Modern First Editions 2000-2009

Cloud Atlas is the third book by British author David Mitchell, and consists of six nested stories that span from the 19th century into a distant post-apocalyptic future. Each story within the book is read or observed by the main character of the next story, and as the first five stories are interrupted at a pivotal moment, the last part of the novel ties everything together and closes each story in reverse chronological order. The melding of wildly different stories is often praised by critics, who claim it makes the work fantastic and complex, and the challenge of the text puts into the 'puzzle book' genre. Cloud Atlas won the British Book Awards Literary Fiction Award and the Richard & Judy Book of the Year award, and was short-listed for the 2004 Booker Prize, Nebula Award, Arthur C. Clarke Award, and other awards, placing it among the most-honored works of fiction in recent history. A film adaptation of the same name was released in 2012.

The Road is a post-apocalyptic tale about the journey of a father and a son through a harrowing landscape of a devastated world where life is a constant battle for survival against elements, hunger, and cannibals. The father is ill and knows he is dying but hopes to get the boy to the sea where he imagines there is a kind of safety. The idea for the novel came to McCarthy while on a trip in 2003 with his young son to whom the book is dedicated. Many of the conversations between father and son in the book are based on conversations between the author and his own son, so much so that he claims his son is co-author of the book. The Road won the 2007 Pulitzer for literature and was also adapted into a movie. McCarthy, who is known as a reclusive writer, gave an unexpected and rare interview to Oprah in 2007 following the inclusion of the book in sales boosting book club. The book has now sold nearly a 1.5 million copies.

The Help centers around African American maids working in white households in Jackson, Mississippi during the early 1960s, told from the perspective of three characters: Aibileen Clark, Minny Jackson, and Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan. Skeeter has just returned to her family's cotton farm after graduating from college, with hopes of becoming a writer, although her mother wants her to focus on marrying. Realizing the inequalities faced by the black maids that work for her and other white families in town, most notably through the story of her own childhood maid Constantine, Skeeter begins to write a book about their lives but is faced with reservation and suspicion from the black community. Eventually gaining their trust she partners with the women to expose the deplorable conditions faced by the domestic workers and the brutal characters found in what was thought to be the polite white society. Stockett's first novel, it took her five years to complete and was rejected by 60 literary agents over three years. After publication by Penguin Books in 2009 it has sold over seven million copies and spent more than 100 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list. It was adapted into a film released in 2011.