Best Books of the Year

Charlas75 Books Challenge for 2009

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Best Books of the Year

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1_Zoe_
Dic 29, 2009, 5:15 pm

This keeps coming up in conversation, so I'm going to go ahead and start a thread for it. If you fear for your TBR pile, stop reading now!

For those of us who have already realized that controlling the TBR pile is a lost cause, it would be nice to have a list of everyone's best reads of the year in one place. So, please go ahead and list! There's no particular limit on the number of books you can choose; I'd recommend going with about 10% of your total for the year (which means 6 or 7 for me and 50 for Stasia).

I'll be back soon with my own list....

2_Zoe_
Dic 29, 2009, 5:38 pm

Here's my list, in the order I read them:

The Secret Magdalene (historical fiction, ancient world)
28: Stories of AIDS in Africa (non-fiction)
Brave New World (dystopian fiction)
The City of Ember (children's dystopian fiction)
The Hunter's Moon (YA fantasy, fairies, Ireland)
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (non-fiction, Africa)
Anne of Green Gables (classic fiction)

I was a bit hesitant about including The City of Ember, because the third book in the series was so bad that it tainted my memory of the earlier ones, but I did really enjoy this at the time.

3drneutron
Dic 29, 2009, 7:07 pm

There were a few classics I'm not going to include on the list, but otherwise, here are my top rated books - all 5 stars:

Shutter Island (mystery/thriller) by Dennis Lehane
Zombie (horror) by Joyce Carol Oates
Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn
John Adams by David McCullough
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray by Chris Wooding

Some other highlights
The Lost City of Z by David Grann
Columbine by Dave Cullen
The Imaginarium Geographica series by James A. Owen

4Whisper1
Editado: Dic 29, 2009, 7:32 pm

I've read 157 books and doubt I'll finish another before the end of the year. Here are my favorites. 2009 was a wonderful year of reading. Thanks to all on our 75 challenge group for your great recommendations!

Here are my top reads:

1) The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt. My #1 choice. A must read!
2) Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boys by Gary D. Schmidt. Another wonderful book from this author, this one based on a true occurrence. Highly recommended.
3) Lori Lansens The Girls: A Novel. Touchstones rarely work for this one, thus I'm including the link:
http://www.librarything.com/work/325481/book/48741885
4) Search of The Moon King's Daughter by Linda Holeman.
5) Missing May by Cynthia Rylant
6) A View From Saturday by E.L. Konigsburg
7) The Concubine by Norah Lofts. One of the best books I've read regarding Anne Boleyn, and I've read many.
Touchstones rarely work for this book, here is the link:
http://www.librarything.com/work/173484/book/53932306
8) Abide With Me by Elizabeth Strout
9) The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak...excellent! excellent!
10) Hana's Suitcase by Karen Levine
11) A Lucky Child: A Memoir of Surviving Auschwitz As a Young Boy by Thomas Buergenthal
http://www.librarything.com/work/2910017/book/45965921
12) The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson
13) Kira-Kira by Cynthia Kadohata
14) Rush Home Road by Lori Lansens
15) Here If You Need Me by Kate Braestrap
16) A Certain Slant of Light by Laura Whitcomb

5alcottacre
Dic 29, 2009, 7:44 pm

My memorable reads for 2009 thus far are:

Nonfiction
Bound for the Promised Land by Kate Clifford Larson
Crazy Horse by Mari Sandoz
The Plays and Poems of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Volume 1
The Cobra's Heart by Ryszard Kapuscinski
The Eaves of Heaven by Andrew X. Pham
Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov
Love Letters from Cell 92 by Ruth-Alice von Bismarck and Ulrich Kabitz, editors
The Diary of Mary Berg by S.L. Shneiderman, editor
Lighthouse by Tony Parker
The Good Doctors by John Dittmer
Columbine by Dave Cullen
The Diary of Gideon Welles by Gideon Welles
The Peabody Sisters by Megan Marshall
Dr. Seuss Goes to War by Richard Minear
The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan
The Knowledge of the Holy by A.W. Tozer
Lower East Side Memories by Hasia Diner
A True Likeness: The Black South of Richard Samuel Roberts 1920-1936 by Richard Samuel Roberts
Warriors Don't Cry by Melba Pattillo Beals
Lost Battalions by Richard Slotkin
Have a Little Faith by Mitch Albom

Fiction
Plainsong by Kent Haruf
Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury
Tethered by Amy MacKinnon
Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
Maus and Maus II by Art Spiegelman
The Girls by Lori Lansens
The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather
So Long a Letter by Mariama Ba
Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome
Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith
The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway
Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay
Wizard of the Crow by Ngugi wa Thiong'o
Villette by Charlotte Bronte
Peace Like A River by Leif Enger
A City of Bells by Elizabeth Goudge
The Hummingbird's Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea
The Chosen by Chaim Potok
Green Grass, Running Water by Thomas King
A Brutal Telling by Louise Penny
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Young Adult/Juvenile
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Treasure of Green Knowe by L.M. Boston
The BFG by Roald Dahl
The View from Saturday by E.L. Konigsburg
The Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan
Summerland by Michael Chabon
The Underneath by Kathi Appelt
Life as We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer
The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan
The Grey King by Susan Cooper
Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta

It is only December 29th - I am still reading!

6Whisper1
Dic 29, 2009, 7:48 pm

Stasia.

In reading your list, I realize that some books you mentioned were ones that I should have noted as well. For example The BGF was one of my favorites. Also, Tethered and The Things They Carried. Thanks for the reminder!

7_Zoe_
Dic 29, 2009, 8:03 pm

Since I wanted to do this somewhere for my own benefit, I thought I might as well put it here. Some touchstones for Stasia's list:

Nonfiction
Bound for the Promised Land by Kate Clifford Larson
Crazy Horse by Mari Sandoz
The Plays and Poems of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Volume 1
The Cobra's Heart by Ryszard Kapuscinski
The Eaves of Heaven by Andrew X. Pham
Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov
Love Letters from Cell 92 by Ruth-Alice von Bismarck and Ulrich Kabitz, editors
The Diary of Mary Berg by S.L. Shneiderman, editor
Lighthouse by Tony Parker
The Good Doctors by John Dittmer
Columbine by Dave Cullen
The Diary of Gideon Welles by Gideon Welles
The Peabody Sisters by Megan Marshall
Dr. Seuss Goes to War by Richard Minear
The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan
The Knowledge of the Holy by A.W. Tozer
Lower East Side Memories by Hasia Diner
A True Likeness: The Black South of Richard Samuel Roberts 1920-1936 by Richard Samuel Roberts
Warriors Don't Cry by Melba Pattillo Beals
Lost Battalions by Richard Slotkin
Have a Little Faith by Mitch Albom

Fiction
Plainsong by Kent Haruf
Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury
Tethered by Amy MacKinnon
Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
Maus and Maus II by Art Spiegelman
The Girls by Lori Lansens
The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather
So Long a Letter by Mariama Ba
Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome
Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith
The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway
Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay
Wizard of the Crow by Ngugi wa Thiong'o
Villette by Charlotte Bronte
Peace Like A River by Leif Enger
A City of Bells by Elizabeth Goudge
The Hummingbird's Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea
The Chosen by Chaim Potok
Green Grass, Running Water by Thomas King
A Brutal Telling by Louise Penny
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Young Adult/Juvenile
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Treasure of Green Knowe by L.M. Boston
The BFG by Roald Dahl
The View from Saturday by E.L. Konigsburg
The Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan
Summerland by Michael Chabon
The Underneath by Kathi Appelt
Life as We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer
The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan
The Grey King by Susan Cooper
Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta

8cyderry
Dic 29, 2009, 8:48 pm

I read 162 books this year and here is my list of my top 16 in my order of ranking.

Rhett Butler's People
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Patriarch:George Washington and the new American Nation
Shadow Queen
Mistress of the Art of Death
John Adams
Still Life by Louise Penny
Inferno
The Time Traveller's Wife
The Language of Bees
His Majesty's Dragon
The Alexandria Link
Death Qualified: A Mystery of Chaos
Capitve Heart
The Kitchen God's Wife
Sunrise

9alcottacre
Dic 29, 2009, 11:24 pm

#7: I should have thought of that myself, Zoe. Thanks for taking care of it for me.

10Whisper1
Dic 29, 2009, 11:44 pm

I'm not sure what is going on with the touchstones, but they don't seem to work as well as they could.

11lindapanzo
Editado: Dic 31, 2009, 10:18 am

I'll go with my 10 favorite reads this year (in approximate order), out of the 155 books I read:

1. John Adams by David McCullough
2. The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny
3. Admission by Jean Hanff Korelitz
4. Columbine by Dave Cullen
5. Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure: The True Story of a Great American Road Trip by Matthew Algeo
6. Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy by Jane Leavy
7. The Ninth Daughter by Barbara Hamilton
8. The Survivors Club by Ben Sherwood
9. Society's Child by Janis Ian
10. The Gardner Heist: The True Story of the World's Largest Unsolved Art Theft by Ulrich Boser

13iansales
Dic 30, 2009, 4:27 am

I usually write about my best books of the year on my blog, and this year's piece is here.

14clfisha
Dic 30, 2009, 5:50 am

Out of 116 books here's my top 11 memorable reads in no particular order, all horrible squeezed into the nearest genre.

1. Last Days by Brian Evenson (horror)
2. The Club of Queer Trades by G k Chesterton (short odd detective fiction)
3. Musical Illusionist by Alex Rose (um...)
4. Thicker Than Water: A Felix Castor Novel by Mike Carey (urban fantasy)
5. The Pirates! in an Adventure with Communists series by Gideon Defoe (humour)
6. Thomas Wogan is Dead by David Hughes (comic)
7. The Manual of Detection by Jerebdiah Berry (crime/fantasy)
8. The City and The City by China Mieville (um.. thriller/fantasy)
9. London Labour and the London Poor by Henry Mayhew (non fiction, journalism)
10.Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan (fantasy)
11.Black Juice By Margo Lanagan (short stories, horror/fantasy)

15rebeccanyc
Dic 30, 2009, 8:34 am

I posted this list elsewhere on LT, but I'll add it here. Within each category, books are more or less in the order I read them, with most recent first. It was a great reading year!

Contemporary and Recent Fiction
American Salvage by Bonnie Jo Campbell -- recommended by avaland/Lois
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel -- recommended by Kidzdoc/Darryl
A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel
The Giant, O'Brien by Hilary Mantel
Homer and Langley by E. L. Doctorow
The Glass Room by Simon Mawer -- recommended by Kidzdoc/Darryl
Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann
Nobody Move by Denis Johnson
2666 by Roberto Bolaño

Older Fiction
Everything Flows by Vassily Grossman
The War at the End of the World by Mario Vargas Llosa
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
Joseph and His Brothers by Thomas Mann
Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner
The Cost of Living by Mavis Gallant (written a while ago but newly collected this year)
A Perfect Spy by John le Carré
Smiley's People by John le Carré
The Honourable Schoolboy by John le Carré
Bosnian Chronicle by Ivo Andrić
In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O'Brien
Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin
Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada
The Emperor's Tomb by Joseph Roth
The Snows of Yesteryear by Gregor von Rezzori

Nonfiction
How Markets Fail: The Logic of Economic Calamities by John Cassidy
Giving Up the Ghost by Hilary Mantel
The Coldest March: Scott's Fatal Antarctic Expedition by Susan Solomon
Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s by Frederick Lewis Allen
The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914 by Barbara W. Tuchman
Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945 by David M. Kennedy
The Great Crash 1929 by John Kenneth Galbraith

16Cait86
Dic 30, 2009, 11:52 am

Here are my Top Ten, with number 1 being my absolute favourite:

1. The Children’s Book - touchstone not working :S
2. In the Skin of a Lion
3. All the Pretty Horses
4. The Blind Assassin
5. Any Known Blood
6. The Road
7. The Boy Next Door
8. Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood
9. Dangerous Liaisons
10. The Cellist of Sarajevo

17lauranav
Dic 30, 2009, 1:48 pm

I've been avoiding this thread since Zoe started it. Not for fear I'd add to my TBR stack, I've already done that through the year as I followed most of you. But really, it's been a fantastic reading year, how do I reduce it to a short list?
But at 150+ read, surely I can come up with a list of just 15. Here goes.

Fiction
1. The Bird in the Tree by Elizabeth Goudge
2. The Heart of the Family by Elizabeth Goudge
3. City of Bells by Elizabeth Goudge
4. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
5. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer
6. A Rule Against Murder by Louise Penny
7. The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny
8. Still Life by Louise Penny
9. The Calligrapher's Daughter by Eugenia Kim
10. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Nonfiction
1. The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom
2. Not Knowing Where by Oswald Chambers
3. Unpacking Forgiveness by Chris Brauns
4. Let Go: Live Free of the Burdens All Women Know by Sheila Walsh
5. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami

But see, now I've left out The Book Thief.

19FAMeulstee
Dic 30, 2009, 3:53 pm

of the 78 books I read in 2009:

5 stars - 7 books listed here
4 1/2 stars - 9 books
4 stars - 39 books
3 1/2 stars - 12 books
3 stars - 7 books
2 stars - 3 books
1 star - 1 book

The absolutely true diary of a part-time Indian by Sherman Alexie
Clay by David Almond
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Het kleine meisje van meneer Linh by Philippe Claudel
Mevrouw Verona daalt de heuvel af by Dimitri Verhulst
The book thief by Markus Zusak

20porch_reader
Dic 30, 2009, 3:55 pm

Because I've read so many great books this year, I'm having trouble picking my favorites. But I think I've settled on the top 5 fiction, nonfiction, and young adult/juvenile books from 2009.

Top 5 Fiction:
The Lacuna - Barbara Kingsolver
The Sparrow - Mary Doria Russell
Krik? Krak! - Edwidge Danticat
Unaccustomed Earth - Jhumpa Lahiri
Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout

Top 5 Non-fiction:
The Glass Castle - Jeannette Walls
The Zookeeper's Wife - Diane Ackerman
Outcasts United: A Refugee Team, An American Town - Warren St. John
Enough: Discovering Joy through Simplicity and Generosity - Adam Hamilton
Bird by Bird - Anne Lamott

Top 5 YA/Juvenile:
The Wednesday Wars - Gary D. Schmidt
The Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman
The Giver - Lois Lowry
The BFG - Roald Dahl
When Santa Fell to Earth - Cornelia Funke

21cerievans1
Dic 31, 2009, 8:02 am

In no particular order, my top 11 of the year. I have hardly read any non-fiction this year.

1. The Invisible Wall by Harry Bernstein
2. Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto
3. The Flying Troutmans by Miriam Toews
4. Mersey Sound poetry compilation by Adrian Henri, Roger McGough, Brian Patten
5. Risotto with nettles: A memoir by Anna del Conte
6. The Book of Chameleons by Jose Eduardo Agualusa
7. A Hero's Walk by Anita Rau Badami
8. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
9. The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt
10. The Rain before it falls by Jonothan Coe
11. The Gentleman in the Parlour: A Record of a Journey from Rangoon to Haiphong by W. Somerset Maugham.

Let down of the year: The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters.

22Donna828
Dic 31, 2009, 9:54 am

I read 92 books this year. My favorite nine are:

1. Cutting for Stone
2. Lark and Termite
3. The Help
4. The Well and the Mine
5. The Given Day
6. Last Night in Twisted River
7. The Brothers Karamazov
8. The Great Santini

And a token nonfiction:
9. Zeitoun

23MarianV
Dic 31, 2009, 10:09 am

Here are some that stood our from the rest-
(No special order)

Mistriss of the art of death & The Serpents tale by Ariana Franklin
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
Lark and Termite Jayne Ann Phillips
If Morning ever comes & Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Ann Tyler
Home Marilynne Robinson

24missylc
Dic 31, 2009, 10:17 am

My faves from the year included (mostly fiction, unless otherwise indicated):

The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver (non-fiction)
Atonement by Ian McEwan
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Out Stealing Horses by Per Pettersen
Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant by Jenni Ferrari-Adler (food essays)
Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn
City of Beasts by Isabel Allende (YA)
Coraline by Neil Gaiman (YA)
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (YA)
Echo in the Bone by Diana Gabaldon

25scohva
Dic 31, 2009, 10:48 am

Read 70, but must include 10. My favorites of the year, in no order:

1. Mother's Milk by Edward St. Aubyn
2. L.A. Confidential by James Ellroy
3. A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel
4. Nineteen Seventy Four by David Peace
5. Out of Sheer Rage by Geoff Dyer (nonfiction)
6. Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín
7. Dry Storeroom no. 1 by Richard Fortey (nonfiction)
8. Freedom and Necessity by Steven Brust and Emma Bull
9. To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
10. How to Paint a Dead Man by Sarah Hall

26Whisper1
Ene 1, 2010, 1:37 pm

Message 23
MarianV

Oh how I love the books of Ann Tyler. Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant was the first book I read of hers (years ago) and I was hooked from that time on.

27HighlandLad
Editado: Ene 2, 2010, 2:30 pm

I’ve only just found these sites, and haven’t posted here before (this is my first post on the LT groups), but here’s my list of the 19 novels I read in 2009 that I considered masterpieces, amongst the finest of their type – in no particular order, just the order in which I read them.

1. The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
2. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
3. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
4. North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
5. Therese Raquin by Emile Zola
6. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
7. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
8. Nostromo by Joseph Conrad
9. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
10. We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
11. Room at the Top by John Braine
12. My Antonia by Willa Cather
13. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
14. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
15. A Month in the Country by J L Carr
16. Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac
17. The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
18. Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
19. Bel-Ami by Guy de Maupassant

That makes 19 out of the 109 novels (17% ) I read, so I must count that a lucky year. Or maybe I’m getting more discriminating. I will start posting on the 75 books challenge for 2010.