Best read

>> The top 20 of 2000

by JULIET WATERS

The Mirror Books section shies away from the traditional 10-best list, because that would mean reading the same stuff everyone else reads. So here's a glaringly subjective list of 20 books that reflect the eclectic criteria by which books are chosen for review each week.



Best new writer: Zadie Smith (White Teeth). Much compared to Salman Rushdie, but I found Smith more like Martin Amis, if he were a young black woman.

Weirdest new writer: Mark Z. Danielewski (House of Leaves) is kind of like if Thomas Pynchon got together with David Foster Wallace and wrote the trade paberback version of The Blair Witch Trial.

Best indie novel (American): Manhattan Loverboy, by Arthur Nersesian.

Best indie novel (Canadian): Angry Young Spaceman, by Jim Munroe.

Best new anti-establishment book: No Logo. Naomi Klein's prescient book explains with clarity and exhaustive research just how all those people ended up in front of WTO conferences all year.

Worst new anti-establishment book: Culture Jam. Kalle Lasn pontificates on how adbusting will save the world.

Most overpraised, new anti-establishment book: Sacré Blues. "New Anglo" Taras Grescoe won two QWF awards for writing a primer on Quebec that contains only one sentence on new anglos. "As the voices of the older generation of William Johnsons and Mordecai Richlers start to fade, the new breed of anglophone Québécois will undoubtedly help to attenuate the traditional polarisations." Oh, thanks. Maybe in his next book we'll get a whole paragraph, or at least he'll name one of us.

Most impenetrable anti-establishment book: Hal Niedzviecki's We Want Some Too. I wanted some point to this book.

Best book about genes: Genome, by Matt Ridley. The most lucid, entertaining book on the subject.

Worst book about genes: Mean Genes, by Terry Burnham and Jay Phelan. Actually, it wasn't that bad. Just not as good as Genome.

Best chick lit: I hate/bitterly envy Elissa Schappell because she has such a cushy job as books editor at Vanity Fair, but I loved her book of short stories, Use Me.

Worst dick lit: Never Mind Nirvana, by Mark Lindquist. Like a lame version of High Fidelity set in Seattle, but the hero is a lawyer.

Best non-fiction about a lame U.K band: (tie) Bye Bye Baby--Caroline Sullivan's memoir about stalking the Bay City Rollers--is still waiting to be turned into a movie with Courtney Love. And True, by Martin Kemp in which an East- End boy tells how he went from Spandau Ballet to a role on East Enders. Bizarre but heartfelt.

Best graphic novel: Jimmy Corrigan: the Smartest Kid on Earth, by Chris Ware, the best cartoonist on Earth.

Best acquired taste: Ian Rankin mysteries. The latest, Set in Darkness--which is set in Edinburgh--is soon to become a BBC mini-series.

Best book to read if you're taking a Creative Writing class: Blue Angel, by Francine Prose is a great satire of contemporary academia.

Best feel-bad novel: Cordelia Strube wins this category every year and probably will as long as she keeps up her prolific pace. This year it's for The Barking Dog.

Best book to buy for a Christmas present (all ages): Little Lit, edited by Art Spiegelman and Franç#231;oise Mouly. Adult comic artists recondition fairy tales.

Best self-help book: Dr. Verne's Northern White-Trash Etiquette. Had to mention this since I got so many thank-you letters from Dr. Verne for reviewing it.