It goes without saying that Powell's employees like to read, right? To complement our annual Puddly Awards, we asked our staff members to tell us "the best book they read last year," regardless of its original publication date. Appropriate to a first list of a new millennium, top on our list is an apocalypctic, destroy-all-ties-to-convention kind of novel. If that's not your style, though, don't worry – there are all sorts of titles here. We are, after all, a diverse and sometimes contradictory bunch.

MOST VOTES

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk Palahniuk's style is lean and mean. I loved David Fincher's film, but the book (as is almost always the case) was even better. I read it in one day, practically in one sitting, and came away with one of the goofiest grins ever to seize my lips. Anarchy and insanity should always be this much fun! Recommended by Chris

 

2		Harry Potter (series) by J. K. Rowling The most recent British invasion – Harrypottermania – is in full force. These books about a young boy studying to be a wizard fall squarely in the British imaginative tradition of Lewis Carrol, C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkein, and Roald Dahl: wonderfully suitable for children, but so intelligent and funny that Susie will have a hard time stealing her book back from Mom. Recommended by Monica
3		The Wind up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami In Japan, Haruki Murakami is a bestselling novelist and has long been considered one of the best writers of his generation. With this book, his reputation has finally begun to catch up in the West. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is a mesmerizing, brilliantly-crafted portrait of 20th-century Japan, revealing a dark Japanese soul that treads just under lacquered perfection. And though this novel is very much about conditions in Japan since the War, it translates uncannily well to a Western audience. Not only is it steeped in American pop culture, combining a Beatles soundtrack with the best of hard-boiled noir fiction, but the symbolism is so direct and powerful, Murakami more than translates well across cultures, he communicates beneath it. An absolute original. Recommended by Steve
4		The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver This feminist approach to colonial politics and fifties evangelism, told through the voices of distinct female characters, is a departure from Kingsolver's earlier fiction – much denser and darker. Its historical and political material also makes it an interesting hyper-modern comparison for Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince, and Achebe's Things Fall Apart. Recommended by Mimi
5		High Fidelity by Nick Hornby Are you a single male between the ages of 24 and 32? Have you been listening to the same classic rock albums since you were twelve? Do you find yourself compulsively compiling lists of all your favorite things: five favorite angry songs, five favorite bedtime albums, five favorite episodes of The Simpsons? Are you afraid of commitment? Nick Hornby has been reading your mind. And he's written a great story to prove it. "Keep this book away from your girlfriend," one critic wrote, "it contains too many of your secrets to let it fall into the wrong hands." Yes. Recommended by Dave
6		We Wish to Inform you that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with our Families: Stories from Rwanda by Philip Gourevitch I urge everyone to read this book. The cover shows a picture of serenity, a scene from the beach of Lake Kivu in Rwanda. The landscape is devoid of human beings and an empty chair sits on the sand. The title in red stands out starkly from this backdrop. The juxtaposition of beauty and brutality is a perfect introduction to this volume. As Robert Stone says, "Like the greatest war reporters, he [Gourevitch] raises the human banner in hell's mouth, the insignia of common sense, of quiet moral authority, of blessed humor." The message from this book is amazingly hopeful. Having a rough day? Read this book and be reminded of the worst and best that humans do to each other. Recommended by Miriam
7		Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov I finally got around to reading Nabokov's Lolita last year. Now I'm mad at myself for waiting so long. It's one of those "classic books" that actually lives up to its considerable reputation. Recommended by Ron
8		Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden This book has undoubtedly reached so wide an audience because it appeals to such diverse reading tastes. For those who read fiction, Memoirs of a Geisha provides a complex, human story full of emotion and drama. For nonfiction readers, this is one of the best explorations of Japanese culture and history available. Recommended by Sarah
9		Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem Think of narrative talent like Raymond Chandler, Haruki Murakami, Tennessee Williams, and Truman Capote, then ratchet it up a few notches. Lionel "Freakshow" Essrog, a would-be detective with Tourettes syndrome, spins the narrative while tracking down his boss's killer. The dialogue dances lightly across the page and Lethem gets inside Lionel's disorder so completely it makes you feel first uncomfortable and irritated, but ultimately sympathetic. Lionel's disquieting mind will get inside your head, but in a good way. Recommended by Harlan
10		Plainsong by Kent Haruf Kent Haruf's favorite writers are Cormac McCarthy, Larry Brown, Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner. He's learned his lessons well and in Plainsong created something wholly original and beautiful, an unadorned melody that finds voice in the arid Colorado landscape. This is a novel full of the quiet dignity and unsentimental virtues one tends to naturally associate with the American West. The characters are so wholly alive and so wholly loveable they become a part of you. Recommended by Fidel

 

11		Slaughterhouse-Five: Or the Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance With Death	by	Kurt Vonnegut
12		Bastard Out of Carolina	by	Dorothy Allison
13		Our Dumb Century	by	Scott Dikkers and The Onion
14		One Hundred Years of Solitude	by	Gabriel Garcia Marquez
15		The Blue Flower	by	Penelope Fitzgerald
16		Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies	by	Jared Diamond
17		Straight Man	by	Richard Russo
18		Birds of America	by	Lorrie Moore
19		Enduring Love	by	Ian McEwan
20		Cryptonomicon	by	Neal Stephenson
21		Into Thin Air: a Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster	by	Jon Krakauer
22		The Reader	by	Bernhard Schlink
23		The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea	by	Sebastian Junger
24		Underworld	by	Don Delillo
25		Geek Love	by	Katherine Dunn
26		Midnight's Children	by	Salman Rushdie
27		Suttree	by	Cormac McCarthy
28		Cunt: A Declaration of Independence	by	Inga Muscio
29		Blood Meridian, Or, the Evening Redness in the West	by	Cormac McCarthy
30		Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West	by	Gregory Maguire
31		A Star Called Henry	by	Roddy Doyle
32		Pop. 1280	by	Jim Thompson
33		Into the Forest	by	Jean Hegland
34		Timequake	by	Kurt Vonnegut
35		The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living	by	The Dalai Lama
36		The Alphabet vs. the Goddess: the conflict between word and image	by	Leonard Shlain
37		Keeping the Rabble in Line: Interviews With David Barsamian	by	Noam Chomsky
38		Fuck You Heroes: Glen E. Friedman Photographs, 1976-1991	by	Glen E. Friedman
39		The Tooth Fairy	by	Graham Joyce
40		Music for Torching	by	A. M. Homes
41		River Horse: The Logbook of a Boat across America	by	William Least Heat Moon
42		The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove	by	Christopher Moore
43		Already Dead: A California Gothic	by	Denis Johnson
44		Behind the Scenes at the Museum	by	Kate Atkinson
45		Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory	by	Brian Greene
46		How the Mind Works	by	Steven Pinker
47		The Brothers K	by	David James Duncan
48		Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water	by	Marc Reisner
49		Darkness Peering	by	Alice Blanchard
50		The Moviegoer	by	Walker Percy

Also see The 2000 Puddly Awards

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