Top Books read first half of 2007 January-June

Consider posting your top five books for the first half of 2007 here! (yep, I created the thread a bit before the month's end but some may already know their best books...or this will give you time to think about them).

For those who are participating in our quarterly surveys, there is a separate thread for just the 2nd quarter. Here you should post five books and denote with with (1) or (2) for which quarter you read them in. We are all a little curious how our reading carries through to the end of the year (ever notice that when you are asked for your books of the year you tend to choose the books more recently read?).

Based on my star ratings, I think I'd go with:

Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay (2; 5 stars)
Lord of Emperors by Guy Gavriel Kay (2; 5 stars)
Elantris by Brandon Sanderson (2; 4.5 stars)
Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb (2; 4.5 stars)
and the Thieves & Kings series by Mark Oakley (1; 4.3 stars on average)

Most of my first quarter books didn't make it into the halfway list as I had a pretty amazing second quarter. Tigana has supplanted my old favourite as my #1 favourite book, and I'd say that Lord of Emperors is pretty durned close to the top of my overall list too. The others don't quite make it into my Overall Top 5, but I'd probably have to place them in my Overall Top 10.

(Sorry the touchstones aren't working in most cases).

1. The Brothers K by David James Duncan (2)
2. Funhome: a Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel (1)
3. A Path with Heart by Jack Kornfield (2)
4. The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan (2)
5. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen (1)

My brain is bruised from trying to narrow my list down.

The Last Witchfinder by James Morrow. (1)
Night Soldiers by Alan Furst. (1)
The End of Mr. Y by Scarlett Thomas. (2)
Radical Evolution by Joel Garreau. (2)
The Religion by Tim Willocks. (2)

1. The Book Thief by Mark Zusak (2)
2. Geisha by Liza Dalby (1)
3. A Million Little Pieces by James Frey (2)
4. You Can’t Catch Death by Ianthe Brautigan (2)
5. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (2)

I realize I sort of cheated on this, but here goes. I picked 5 new books and 5 rereads (in part because I'd chosen 5 favorite books before I got halfway through the first quarter, but also because a part of my 50 Book Challange is to read more new books, so...well, just go with it, ok :).

The asterisks are ones that I picked for the first quarter/second quarter favorites. Except The Blue Girl, which got honorable mention first quarter. I did not look back at my first quarter list before doing this one, interestingly.

New reads:
Conrad's Fate by Diana Wynne Jones (1)*
The Sagan Diary by John Scalzi (1)*
Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi (1)*
The Blue Girl by Charles de Lint (1)
The Last Colony by John Scalzi (2)*

Rereads:
Sunshine by Robin McKinley (1)*
Spindle's End by Robin McKinley (1)
Squire by Tamora Pierce (2)
The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner (2)*
Deep Wizardry by Diane Duane (2)*

My picks for the first half:

Final List:
1.Falls the Shadow Sharon Penman (1)
2.Hiding from the Light Barbara Erskine (1)
3.The Corrections Jonathan Franzen (2)
4.Nineteen Minutes Jodi Picoult (2)
5.House of the spirits Isabel Allende (2)

I only had 3 top picks for each quarter, but in the spirit of this thread these are my 5:

1. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (1)
2. Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky (1)
3. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - 2007 Orange Prize Winner! (1)
4. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (2)
5. A Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela - I learned so much from this one (2)

All of my first quarter picks are still in the running!

The Secret River by Kate Grenville (2)
Troubles by J.G. Farrell (1)
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons (2)

I am holding out for the rest, because I expect Anne Fadiman's At Large and At Small to be one of my favorites for the second quarter, and then I'll have to weigh it against two from the first quarter for the last two spots.

Since I don't expect to read something in the next two weeks that will make the list, here's mine (except for #1, no particular order):

1. Half of a Yellow Sun, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (1)
* By the Sea by Abdulrahak Gurnah(1)
* Gravedigger's Daughter, by Joyce Carol Oates (2)
* Zoli, by Colum McCann(1)
* Nights at the Circus, by Angela Carter(2)

1. Poetry: Lizzie Borden in Love, by Julianna Baggott (1)
1. Short Fiction Collection: Burning your Boats, by Angela Carter.(1-2)

Sorry about the different categories but I find it more than a little difficult to weigh poetry against fiction and so on.

I'm going to cheat - I can't possibly bump any of my previously listed five books...so I'm going to rate these into top 5, and then create a lower top 3. Black Swan Green moved from the top into the lower 3 (replace by The Road), but it is still one of my favorites of the year:

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

*******
Black Swan Green by David Mitchell
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

The top four books I actually read:
1. David Hackett Fischer, Washington's Crossing
2. Lynn Sherr, Failure Is Impossible
3. Eric Ives, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn
4. Russell Shorto, The Island at the Center of the World

Honorary reference book nomination (obtained in the first half of this year):
5. Barbara G. Walker, A Treasury of Knitting Patterns

Re-posted to get touchstones to work.

So far, my top 5 for the first half of the year are:

1. A Team of Rivals: the Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Goodwin (1)
2. Caesar, Life of a Colossus by Goldsworthy (2)
3. The Man Who Cast Two Shadows by O'Connell (2)
4. The Book Thief by Zusak (1)
5. A Spot of Bother by Haddon (1)

I can give my top five now as I am presently reading a biography of the six wives of Henry VIII that will take me another week!

The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon (2)
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (2)
Moral Disorder by Margaret Atwood (1)
Istanbul,Memories and the City by Orhan Pamuk (1)
Bodies and Souls-The Tragic Plight of Three Jewish Women forced into Prostitution in the Americas by Isabel Vincent (1)

Love Is a Mix Tape by Rob Sheffield (1)
Alternadad by Neal Pollack (1)
(I'm trying to limit myself to books that were actually published in 2007, which is proving to be difficult. I was disappointed a lot this year.)
Slackjaw by Jim Knipfel (1) Not 2007
Jesus Land by Julia Scheeres (1)
The Exes by Pagan Kennedy (2) The book I wanted Jonathan Lethem's You Don't Love Me Yet to be.

>16 kperfetto: don't feel you have to limit yourself to books published in 2007....just read in the first half of the year is ok, too.

1.) The Book Thief 2
2.) Jane Eyre 1
3.) The Thirteenth Tale 2
4.) Water for Elephants 1
5.) All Over but the Shoutin 2

I only had 2 books hang in there from the first quarter.

1. Middlemarch (2)
2. A Bend in the River (2)
3. I am Charlotte Simmons (1)
4. Katherine (1)
5. To Kill a Mockingbird (2)

It has been a good first half of the year -- Between Library thing; 1001 novels to read before you die, and trying to commit myself to reading the classics -- the quality of what I have been reading is skyrocketed over the last year. It is very gratifying!

OK all the books are from the second quarter, because I was in my teaching residency and too busy to read the first quarter.

1. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (2)
2. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert (2)
3. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (2)
4. Looking for Alaska by John Green (2)
5. Uglies by Scott Westerfeld (2)

I think that about does it. I might be missing something or forgetting something I read...but, this is what sticks to the brain right now.

Here are my top 5 for the first half of the year:

1. Life as we knew it by Susan Beth Pfeffer (1)
2. Skellig by David Almond (2)
3. Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin (2)
4. Sold by Patricia Mccormick (1)
5. New moon by Stephenie Meyer (1)

Interesting exercise! :)

Ok, this is fun.

1. What is the What by Dave Eggers
2. Peony in Love by Lisa See
3. Deep Economy by Bill McKibben
4. The Street of a Thousand Blossoms by Gail Tsukiyama (to be published in Sept.)
5.The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold (to be published in Sept.)

can't limit myself to 5 -

6. One Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

1. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (1)
2. On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan (2)
3. The Woman Who Walked into Doors by Roddy Doyle (1)
4. Grace Notes by Bernard MacLaverty (2)
5. Engleby by Sebastian Faulks (2)

From the first quarter:

Fledgling, by Octavia E. Butler
Kindred, by Octavia E. Butler

From the second quarter:

The Sunset Limited, by Cormac McCarthy
A Clash of Kings, by George R.R. Martin
Citizen Vince, by Jess Walter

1. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (2)
2. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls (2)
3. A Million Little Pieces by James Frey (1)
4. Walking the Bible by Bruce Feiler (1)
5. When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka

Actually, Walking the Bible didn't make my top 5 list for last quarter, but the more I think about it, the more my appreciation grows. I could definitely have done a top 7 or top 8 list. Honorable mentions to The Good Doctor by Damon Galgut, This Cold Heaven by Gretel Ehrlic and Scribbling the Cat by Alexandra Fuller. It's so hard for me to compare fiction and non-fiction.

#25 cestovela
Isn't it interesting how you feel differently about books at different times. I find that over a longer period of time the books that really touched me come to the forefront in my mind. (I was thinking this as I typed in my Top 5 - will it change?)

I just finished reading Darcy's Story by Janet Alymer. Its a retelling of Pride & Predjuice from the POV of Mr. Darcy. This book was an instant love for me and IMO a must read for all fans of Pride and Predjudice.

For my full review look here: http://tickettoanywhere.blogspot.com/2007/06/falling-in-love-again-review-of-dar...



I plan on starting Winkie by Clifford Chase later on today.

So many of the books mentioned are in my tbr pile at the moment. It makes me want to leave work early and go home and start reading! In no particular order, my top five for the first half of the year (this was hard!) are:

1. Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin
2. The Lost Mother by Mary McGarry Morris
3. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
4. A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore
5. The Parasites by Daphne du Maurier

I am currently reading Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides.

I'm updating #9, but cheating because I have more than 5 (all in no particular order).

Fiction:

The Secret River by Kate Grenville (2)
Troubles by J.G. Farrell (1)
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons (2)
The Case of Comrade Tulayev by Victor Serge (1)
The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy (2)

Runner up: The View from Castle Rock by Alice Munro (1)

Nonfiction:

The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan (2)
At Large and At Small by Anne Fadiman (2)

In the first quarter, I couldn't find five favorites, but my top four favorites were all terrific. In the second quarter, I had a slow start but wound up with some really great books at the end. I just couldn't narrow it down any more.

>27 Irisheyz77: -Irisheyz77
"I just finished reading Darcy's Story by Janet Alymer"

I'm a huge Pride and Prejudice fan and when I saw your post yesterday I added the book to my wishlist. Later that afternoon I was at a used bookstore, saw it for a dollar and bought it! Without your mention I might not have even noticed it. It was definitely a serendipitous buy. Thanks!

In no order

Midnight's children - 1
Austerlitz 2
The English Patient 2
Life of Insects 2
Cancer Ward 1

Trainspotting was booted off from quarter one -

The last book I read this quarter was so good I am torn over whether to include it in the top 5 of the past half year. Right now, I think I'll have it tie with the last in the list and decide tomorrow, the very last day of the quarter. So, the temporary list looks like this:

1. A Team of Rivals: the Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Goodwin (1)
2. Caesar, Life of a Colossus by Goldsworthy (2)
3. The Man Who Cast Two Shadows by O'Connell (2)
4. The Book Thief by Zusak (1)
5. A Spot of Bother by Haddon (1)/Saturnalia by Lindsey Davis (2)

My second quarter books totally overshadowed what I read during the first quarter. My favorite books for the first half of the year are the following (in no particular order):

-The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (1)
-The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (2)
-The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield (2)
-Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen (2)
-The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (2)

I would be remiss to not mention that Suite Francaise is a close sixth place to these novels. All are fantastic reads and highly recommended!

(This is going to get way harder as the year progresses!)

I hope we're allowed 10 altogether or 5 fiction and 5 non-fiction. Otherwise, I don't think I'll be able to handle the trauma of having to choose just 5 for the entire year! :)

Paul Auster-Oracle Night
Octavia E. Butler-Fledgling
Jill Ciment-The Tattoo Artist
Kazuo Ishiguro-Never Let Me Go
James Sallis-Renderings

I'm probably doing a top 10 list for fiction and a top 5 non-fiction at the end of the year. There's no way I could choose just 5 out of the hundred or so that I'll have finished by the year's end.

I'll do five contenders for the year-to-date, but I keep my list alphabetically by author, so can't break it down by quarter.

The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop by Lewis Buzbee (non fiction)
Sharp Objects: a novel by Gillian Flynn (fiction)
No! I Don't Want to Join a Book Club by Virginia Ironside (fiction)
Finding George Orwell in Burma by Emma Larkin (non fiction)

Reviewing my list, 5th place is a tie

An Alphabetical Life by Wendy Werris (non fiction)
Route 66 A.D. (a/k/a Pagan Holiday) by Tony Perrottet (non fiction)

And what a diverse set of lists - the only one mentioned above I've read is Eat, Pray, Love! End-of-year nominations I'll need at least five each of fiction and non-fiction.

Tough choices

Rynosseros
Blue Tyson
Wild Cards
The Hard SF Renaissance
The Ascent of Wonder

and a few others tied, but that will do.

I have to do a top 5 for fiction and a couple more for nonfiction--too hard to decide!

Fiction:
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (1)
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell (2)
Troubles by J.G. Farrell (1)
The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon (2)
Case Histories: A Novel by Kate Atkinson (2)

Nonfiction:
The Circus Fire by Stewart O'Nan (1)
The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty by Caroline Alexander (2)

It seemed that so many people loved Half of a Yellow Sun. I did find it informative about the Nigerian civil war, but I'm not sure I understand the intense love some people feel for it. To me, the parts before the war were beautifully written every day friendships and relationships but after the war started, I began to find a lot of the characters annoying. I guess war is a situation that would amplify flaws in character, but still... Honestly, in spite of some losses I felt like all the main characters came out of the war pretty well. At least compared to the people starving in the refugee camps. I don't mean this as an attack at all because I'm sure many of the books on my list don't appeal to other readers. I'm just curious what people found so moving about this particular book.

I've flipped my first two from the first quarter. All these got 4 stars.

1. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett (1) - 2001
2. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls (1) - 2005
3. The Absorbent Mind by Maria Montessori (2) - 1949, warning: difficult read
4. The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise by Michael Grunwald (1) - 2006
5. Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson (2) - 1999

Here's my top five for the first half of the year, only in order in which I read them.

Terrier by Tamora Pierce (1)
Silent in the Grave by Deanna Raybourn (1)
Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin (1)
A Fatal Grace by Louise Penny (2)
Raven Black by Ann Cleeves (2)

My top five:

Everyman's Rules for Scientific Living by Carrie Tiffany (1)
Carry Me Down by M.J. Hyland (1)
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (1)
Ines of My Soul by Isabel Allende (1)
We Need to Talk about Kevin by Lionel Shriver (2)

I could easily add two or three more . . .

I decided not to count the reread of Joanna Russ' '(Extra)ordinary People', so I only have one book that carried over from my first quarter list.

In no particular order:

Hidden Anxieties by Lesley Hall (1)
Dedalus Book of Finnish Fantasy (2)
Akhenaten by Dorothy Porter (2)
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan (2)
Spleen by Olive Moore (2)

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Adichie
Shadow Baby byAlison McGhee
A Woman in Jerusalem by A. B. Yehoshua

Here are my top books for the first half of the year:

1. Fragile Things: short fictions and wonders, by Neil Gaiman (1)
2. Stardust: Being a Romance Within the Realms of Faerie, by Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess (2)
3. Dance Dance Dance, by Haruki Murakami (2)
4. Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, by Haruki Murakami (1)
5. Beasts, by Joyce Carol Oates (1)

#40, cestovatela, There are many reasons I thought Half of a Yellow Sun is one of the best new books I've read in a long time. Probably most importantly, I thought that Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has a marvelous ability to develop complex and interesting characters, place them in difficult and varied situations, and have them respond and react in nuanced and nonstereotypical ways. The novel also gives a wonderful picture of this part of Africa, the devastation of the Nigeria/Biafra war and its aftermath, and the impact of colonialism/postcolonialism on the politics of it all without being the least bit didactic; all of this emerges from the story itself.

But, opinions about books differ -- that's one of the great things about LT.

As to the fact that other people suffered more . . . well, that, unfortunately is almost always true. This is a novel, not a history book.

1. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
2. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
3. Choke by Chuck Palahniuk
4. Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre
5. Memories of My Melancholy Whores by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

1. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
2. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
3. Night by Elie Wiesel
4. World War Z by Max Brooks
5. 1984 by George Orwell

In no particular order -

The Secret River by Kate Grenville
This Thing of Darkness by Harry Thompson
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan
Spies by Michael Frayn

Non-fiction

The Complete Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby
London in the Nineteenth Century by Jerry White
The Intellectuals and the Masses by John Carey

In no particular order

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini 1
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak 2 (Is anyone tallying this? It seems to be on a lot of lists!)
Mary, a novel by Janis Cooke Newman 1
A Painted House by John Grisham 1
Heat by Stuart Woods 1

Non-fiction
Miracle in the Andes by Nando Parrado 2

I am the Messenger by Markus Zusak 1; 5/5 stars
Last Light of the Sun by Guy Gavriel Kay 2; 5/5 stars
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield 2; 4.5/5 stars
The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley 2; 4.5/5 stars
The Visitor by Sheri S Tepper 2; 4.5/5 stars

Very hard to choose the fifth one. There were a couple of others I could have chosen as well. There were also some audio books I really enjoyed and rated 5 stars but that was as much for the reader as the story so I decided to just keep this at books read the old fashioned way.

In no certain order
I am Charlotte Simmons
The Kite Runner
A Splendid Thousand Suns
My Sisters Keeper
The Mermaid Chair

Clara Callan by Richard B. Wright
Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? by Anita Rau Badami
Household Words by Joan Silber
Crow Lake by Mary Lawson
Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee

I could not find the second quarter thread, so here are two lists:

First Quarter
1. The Dark Angels by Karleen Koen
2. The Boleyn Inheritance by Philippa Gregory
3. Water for Elephants by Sarah Gruen
4. Portrait of an Unknown Woman by Vanora Bennett
5. Through a Glass Darkly by Karleen Koen

Second Quarter
1. Persuasion by Jane Austen
2. Doubt by John Patrick Shanley
3. The Salt Letters by Christine Balint
4. Two Lives by Vikram Seth
5. The Meaning of Night by Michael Cox

So, Cariola, what you do now is narrow that down to Top 5 for the first half of the year. Good Luck!

Thanks, Amanda. That's easily done:

1. The Dark Angels by Karleen Koen
2. Persuasion by Jane Austen
3. The Boleyn Inheritance by Philippa Gregory
4. Water for Elephants by Sarah Gruen
5. Doubt by John Patrick Shanley

1. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
2. Surprise Me, God by Terry Esau
3. Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott
4. The City of Falling Angels by John Berendt
5. The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan

*Can't get touchstone for #2 to load*

Just saw this thread, so I'm jumping in late. Here are my favourite books from Jan - Jun '07:

1. Anil's Ghost, by Michael Ondaatje
2. Eleanor Rigby, by Douglas Coupland
3. Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen
4. Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka
5. Digging to America, by Anne Tyler