Sign up for our newsletters to receive our Best of 2024 ezine!

Book reviews & excerpts from exceptional books set mainly in the present day (2000-current).

Contemporary

Recommended books found: 1,768

Page 89 of 91

Print List

The Grand Complication
by Allen Kurzweil
Hardcover: Aug 2001
Paperback: Aug 2002

A delicious compendium of quirky colleagues, erotic pop-ups, deviant passions, and miraculous examples of theft, the book is a grand and complicated "timepiece," told with a devilish sense of fun.

Summary
Read an Excerpt
Reading Guide
Reader Reviews
Author Biography (Kurzweil)
Author Interview (Kurzweil)

Critics' Consensus:

Salem Falls
by Jodi Picoult
Hardcover: Apr 2001
Paperback: Jul 2002

Jack buries his past, content to become the mysterious stranger who has appeared out of the blue. Addie, desperate for answers, must look into her heart -- and into Jack's lies and shadowy secrets -- for evidence that will condemn or redeem the man ...

Summary
Read an Excerpt
Reading Guide
Reader Reviews
Author Biography (Picoult)
Author Interview (Picoult)

Critics' Consensus:

Valhalla Rising
by Clive Cussler
Hardcover: Aug 2001
Paperback: Jul 2002

The past and the future collide for Dirk Pitt in the most audacious novel yet from the grandmaster of adventure fiction.

Summary
Read an Excerpt
Reader Reviews
Author Biography (Cussler)

Critics' Consensus:

The Associate
by Phillip Margolin
Hardcover: Aug 2001
Paperback: Jul 2002

A mesmerizing tale of deceit and criminal stealth in the high-stakes world of pharmaceutical research from the master of the courtroom thriller.

Summary
Read an Excerpt
Reader Reviews
Author Biography (Margolin)
Author Interview (Margolin)

Critics' Consensus:

Hostage
by Robert Crais
Hardcover: Aug 2001
Paperback: Jul 2002

A blistering stand-alone thriller with superb characters, a multistranded polt and pitch-perfect Southern California sensibility.

Summary
Read an Excerpt
Reader Reviews
Author Biography (Crais)

Critics' Consensus:

Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire: Book 4
by J.K. (Joanne) Rowling
Hardcover: Jul 2000
Paperback: Jul 2002

The pivotal fourth novel in the seven part tale of Harry Potter's training as a wizard and his coming of age.

Summary
Read an Excerpt
Reading Guide
Reader Reviews
Author Biography (Rowling)

Critics' Consensus:

The Month of The Leopard
by James Harland
Paperback: Jun 2002

An economist with one of London's leading investment banks finds himself unraveling a mystery which dates back over half a century - all clues lead to the Leopard Fund led by a cold, ruthlessly calculating financial kingpin.

Summary
Read an Excerpt
Reader Reviews
Author Biography (Harland)
Author Interview (Harland)

Critics' Consensus:

Brothel: Mustang Ranch and Its Women
by Alexa Albert
Hardcover: May 2001
Paperback: Jun 2002

When Alexa Albert conducted a public-health study at The Mustang Ranch brothel in Nevada (where prostitution is legal) she was drawn into the lives of the women and her project evolved into something more intimate and ambitious.

Summary
Read an Excerpt
Reader Reviews
Author Biography (Albert)
Author Interview (Albert)

Critics' Consensus:

Choke
by Chuck Palahniuk
Hardcover: May 2001
Paperback: Jun 2002

From the author of the international sensation Fight Club, a powerful (and hilarious) novel about love and strife between mothers and sons, the addictive power of sex, the terrors of aging, the ugly truth about historical theme parks, and much else. ...

Summary
Read an Excerpt
Reader Reviews
Author Biography (Palahniuk)

Critics' Consensus:

Seven Up: A Stephanie Plum Adventure
by Janet Evanovich
Hardcover: Jun 2001
Paperback: Jun 2002

When semi-retired mob guy, DeChooch, fails to show for a court appearance, bond enforcement agent Stephanie Plum is assigned the task of finding DeChooch and dragging him back to jail.

Summary
Read an Excerpt
Reader Reviews
Author Biography (Evanovich)
Author Interview (Evanovich)

Critics' Consensus:

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America
by Barbara Ehrenreich
Hardcover: May 2001
Paperback: May 2002

Reveals low-wage America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and surprising generosity--a land of Big Boxes, fast food, and a thousand desperate stratagems for survival.

Summary
Read an Excerpt
Reading Guide
Reader Reviews
Author Biography (Ehrenreich)

Critics' Consensus:

On the Bright Side, I'm Now the Girlfriend of a Sex God: Further, Further Confessions of Georgia Nicolson
by Louise Rennison
Hardcover: Apr 2001
Paperback: May 2002

Readers will be laughing (and groaning!) out loud all through this "fabbity-fab-fab" sequel to Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging!

Summary
Read an Excerpt
Reader Reviews
Author Biography (Rennison)
Author Interview (Rennison)

Critics' Consensus:

Between Lovers
by Eric Jerome Dickey
Hardcover: Jul 2001
Paperback: May 2002

Set in the San Francisco Bay area, Between Lovers brings together three irresistible characters. How they handle an unusual and complex love triangle makes for one of Dickey's most provocative and unforgettable novels.

Summary
Read an Excerpt
Reader Reviews
Author Biography (Dickey)

Critics' Consensus:

Man and Boy
by Tony Parsons
Hardcover: Apr 2001
Paperback: May 2002

A witty, often eye-dabbing, always heartwarming love story between a father and his four-year-old son. A British bestseller for 50 weeks and British Book Awards Book of the Year.

Summary
Read an Excerpt
Reading Guide
Reader Reviews
Author Biography (Parsons)

Critics' Consensus:

Sticks and Scones
by Diane Mott Davidson
Hardcover: Apr 2001
Paperback: May 2002

Colorado caterer Goldy Schulz accepts a series of bookings at Hyde Castle and gets to cook authentic Elizabethan fare. However, death is peering around every corner.

Summary
Read an Excerpt
Reader Reviews
Author Biography (Davidson)

Critics' Consensus:

Veiled Courage: Inside the Afghan Women's Resistance
by Cheryl Benard
Hardcover: Apr 2002

Reveals the remarkable bravery and spirit of the women of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), whose daring clandestine activities defied the forces of the Taliban and earned the world's fierce admiration.

Summary
Read an Excerpt
Reader Reviews
Author Biography (Benard)

Critics' Consensus:

Back When We Were Grownups
by Anne Tyler
Hardcover: May 2001
Paperback: Apr 2002

Rebecca, a fifty-three-year-old grandmother, is caught unawares by the question of who she really is. How she answers it--how she tries to recover her girlhood self, that dignified grownup she had once been--is the story told in this beguiling, funny...

Summary
Read an Excerpt
Reading Guide
Reader Reviews
Author Biography (Tyler)
Author Interview (Tyler)

Critics' Consensus:

American Gods
by Neil Gaiman
Hardcover: Jun 2001
Paperback: Apr 2002

As unsettling as it is exhilarating, American Gods is a dark and kaleidoscopic journey deep into myth and across an America at once eerily familiar and utterly alien.

Summary
Read an Excerpt
Reading Guide
Reader Reviews
Author Biography (Gaiman)
Author Interview (Gaiman)

Critics' Consensus:

Echo Burning: A Jack Reacher Thriller
by Lee Child
Hardcover: Jun 2001
Paperback: Apr 2002

Brilliantly plotted. ..For anyone who thinks the hard-boiled genre is growing soft around the edges.

Summary
Read an Excerpt
Reader Reviews
Author Biography (Child)
Author Interview (Child)

Critics' Consensus:

How To Be Good
by Nick Hornby
Hardcover: Jul 2001
Paperback: Apr 2002

It's a story about how to wreck your marriage, how to help the homeless, how not to raise your kids, how to find religion . . . and how to be good. 'Hornby's quick eye and nimble observational style nail everyone's vanity'.

Summary
Read an Excerpt
Reading Guide
Reader Reviews
Author Biography (Hornby)
Author Interview (Hornby)

Critics' Consensus:

The reviewer of each book decides which categories it belongs in - but we're only human, mistakes happen. If you see a book that you think is in the wrong place, tell us!

Top Picks

James
by Percival Everett

The Oscar-nominated film American Fiction (2023) and the Percival Everett novel it was based on, ...
But the Girl
by Jessica Zhan Mei Yu

Jessica Zhan Mei Yu's But the Girl begins with the real-life disappearance of Malaysia Airlines ...
Patriot
by Alexei Navalny

On the 17th of January, 2024, colleagues of Alexei Navalny posted a message to his Instagram account...
Rental House
by Weike Wang

For many of us, vacations offer an escape from the everyday — a chance to explore new places, ...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket — The Berry Pickers
by Amanda Peters

A four-year-old Mi'kmaq girl disappears, leaving a mystery unsolved for fifty years.

About Discuss

Book Jacket — In Our Midst
by Nancy Jensen

In Our Midst follows a German immigrant family’s fight for freedom after their internment post–Pearl Harbor.

About Discuss

BookBrowse Free Newsletters

Who Said...

Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Big Holiday Wordplay 2024

Your guide toexceptional books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.