Please check back over the next day or two because I'll be adding links and commentary to this entry.

Your Choices for the Best Books You Read in 2003

First Category: Best Book (Overall)
There was not a winner in this category. Best books nominated included the following:

The Crimson Petal and the White by Michael Faber
The Kiterunner by Khaled Hosseini
Child of Mine: original Essays on Becoming a Mother, edited by Christina Baker Kline
Straight Man by Richard Russo
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Seabisuit by Laura Hillenbrand
Elizabeth Costello by J.M. Coetzee
By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept by Elizabeth Smart
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Best Book Published in 2003: Most respondents did not submit titles for this category. Again, there was no winner.

America's Women: Four Hundred Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines by Gail Collins
San Remo Drive: A Novel from Memory by Leslie Epstein
Every Secret Thing by Laura Lippman
The Small Boat of Great Sorrows by Dan Fesperman
Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane
Gulag by Anne Applebaum (I have not read this but plan to. I borrowed it from the library and was stunned by the depth and breadth of the research and its readability.)

Best Novel: The Lovely Bones and Drop City received two votes each and are the winners in this category.

San Remo Drive: A Novel from Memory by Leslie Epstein
The Dive from Clausen's Pier by Ann Packer
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
The Lovely Bonesby Alice Sebold
Straight Man by Richard Russo
Drop City by T.C. Boyle (see my posts of December 18 and 19)
Going Out by Scarlett Thomas
Old School by Tobias Wolff (see my post of November 25)
Operation Shylock by Phillip Roth

Best Nonfiction Book (Excluding Memoir) The winner, The Life You Save May Be Your Own, received two votes.

Stiff:The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage by Paul Elie
The Three Wise Men by Evan Thomas et al.
In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson
Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy by Jane Leavy
By Heart, Elizabeth Smart: A Life by Rosemary Sullivan
Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand
Gulag by Anne Applebaum
America's Women: Four Hundred Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines by Gail Collins

Best Memoir: (No winner)
Out of Step by Sidney Hook
She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders by Jennifer Finney Boylan (scroll down for Boylan interview)
Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table by Ruth Reichl
The Clinton Wars by Sidney Blumenthal

Best Technology Book: (When I chose this category, I was thinking of computer books. Not one was nominated.)
Chocolat: Extraordinary Chocolate Desserts by Alice Medrich
Transatlantic: Samuel Cunard, Isambard Brunel, and the Great Atlantic Steamships by Stephen Fox
The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling

Best Trashy Novel: (This was not a category, yet a number of people submitted nominations.) The Winner: The Da Vinci Code.
The Great and Secret Show & Everville by Clyde Barker
Maneater by Gigi Levangie Grazer
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (regarding the controversy in the Roman Catholic community)

Best Books-Oriented Blog: Maud Newton is the winner! Other nominees:
Woodge
Thiamin Trek
Bookslut Blog