Happy New Year
Best of the Year?
Tom Owen's Best of the Year
Recommended
Poetry - Old and New
Have You Read...

Happy New Year, Century and Millennium from everyone at Avenue Victor Hugo Bookshop. Last year seems like an intermediary year now, claimed by some for both the twentieth and the twenty-first century, but somehow belonging to neither. I'm glad the new year has come peacefully and we can settle down in the fresh and bright first weeks of a new millennium.

This is by no means all the good books of 2000. Actually it's a list of books that I bought with my own money, liked, and kept for my personal library, a buyer's choice as it were.  To begin, there is no nonfiction.  Of course, there must have been some good nonfiction in 2000.  Just now I'm reading two Russian histories, an account of the trial of Admiral Byng, and a biography of Fidel Castro, none of which were published in 2000.  Either I wouldn't recommend highly some of the year 2000 nonfiction or it's just over the line, date-wise. As say, Isaac's Storm which is copyright 1999.

So here's what I give the honors to, in no particular order.

2. James H. Cobb, Sea Fighter.  There are a number of series with feminine heroes and there are lots of Tom Clancy wannabes.  Cobb is a writer I think highly enough of to collect first editions.  This is the third in a series about a female naval commander who has gone into harm's way in Antarctica and off the Chinese coast with a high tech destroyer in previous books.  This time it is a bit more complicated.  It's a peace keeping mission in Africa and she is limited to low tech inshore vehicles.  It could turn disastrous in a flash, but through intelligence and bravery, the heroine pulls it off.

3. Bernard Cornwell, Sharpe's Fortress.  When Bernard Cornwell reached Waterloo with his Sharpe series, it sadly seemed as if things were all over for a much enjoyed series of books.  But he decided to circle back to a time before the original series began, to his character's early doings in 18th century India with Wellington.  It's brutal, colorful, and entertaining.  Since the author does a great deal of research for his books, they also make for sugar coated history.  Long may Sharpe march.

4. Eric Flint, 1632.  I encountered Flint with his first novel of several years ago, Mother of Demons.  I wrote him a letter about that book and highly recommend it as an original and entertaining piece of science fiction. In 2000 Flint has been a busy soul.  He's had two collaborations appear, one with David Drake in the Belisarius series and one with another author, Rats, Bats, and Vats, which is entertaining and absurdly funny. But the creme de la creme is his own, 1632.  A modern West Virginia town is transported back to Germany in the 30 Years War. Can the Americans survive in the midst of armies that make the Mongol hordes look like Sunday Schoolers?  Can they stay true to the ideals of democracy, freedom, and equality or will they become conquistadors of the Old World?  Invariably I stay up till 3 or 4 am to finish Flint's works, and this was no exception.

That's about it. Now one final word.  Don't tell anyone about this list, or all the rest of the AVH employees will toss in their choices, and we'll have chaos!