Ned Richards, Miriam Tuliao.

Selected titles appearing on this booklist may be available in recorded, braille or large print versions. For more information, please contact the Andrew Heiskell Braille and Talking Book Library, 40 West 20th Street, New York NY 10011-4211, (212) 206-5400, (212) 206-5458 (TTY).