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Greetings from Amazon.co.uk Delivers, Literature & Fiction
Editor, Rachel Holmes

FEATURED IN THIS E-MAIL:
* Bestsellers of 1999
* Editor's Choice: Best of 1999
* Preview of 2000

It has been quite a millennium--from a literary point of view.
Now, through the medium that is the most influential
technological innovation in the culture of letters since the
invention of the printing press, Amazon.co.uk brings you the
top titles of 1999.

Amongst bestsellers, Wilbur Smith whipped up a storm with
"Monsoon", Vikram Seth hit the right note with "An Equal Music"
and Iain Banks' latest novel was simply "The Business".
Featured among our literary editor's choices for 1999, JM
Coetzee's "Disgrace" found high favour with the Booker Prize
Judges, Ahdaf Soueif traced the topography of the heart in "The
Map of Love" and Ben Elton proved that hilarious books about IVF
and the vagaries of fertility are not "Inconceivable". And, for
the start of the next millennium, check out Amazon.co.uk's
Preview of 2000.

***BESTSELLERS OF 1999***
"The Edge of Reason"
by Helen Fielding
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/033036734X/entertainments08
The nation's favourite thirty-something singleton returns in
"The Edge of Reason", continuing "Bridget Jones's Diary", where
she lands the apparently perfect man, Mark Darcy. Bridget
broadens her horizons from muesli belt to palm-kissed shores in
search of spiritual fulfilment and sexual nirvana.

"Monsoon"
by Wilbur Smith
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/033376482X/entertainments08
It was "Monsoon" season in March this year, as Wilbur Smith's
latest blockbuster stormed its way up the bestseller lists. A
historical palimpsest of fraternal rivalry set in the smuggling,
slave-trading and swashbuckling high seas of the 18th century,
it continued the Courtney saga, in which Sir Hal Franklin
pursues his mission to rid the Indian Ocean of notorious pirate,
al-Aouf.

"An Equal Music"
by Vikram Seth
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0752818333/entertainments08
Set in the rarefied world of classical music performance,
Vikram Seth's "An Equal Music" hits the right note as a
bittersweet love story. After years of indulging memories of
Julia MacNicoll, the beautiful pianist he loved, narrator
Michael Holme spots her on a bus. A passion as stirring as a
Beethoven symphony is rekindled but something is off key.

"The Business"
by Iain Banks
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0316648442/entertainments08
An examination of the 90s phenomenon of corporate success, Iain
Banks' new novel unravels the story of an all-powerful
organisation, simply known as "The Business", whose attempts to
manipulate its way into politics have an unsettling effect on
the life of employee Kate Telman.

***EDITOR'S CHOICE: BEST OF 1999***
"Disgrace"
by JM Coetzee
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0436204894/entertainments08
JM Coetzee found favour with "Disgrace", the emotionally austere
allegory of life in the new South Africa which proved a popular
choice for the 1999 Booker Prize judges. Pitching the moral code
of political correctness against the values of Romantic poetry
in its evocation of personal relationships and the historical
unaccountability of one culture to another, Coetzee's latest is
one of the most remarkable books of the year.

"A Star Called Henry"
by Roddy Doyle
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0224060198/entertainments08
The anti-romantic star of Roddy Doyle's latest novel fights for
Irish freedom and workers' revolution. Finding the habit of
murder hard to break, Henry teaches guerrilla warfare to dairy
farmers and clerks, and falls in love with his blood-thirsty
teacher Miss O'Shea. Passionate, angry, wildly and darkly comic,
"A Star Called Henry" has something to offend everybody.

"The Map of Love"
by Ahdaf Soueif
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0747543674/entertainments08
When Isabel Parkman discovers the journal of her ancestor Lady
Anna Winterbourne in an old trunk, their troubled hearts and
histories are drawn irrevocably into an embracing family saga
spanning the enthralling epic of modern Egypt from colonial
plunder to modern nationalism. In "The Map of Love" bestselling
author Ahdaf Soueif touches the heart and nerves of love and
conflict in a beguiling journey through time and across cultures.

"Inconceivable"
by Ben Elton
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0593044797/entertainments08
Blackadder would definitely disapprove of Ben Elton's latest
novel, "Inconceivable". Lucy and Sam's thoroughly modern
struggle to conceive a child proves fertile ground for Elton's
aspish wit. The expected comedy kicks on every page, cradled
by a touching truth based on the author's own experiences.

***PREVIEW OF 2000***
"White Teeth"
by Zadie Smith
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/024113997X/entertainments08
Indecisive Archibald is married to the statuesque and stroppy
Clara. Archibald is as devoted to his wartime friend and
neighbour Samad, as to his gorgeous younger wife. Set between
wartime Russia and contemporary North London, "White Teeth" is
far from being another parochial narrative of the naval-gazing
classes--this North London sparks and crackles with hilarity,
in a multicultural melange brought to street-level life by
first-time author Zadie Smith's stylishly idiosyncratic and
biting prose.

"Blonde"
by Joyce Carol Oates
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1841153710/entertainments08
A novel based on the life of Marilyn Monroe, "Blonde" is set to
be one of the literary bombshells of 2000. Like her last novel,
"Broke Heart Blues", Joyce Carol Oates's latest novel explores
our age's ascendant idol of celebrity. Sharply funny and
painfully incisive the 753-page magnitude of "Blonde" is equal
to the sizeable charisma of its stellar subject and the sultry
stylistic expertise of one of America's foremost contemporary
writers.

"Mr Phillips"
by John Lanchester
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/057120161X/entertainments08
Fifty-something Victor Phillips is a senior-ish accountant with
respected City firm Wilkins & Co. Or rather, he was: unbeknown
to his sons, his saintly wife and his nosy suburban neighbours,
Mr Phillips has lost his job and doesn't know what to do next.
So, sadly, he does the most predictable thing: pretends he's
still in work. John Lanchester has taken an average day in an
averagely tragic life and made from it an amusing, perceptive
and poignant novel.

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