I thought something foreign-language would be good for my final nomination so I'm going with
The Elementary Particles (Also known as
Atomised) by Michel Houellebecq, which also happens to be from 2002. This sounds a little different from the types of selections we often read and also, though the French language has a huge literary tradition we haven't had many originally French-language selections. This won the International Dublin Literary Award which selects one winner per year from any book written in or translated into English, and though it's only been going since 1996 and so only has 23 winners so far, we've already read two books that have won this award- Remembering Babylon and The Master. The book is 328 pages.
Goodreads
Quote:
The Elementary Particles is a frighteningly original novel–part Marguerite Duras and part Bret Easton Ellis-that leaps headlong into the malaise of contemporary existence.
Bruno and Michel are half-brothers abandoned by their mother, an unabashed devotee of the drugged-out free-love world of the sixties. Bruno, the older, has become a raucously promiscuous hedonist himself, while Michel is an emotionally dead molecular biologist wholly immersed in the solitude of his work. Each is ultimately offered a final chance at genuine love, and what unfolds is a brilliantly caustic and unpredictable tale.
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