Love these threads, don't you?

Here's the spot to mention your top reads of the last three months, quarter three of 2009 and perhaps add a short comment about each one. "Five" is a guideline, not a rule, but long lists defeat the purpose. Just try to keep your total 'best reads' for the quarter down to a minimum.

I've opened the thread early so you can start thinking about it, wringing your hands and pacing, as you try to whittle down your lists! And there's still two weeks of reading left this quarter!

Best reads from Q2: http://www.librarything.com/topic/66808
Best reads from Q1: http://www.librarything.com/topic/60771

Hard to believe, but this is the THIRD year we've been doing these quarterly lists. . .

Message edited by its author, Sep 17, 2009, 12:50pm.

I've been very busy with our new web zine, Belletrista.com all summer and my reading has suffered somewhat — I tended towards some lighter stuff, mysteries and such. But . . .

Two novels which make my list:

A Peculiar Grace by Jeffrey Lent. Wonderfully written, wise and rural. A middle-aged man finally grows up.
My Driver by Maggie Gee. Witty, fast-paced, and just plain enjoyable.
The Hunter by Julia Leigh. Taut, mesmerizing character study about obsession.
Jamilia by Tchingiz Aïtmatov. A very short and lovely love story set during WWII but seems mythical.

A Collection:

Mysteries of Winterthurn by Joyce Carol Oates. A spectacular collection of three novella/novelettes. American gothic set in a imagined 19th century upstate New York small city.

A notable anthology:
Decapolis: Tales from Ten Cities, edited by Maria Crossan. Some stellar stories, some just ok, but all interesting.

edited to add more titles!

Message edited by its author, Sep 27, 2009, 8:35pm.

I really do love these threads because they give me so many new books to check out!

My top five, in order:

A Pin to See the Peepshow by F. Tennyson Jesse
Open the Door! by Catherine Carswell
One Moonlit Night by Caradog Prichard
The Voluptuous Delights of Peanut Butter and Jam by Lauren Liebenberg
The Last Magician by Janette Turner Hospital

It's been a very good quarter so far:

1. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
2. The Glass Room by Simon Mawer
3. Medical London: City of Diseases, City of Cures by Richard Barnett
4. Journey into the Past by Stefan Zweig
5. Zeitoun by Dave Eggers

Honorable mention:

Flaw by Magdalena Tulli
Chess Story by Stefan Zweig
Brixton Beach by Roma Tearne

I may add The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt and/or The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters to either list by the end of the month.

I've listed a few series because I can't pick just one book from them, but this is basically it:

The Tamir Trilogy by Lynn Flewelling. Great dark fantasy trilogy with compelling characters.

Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer, books 1-4. My son and I have listened to the first three books and are near the end of The Opal Deception. Despite not liking the main character off the start of the first book, both Artemis and the stories in general have really grown on me. The rub is I'm not sure if I would have ever even gotten through the first book had I been reading as opposed to listening, but I have to say that the audio books have been such a wonderful experience it would be negligent to discount them :-)

The Smoke Trilogy by Tanya Huff. This is a dark, urban fantasy series which continuously made me laugh out loud. The main character is quite snarky and I really enjoyed him.

The Ghost Belonged to Me by Richard Peck. A very delightful young adult story written way back when I was a young adult that I've just discovered. It really drew me in.

Street Magic by Caitlin Kittredge. An urban fantasy that manages to pull itself above what seems to be the growing cliche of the genre.

Message edited by its author, Sep 23, 2009, 9:46am.

Mine are:

Strength in What Remains by Tracy Kidder - biography of a Burundi immigrant who survives genocide and hardship to go on to help others
City of Thieves by David Benioff - WWII novel set in Russia
Abundance of Katherines by John Green - YA title about teens on a road trip coming to grips with who they are
The Odyssey: A Dramatic Retelling of Homer's Epic by Simon Armitage - a surprisingly entertaining verse/play retelling done for radio
Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco Stork - a YA title about a high-functioning teen with Asberger's-like syndrome who summers at his father's law firm

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
The Patron Saint of Liars by Ann Patchett

And, I think, The Likeness by Tana Frenchwhich I am reading now. Only four so far. I had two rereads this quarter. Might squeeze in a fifth new favorite from my robust TBR pile before the end of the month.

Read a lot this quarter. Here are some of the best, in no particular order:
Non-fiction:
Doubt:a history by Jennifer Michael Hecht
Bad science by Ben Goldacre
SF:
A deepness in the sky by Vernor Vinge
Look to windward by Iain M. Banks
Fantasy:
Red seas under red skies by Scott Lynch
The princess bride by William Goldman

PS. Damn these author touchstones are broken. Consider this a test of my attempt to fix them Jeffrey Lent Jane Yolen Stefan Zweig Tanya Huff Richard Peck

Since I'm quite sure I won't be finishing Les Miserables this month (it'll go on next quarter's list!), here we go:

In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust. Started last Sept., finished a few weeks ago, the best book I've ever read.

Three books by E.M. Forster:
Howards End (great story with dense layers of meaning)
Maurice (homosexual love story, beautiful, resonant)
Aspects of the Novel (has already greatly affected the way I read and understand literature)

and King Lear by William Shakespeare (at long last I think I get this Shakespeare guy!)

Message edited by its author, Sep 17, 2009, 10:48am.

I've spent much of the quarter slowly reading Thomas Mann's massive Joseph and His Brothers, which will go on my best list whenever I manage to finish it, but this has cut into my other reading so this hasn't been my greatest quarter for books. Nonetheless . . .

Fiction

Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann -- a beautifully written and deeply moving novel of intersecting stories and how the characters, often grieving and tormented, find their lives lightened by love and the human drive to do more than just survive.

A Perfect Spy by John le Carré -- a perfect spy novel that is really more a story of love, betrayal, family, and the impact of personal and political history.

The Glass Room by Simon Mawer -- the story of a family who built a modern house with a glass room and what happens as their world falls apart both historically and emotionally; more interesting and moving than this summary sounds. Thanks to Darryl/kidzdoc for his recommendation.

Homer and Langley by E. L. Doctorow -- great writing, wonderfully drawn characters, and oblique comments on history and the meaning of history.

Nonfiction
The Coldest March: Scott's Fatal Antarctic Expedition by Susan Solomon -- a fascinating and thrilling melding of diaries by men on the expedition with what modern science tells us about their experiences; it also rovides interesting insights into such topics as how well skis work under different temperature and snow conditions, how to get into a frozen sleeping bag, and how to choose ponies for polar conditions, among others.

>3 christiguc: you could make a really interesting sentence out of all those titles!

I'll give it a go but may add later. In no particular order:

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
The Day the Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan
The Colour by Rose Tremain
The Invention of Everything Else by Samantha Hunt
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

The almost rans:

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
In Hovering Flight by Joyce Hinnefeld
The Magician's Assistant by Ann Patchett

>10 rebeccanyc, I didn't realize you had read the McCann, although I know cabegley did. That's two great endorsements in my book (and luckily she sent me the book!)

>8 My lack of author touchstones is actually my own fault. I stopped trying to do author touchstones during a period some time ago when they never seemed to work. Just got out of the habit.

>I'm dithering with How Fiction Works by James Wood, but not dithering enough to put it on my reading list. . .

OK here we go...my list might be updated if I read anything superb over the next few weeks (in no particular order):

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout - I finally read this because everyone on LT was raving about it, and I wasn't disappointed
What Would Dewey Do? by Gene Ambaum and Bill Barnes - a comic strip about a library that makes me laugh at the humor in my job and people
Fahrenheit 451 by Ran Bradbury - read in one afternoon/evening
Labor Day by Joyce Maynard - I fell in love with the cover, and then with the story
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens - a classic that starts off slowly but is chock-full of memorable characters

Message edited by its author, Sep 28, 2009, 10:48pm.

>8 Thanks for that. I didn't even realize they could be fixed. I just kind of curse the red touchstone and move on.

#14: I'm a programmer. The way I 'fixed' them was to figure out how the code for author touchstones works and write a 100-line greasemonkey script that adds an option to override the usual process and use the 'author search' page instead. It's still a bit rough so I wasn't planning on releasing it just yet (also don't know where I would announce such a thing), but if you really want to try get it here.

#11: Rose Tremain Marilynne Robinson Dodie Smith Ann Patchett ;)

Authors are /author/lastfirst, so you can just type < a href=/author/smithdodie >Dodie Smith< /a > which is fine--as long as you aren't typing too many authors.

#12 avaland, I guess you've been so busy you haven't been reading my Club Read 2009 or 75 Book Challenge threads! (Perfectly understandable, with Belletrista as a result.) Also, I started How Fiction Works over a year ago and have made zero progress.

>17 Sadly, not keeping up as well as before, but I did see you started a new thread:-) In a pinch, I sometimes skim the person's thread, looking for that person's posts, and skipping over the responses - and I do miss things this way.

I read the first chapter of the Wood, but it seems I should read it again. Not sure I digested it well.

Testing: Rose Tremain.

Wow, works! christiguc, you're so clever!!!

Message edited by its author, Sep 18, 2009, 3:10am.

I've been a bit slow this quarter, so my top THREE are:

1) Biblioholism: The Literary Addiction by Tom Raabe - something every LT-er can relate to!
2) Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs - mad, utterly brilliant memoir of being taken in by his insane mother's equally insane psychiatrist
3) The World According to Mimi Smartypants by 'Mimi Smartypants' - funny, quirky blog-turned-book by a Chicago woman-about-town

Message edited by its author, Sep 18, 2009, 9:47am.

"Submarine" by Edward L. Beach
This was Beach's first book. In it he tells not only his experiences during his ten war patrols but in alternating chapters tells the story of other famous Submarines and crews. Anyone who has read anything about submarines in the Pacific will recognize the names of Wahoo, Tang, Trigger, Batfish, Archerfish etc. In it you see the development of the tactics that were used so successfully in WW 2.
You can also see where he gets all his the material for "Run Silent Run Deep", it's not just a novel but in many ways autobiographcal.
I think every script writer in Hollywood read this book. Because in it I can see every submarine movie that was made in the 50's

Lest Darkness Fall by L. Sprague De Camp
An other blast from the past. Martin Padway is visiting Rome, and is whisked back to 535 A.D.. Where he introduces brandy, modern book keeping, printing presses and movable type, news papers and manages to save the world the 1000 years time called the Dark Ages. The story often humorous and brings to mind A 'Connecticut Yankee' in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain. Just enjoyable and fun to read.

"Ned Myers; of A Life Before The Mast" edited by James Fenimore Cooper
What a great book. Ned Myers ran away to sea at age 10 and he says of it ;
"Some idea may be formed of my recklessness, and ignorance of such matters, at this time, from the circumstance that I do not remember ever to have known the name of the vessel in which I left Nova Scotia. Change an adventure were my motives, and it never occurred to me to inquire into a fact that was so immaterial to one of my temperment. To this hour, I am ignorant on the subject"

His whole carreer seems to be like this. One of shifting sands and impulse.
Some of his stories seem to be a little far fechted, he seems to have mastered the art of the 'Sea Story' or 'Whopper' and could revial Mark Twains "Tall Tales"

He is full of regret for the lost opprtunities that he squandered, and the dangers of too much grog. He doesn't spend alot of time beating himself for this but does warns younger men not to waste them if they come their way. He uses witty sayings all though the book to great advantage;

"Sailors make their money like horses, and spend it like asses"
or "... it being the fate of seaman to encounter the greatest risks and hardships in company, and then to cut adrift from each other, with little ceremony, never to meet again".

Overall it was a great read. Not so much about the day to day living like Dana's Two years Before the Mast, Meleville's White Jacket, Bluejacket: An Autobiography by Fred J. Buenzle , but like a fine painting it shows the whole colorfull pallat of a mans life, good and bad.

At All Costs: How a Crippled Ship and Two American Merchant Mariners Turned the Tide of World War II by Sam Moses
(This one will make my best of list for 2009)
This is the story of "Operation Pedesetal". Which was the name of the convoy to resupply the Island of Malta after two years of constant bombing by German and Italian forces. This convoy was the most well armed and protected convoy and the most attacked convoy in history. After a six day running battle (being bombed in the day time and attacked by E-Boats at night) Only 5 merchant ships out of 15 made to Malta. These 5 ships carried enough cargo and fuel to keep Malta going for another three months and allowed the British 10th submarine force to sink enough axis ships that forced Rommel to retreat and allowed America time to join forces with the Britsh Army and retake northern Africa, Sicily and force the Italians to surrender.
It's also the story of two Merchant Seaman, Fred Larson a vertern Merchant Marine Officer and a Merchant Seaman Cadet Lonnie Dale. These two men reboarded (this action made other reboard to help) the oiler SS Ohio after in had been abanded to repair it's guns to fight off German dive bombers and Italian "E" boats for two days.

I had a good 3rd qtr and looking forward to a better 4th:
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout This one sits firmly at the top! Stunning!
City of Thieves by David Benioff
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Non-fiction:
Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson Search for a missing U-boat! Outstanding!
The Big Con by Jonathan Chait Perfect read for present times!

I love when these threads start! Work is so busy right now I think I am safe to list the following 'Faves' for 3Q09:

All of the following received 5 star ratings from me for the quarter and here are my top 5:

Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks
The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway
The Traitor's Wife by Susan Higginbotham
Little Bee by Chris Cleave
City of Shadows by Ariana Franklin
Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill

Honorable mention - and also received a 5 star rating this quarter:

The Disappeared by Kim Echlin

Now I need to go through the thread and add to my TBR pile!

Message edited by its author, Sep 23, 2009, 12:23am.

I need to amend #11 and add: The Earth Hums in B Flat by Mari Strachan. Wonderful book.

>23 lkernagh - Hey, that's 6 - shameless cheating there! ;-)

>24, yeah, I had to add Mysteries of Winterthurn, I may have to add the other Oates I'm reading but the jury is still out.

I've done quite a lot of reading this quarter, so I was afraid this list would be difficult, but five books rose directly to the top, and I am pleased to see there are two nonfiction as well as my usual novel and stories. Also, there are two books that I've put off reading for some reason or other (one for almost 20 years), and a book that I was reading for the third time. So, kind of a mixed bag:

A Summer of Hummingbirds by Christopher Benfey -- fascinating book about the intersecting worlds of American writers, artists, and thinkers of the mid-to-late 1800s. Benfey's web may be a bit too fanciful at times, but it is lovely, gossamer, with Emily Dickinson at its heart.

Alice James: A Biography by Jean Strouse -- excellent biography of Henry and William's sister; sheds light on the James family, but also on the plight of so many women of that time who had no outlet for their creative and intellectual passions, who were often diagnosed with various types of "hysterical" illness.

A River Runs Through It and Other Stories by Norman Maclean -- the edition I own has an introduction by Annie Proulx -- not that this book needs an introduction. but I liked what she had to say.

Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald -- Winner of the Booker Prize in 1979, here is another of those amazing Fitzgerald worlds -- in this case of people living on barges moored along the Thames. Her gift for characterization is so deft, so seemingly effortless. Here's a line I wrote down -- about a 6-year-old, Tilda, who "cared nothing for the future, and had, as a result, a great capacity for happiness." You really need to meet Tilda.

The Girl from Cardigan by Leslie Norris -- this was my reread -- oh, dear, I love these stories. For example, there is "Shaving", which seems such a simple tale: a young man gives his invalid father a shave. I read that story twice just to marvel at how Norris revealed so much about this father and son in such a few pages. Norris was also a poet and you see that in these sixteen beautiful stories.

Message edited by its author, Sep 24, 2009, 8:42pm.

>25 elliepotten - You right..... it was such a good quarter for reading I just couldn't narrow it down further...not without feeling like I was slighting a book :-)

I think I can do this now. My current book is so thick I doubt I'l even finish it before the end of the month. In order:

1. Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres - loved this, can't believe I've never read it before. To me, it was all the fantastical, beautiful things you love about something by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, but thankfully without the magical realism. (5 stars)

2. March by Geraldine Brooks (5 stars) - a well-written affecting little gem of a novel fitting in with all my Civil War reading as of late.

3. The Civil War: A Narrative Vol 2, Fredricksburg to Meridian by Shelby Foote - non-fiction so tough for me, but gripping. (4 1/2 stars)

4. The Ghost Road by Pat Barker - gruesome, sad end to her WW1 historical fiction trilogy. very disturbing. (4 1/2 stars)

5. Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates - well written, like watching a train-wreck happening (4 stars)

In no certain order.
Gods and Generals Jeff Shaara

Rashi's Daughter Book I Joheved Maggie Anton

Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte

The Kite Runner Khaled Hasseine

Travels with Charlie John Steinbeck.

I have read too many good books this quarter. Really hard to decide.

The best of all book is Night Watch by Sara Waters
The Serpent's tale Ariana Franklin
Olive Kitteridge Elizabeth Strout
Caught in the Middle by Richard Longworth an ER book about the decline of the Midwest due to globalization
Disturbances in the Field
by Sharon Schwartz

I think we are close enough to the end of the quarter for me to venture an opinion. I read much more non-fiction than fiction, but all the non-fiction was closer to serviceable than it was to great. So my favorites of the quarter are novels, all commendable without reservation:

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
The Big Sky by A.B. Guthrie, Jr.
The Way West by A. B. Guthrie, Jr.

Robert

Message edited by its author, Sep 28, 2009, 1:29am.

well...I read Fahrenheit 451 today, and had to update my list as a result...but I think I'm safe now for the rest of the quarter.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield and
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer

Loved them all.

The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
The Likeness by Tara French
The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
City of Thieves by David Benioff

and now i'm late for work so I must run rather than ponder what the fifth book should be!

The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson
A Fatal Grace by Louise Penny
Columbine by Dave Cullen
Closing Time by Joe Queenan
Perdido Street Station by China Mieville

Hmmm. A better quarter than I remembered.

Arven etter arn by Jan Guillou
The Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follet
World without end, Ken Follet
The Cathedral of the sea, Ildefonso Falcones
The Angels game by Carlos Ruiz Zafron

Message edited by its author, Sep 29, 2009, 12:58pm.

My five best reads of this quarter were:

Autumn Bridge - Takashi Matsuoka
The True Story of Hansel and Gretel - Louise Murphy
My Life In France - Julia Child
Shanghai Station - Bartle Bull
The Virgin of Small Plains - Nancy Pickard

I don't expect to finish another before October 1, so my best are:

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (YA)
John Adams by David McCullough (NF)
The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
The Lost City of Z by David Grann (NF)

hmm, no link for McCullough? What's up with that?

Message edited by its author, Sep 29, 2009, 3:46pm.

Favorite 3Q Reads:
The Corn King and the Spring Queen, Naomi Mitchison
Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier
Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather
The Gargoyle, Andrew Davidson
The Red Tree, Caitlin R. Kiernan

1. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
2. Brooklyn by Colm Toibin
3. Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
4. The Glass Room by Simon Mawer, tied with
4. The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

A great quarter!

Okay, let's see if I can keep this to 5. My current reads are good but even if I finish they won't make the cut with 40+ other books read this quarter. In no order, expect perhaps the order in which I read them:

1. The Seamstress by Frances De Pontes Peebles
2. The Last Days of the Lacuna Cabal by Sean Dixon
3. Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger
4. City of Refuge by Tom Piazza
5. The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova

And three YA books that have to be included:
1. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
2. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
3. Nothing But Ghosts by Beth Kephart

I've been waiting to finish my last book because I had a hunch it should appear on this list -- and it does. My five favorite reads of this quarter in the order that I read them:

1. Small Island by Andrea Levy
2. The Help by Kathryn Stockett
3. The Great Santini by Pat Conroy
4. Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
5. The Hummingbird's Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea

Mine are in the order read. I read 24 books in the quarter.

The Rapture by Liz Jensen - the tension in this novel is wonderful. It keeps building and building.

A Test of Wills by Charles Todd - I really liked the descriptions of WWI soldiers' experiences and how they coped with coming back to Britain after being demobilized.

The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson - amazingly, even better than The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I'm devastated that there are only 3 books by this marvelous author - all three published posthumously.

A Cafe on the Nile by Bartle Bull - a rollicking pre-WWII story with dwarfs, safaris, the Italian invasion of Africa, love, and Egypt. I want to read more by him.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows - the title put me off for a long time, but ignore it! Read this wonderful book about the heroism, ingenuity, and eccentricities of the people of Guernsey when the Germans invaded in WWII.

It appears that I'm very interested in WWI and WWII right now from looking at what I picked as my best reads.

Message edited by its author, Sep 30, 2009, 12:59pm.

Okay, now that the quarter is officially over, here is my list in order read:

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Say You're One of Them by Uwem Akpan
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

I see several of my recent purchases listed here so it looks like I have good ones to look forward to.

To the novels I have listed above I will now add the non-fiction The Peabody Sisters by Megan Marshall. It was not a super book, but it was the one compelling non-fiction book of the quarter, and I am quite pleased to have read it. It certainly contributed to my understanding of the origins of transcendentalism; it also contributed to my understanding of the roles of women in the early United States.

Robert

How I Became a Famous Novelist by Steve Hely
Parnassus On Wheels by Christopher Morley
How to Say Goodbye in Robot by Natalie Standiford
The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams
Almost Perfect by Brian Katcher

#45 I loved Kafka on the Shore when I read it a couple of years ago. I'm not sure I understood what was going on, but loved it nonetheless. Have you read The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle? That's one I read in January and loved almost equally.

One great read:
Stitches, a graphic memoir by David Small

Some others, good reads:
Methland by Nick Reding
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Notes from the Underwire by Quinn Cummings
Ravens (mostly because it makes me want to read more by George Dawes Green)

My favorites for the quarter and in no particular order:

The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa
Labor Day by Joyce Maynard
Still Life by Louise Penny
The Earth Hums in B Flat by Mari Strachan
The Night Watch by Sarah Waters

And since I feel I should add a non-fiction and don't want to leave him out:
Homer's Odyssey by Gwen Cooper

My favourites for this quarter are:

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Things We Didn't See Coming by Steven Amsterdam
Dangerous Liaisons by Choderlos de Laclos
If This Is A Man by Primo Levi

In alphabetical order:

The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford
The Gormenghast Novels by Mervyn Peake
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
Niels Lyhne by Gabriel García Márquez
Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih

Honorable Mention: The Book of Chameleons, The Dead Father, Demons, The Man Without Qualities, On the Edge of Reason, Raintree County, The Shipyard, A Tomb for Boris Davidovich, Uncle Tom's Cabin

Best Non-Fiction: The Education of Henry Adams

>45: emaestra- You have an excellent list! I hope to get to The Sparrow soon!

My favourites for this quarter:

1. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John le Carre
2. The Glass Room by Simon Mawer
3. The File: a Personal History by Timothy Garton-Ash
4. Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie
5. The Draining Lake by Arnaldur Indridason

>42 I enjoyed The Seamstress also, although not this quarter (it had a slow start, I thought, and was perhaps a little long. But still...)

>54 I liked The Draining Lake and chased down the next one Arctic Chill from the UK. I hear Hypothermia has been published recently also.

#55 Lois I think I bought the Draining Lake because of you!

I read three very enjoyable novels in 3Q:

Cataloochee - set in the mountains of western NC, several generations in a rural setting
Handling Sin - set in eastern/central NC, very very funny.
The Thirteenth Tale - best of the bunch, extremely well written

My favorites in the order I read them have to be:

Liner Notes by Emily Franklin
Animal Farm by George Orwell
The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
The Day the Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan

Since it was a reread I didn't include Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, but it was just as much fun the second time around.

My best fiction for this quarter:

Dear American Airlines by Jonathan Miles
Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie (a reread)
At Mrs. Lippincote's by Elizabeth Taylor

and nonfiction:

The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science by Richard Holmes
The Great Hunger: Ireland 1845-1849 by Cecil Woodham-Smith
Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights and Murder in the Jazz Age by Kevin Boyle

Third Quarter Favorites:
(in no particular order)

The Household Guide to Dying by Debra Adelaide
Seal Woman by Solveig Eggerz
Illumination Night by Alice Hoffman
The Day the Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan
The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem

My favorites of the past quarter:

1) Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Choderlos de Laclos
2) The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford
3) On The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
4) Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
5) The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum

27: mollygrace - A River Runs Through It - I just love that book.

1 Barefoot Gen, Volume One : A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima Keiji Nakazawa
2 Barefoot Gen, Volume Two : The Day After Keiji Nakazawa
3. Barefoot Gen, Volume Three : Life After the Bomb Keiji Nakazawa
4. Your Inner Fish : A Journey into the 3.5-billion-year History of the Human Body Neil Shubin
5. Tales from Outer Suburbia Shaun Tan

honorable mention Man Gone Down Michael Thomas

I had three 5-star reads and six 4.5-star reads this quarter, which is probably my best record ever!

The five star reads were:

Green Grass, Running Water, Thomas King
To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
Short Stories in Italian, edited by Nick Roberts

#62: dchaikin -- I just love that book, too. I have to admit that I avoided it for awhile because I know absolutely nothing (other than the very basics) about fishing and though I appreciate good writing on almost any subject, I was afraid I wouldn't be able to fully appreciate the story. Wrong, as usual. When will I learn? Beautiful story.

#64 Molly - I came across it at an age when I would read anything, so the fly fishing theme didn't bother me (the Montana landscape, however, was very inspiring). But, it's really not really "about" fly fishing. I agree, a beautiful story.

I had an unusually weak quarter. Not even one five-star book (not counting a couple of Roald Dahl re-reads). Of the rest, here were the best, in no particular order:

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer
The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood
My Life in France by Julia Child
The Virgin Blue by Tracy Chevalier
Guernica by Dave Boling

I have high hopes now for the closing quarter of 2009!

The best books I've read this quarter:

Still Alice by Lisa Genova -- first person fictional story of a brilliant woman's descent into early-onset Alzheimer's Disease.

America America by Ethan Canin -- epic family saga of politics, betrayal and wealth, blending shades of All the King's Men and Brideshead Revisited.

Netherland by Joseph O'Neill -- European ex-pat living in NY picks up his post-9/11 life through cricket amid the underclass under the tutelage of an enterprising referee.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson -- smart mystery starting Larsson's Millennium trilogy.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer -- A novel in letters connecting an accomplished WWII-era British writer with residents of the Channel Island, Guernsey, immediately after their wartime occupation and isolation.

Message edited by its author, Oct 9, 2009, 2:41pm.

The only one with a 5 star rating this quarter was Push; the others all had 4.5 stars.

Push - Hard to read for the subject matter (abuse/neglect/bigotry), but important and, ultimately, hopeful story of an amazing woman
Dissolution - Good historical mystery set in the time of Henry VIII and Cromwell
Grave Goods - Good historical mystery set in the time of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine
Well of Lost Plots - Third (I think, maybe 4th) in the Tuesday Next mystery series (audio)
Annie's Ghosts - True story about the hunt for information about a mysteriously unacknowledged family member

Given that I've only read 7 books in the third quarter, I'm going to limit mine to the top 2.

That said, the 2 best ones in the third quarter that I read are:

1. Perfect Poison: A Female Serial Killer's Deadly Medicine by M. William Phelps - This is a true story about a woman named "Kristen Gilbert" (her profile is on Wikipedia as well) who killed patients in a Veterans hospital in Northamption, MA, in order to be able to spend more time with her boyfriend, who happened to be the security guard at the hospital.

2. Separation of Power by Vince Flynn - The third book of the Mitch Rapp series (you should read the first 2 before this one)

Message edited by its author, Oct 12, 2009, 5:16pm.

In the order I read them:

Kushiel's Scion by Jacqueline Carey
Kushiel's Justice by Jacqueline Carey
Kushiel's Mercy by Jacqueline Carey
The Secret History by Donna Tartt (which will surely be on my Best of 2009)
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon (which is one of the best books I've EVER read, period).

I starting with what I liked best, but with the first three very close together:

Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
A prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
Emma by Jane Austen
Mannen som Elsket Yngve by Tore Renberg (translation: The man who loved Yngve)
I, robot by Isaac Asimov

i read the Uglies series and im now on the second book of Percy Jackson and the Olympians

Fiction:

Great Granny Webster by Caroline Blackwood
Our Spoons Came From Woolworths by Barbara Comyns
Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures by Vincent Lam

Non-fiction:

The Big Necessity by Rose George
Dry Store Room No. 1 by Richard Fortey

#72 I loved the Percy Jackson series. Of course, being an old person I'd originally learned my mythology the hard way. I much prefer Rick Riordan's method.

Percy is a great book to read with kids. My niece and I are on the third book, The Titan's Curse it keeps both of us interested.

Here are my recent top reads:

1. The Amadeus Net by Mark A. Rayner: Set in the year 2028, shortly after the destruction of half of the world’s population due to an asteroid-Earth collision (known as The Shudder), this novel tells the story of love and survival in Ipolis, the man-made utopia dedicated to the preservation of art and to scientific exploration.

2. Dear Mr. Unabomber by Ray Cavanaugh: an exploratory journey of identity in a technologically consumed, and dependent, world. What begins as a series of letters to the infamous “Unabomber,” Ted Kaczynski, evolves into a contemplative study of human nature as it becomes infiltrated by addictive television crime dramas, internet dating sites, and isolating excursions into the apparent “lives” of MySpace and Facebook users.

3. Moon Beaver by Andrew Hook: Moon Beaver is a young woman convinced that she has the ability to manipulate time and that she has achieved immortality. She soon entrances the bored Benny Henderson, who is compelled to follow her around the world and learn her secrets, abandoning his drab Company life and fiancee in the meantime.

Message edited by its author, Oct 21, 2009, 7:53pm.

SarahRae, your concise descriptions have just led me to put The Amadeus Net and Dear Mr. Unabomber on my wishlist. Neither is available new from Barny Noble, so I'll have to look around.

Thanks,

Robert

Hi everyone what am I reading now is your blogs I enjoy reading different opinions.

Hello,

My top reads for Q3 were:

Monkey See by Walt Maguire--a hysterically funny story about what happens when primates are given the ability to speak mashed with a make your own monster guide.

Cut to the Quick by Kate Ross--a mystery novel set in the Victorian era, featuring a dandy who just can't help getting involved when dead bodies start turning up.

and Labor Day by Joyce Maynard--a young boy, his shut-in mother, and an escaped convict learn about life, love, and trust over one long Labor Day weekend.

Message edited by its author, Nov 7, 2009, 9:56am.