Top Books first quarter of 2007

We've come to the end of the first quarter of 2007 and it would be interesting to hear what everyone's top books thus far are. It will also be intriguing to see how the list evolves over the year (what gets dropped and what gets added). Let's limit the post to 1-5 books (oh, the decisions!)

My top books thus far...
1. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Others in no particular order
2. The Logogryph by Thomas Wharton
3. Zoli by Colum McCann
4. By the Sea by Abdulrazak Gurah
5. Remember Me by Trezza Azzopardi (although I need to double check to make sure I read this in 2007)

Edited to add #5 , discovered while reorganizing my profile page

I'm so glad you asked...

1. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
2. The Woman Who Walked into Doors by Roddy Doyle
3. Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden
4. Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones

Fiction:
This Thing of Darkness by Harry Thompson
The Concrete Blonde by Michael Connelly
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan
Non-Fiction:
The Complete Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby
London in the Nineteenth Century by Jerry White

(Why oh why have Touchstones put up Harry Potter when I never read the series?)

1. Geisha (nonfiction) - Liza Dalby
2. A Pale View of Hills (fiction) - Kazuo Ishiguro
3. The Virgin Suicides (fiction) - Jeffrey Eugenides
4. Blankets (graphic novel) - Craig Thompson
5. La Perdida (graphic novel) - Jessica Abel

I usually keep my list posted on my Profile page, and here's the only novels I'm claiming so far:

1. The Painted Veil - W. Somerset Maugham
2. Then We Came To The End - Joshua Ferris
3. Half of a Yellow Sun - Chimamanda N. Adichie
4. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
5. Jamestown - Matthew Sharpe

The Elfquest Gatherum, ed. by Dwight Decker
Stitch 'N Bitch by Debbie Stoller
The Meaning of Everything by Simon Winchester
The Outstretched Shadow by Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory
Thieves & Kings, volumes 1-5 by Mark Oakley

I know the last one's sort of a cheat, but the story is so cumulative that it's really impossible to pick one volume I enjoyed more than the others.

1. I am Charlotte Simmons - Tom Wolfe
2. Disgrace - J.A. Coetzee
3. Love - Toni Morrison
4. Katherine - Anya Seton
5. From Here to Eternity - James Jones

1. I am Charlotte Simmons
2. On Chesil Beach
3. Dispatches from the Edgeby Anderson Cooper
4.Broken by William Cope Moyers
5.Palestine Peace Not Apartheid by Jimmy Carter

1. The Robots of Dawn (fiction) - Isaac Asimov
2. The Naked Sun (fiction) - Isaac Asimov
3. The Caves of Steel (fiction) - Isaac Asimov
4. Narrative Technique: A Practical Course in Literary Psychology (non-fiction) - Thomas H. Uzzell
5. The Stars, Like Dust (fiction) - Isaac Asimov

I've mostly read Asimov so far this year!

I was just struggling with this the other day--I've had such a great reading year and am finding it very hard to narrow it down to five. I'll say:

1. Half of a Yellow Sun, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
2. The Circus Fire, Stewart O'Nan
3. Queen Margot, Alexandre Dumas
4. Troubles, J.G. Farrell
5. Young Men & Fire, Norman Maclean

And I keep trying to find a way to put Special Topics in Calamity Physics in there, but I can't bring myself to take any of them out.

My favorites so far:

Ill Wind by Rachel Caine
Firestorm by Rachel Caine
Secret Vampire by L.J. Smith
Scandal in Spring by Lisa Kleypas
Stolen by Kelley Armstrong

The first two are part of a series. I love that series but those were my two favorites from it.

1. History of Love by Nicole Krauss
2. Peeps by Scott Westerfeld
3. Color A Natural History of the Palette by Victoria Findlay
4. Prisoner of Trebekistan: A Decade in Jeopardy! by Bob Harris
5. Sorcery and Cecelia by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer

It's highly unlikely that 3-5 are still going to be on the top five list by the end of the year. I've enjoyed most of my reading this year, but haven't been blown away by much to the point of thinking "That's DEFINITELY going on my top five list!"

Ah, well, nine whole months to go.

Oh, what a hard choice this is, because the last three months have been full of such wonderful books. Not in order:

Ship of Destiny - Robin Hobb
Far from the Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
Lord of Emperors - Guy Gavriel Kay
Eleanor of Aquitaine - Alison Weir
Ex Libris : Confessions of a Common Reader - Anne Fadiman

I have too much trouble with picking favorites. I can't imagine any books supplanting these, but I know I will read other excellent works, so in another three months I doubt I'll be able to narrow it down to five again.

I've had quite a good crop of reading so far this year:

Books:
The Prestige - Christopher Priest
The Eagle in the Sand - Simon Scarrow
The Boleyn Inheritance - Philippa Gregory
Adept - Robert Finn
The Complete Maus - Art Spiegelman
Karma - Holly A Harvey
Deception - Randy Alcorn

Audio Books:
Right Ho, Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse
Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen

Of course, there have been a couple of really dull ones and even a couple that I found completely unfinishable, but overall, I've had quite a good run of it through the first quarter!

This is indeed a tough one! It has been a really good reading year so far, but I guess if forced to pick five I particularly enjoyed, I would choose, in no particular order:

Hakluyt's Promise: An Elizabethan's Obsession for an English America by Peter Mancall

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

Patience and Fortitude by Nicholas Basbanes

Defining the World: The Extraordinary Story of Dr. Johnson's Dictionary by Henry Hitchings

The Meaning of Night by Michael Cox

I would join the Half of A Yellow Sun crowd, except I read it in 2006!

So far, for 2007, I can only come up with 4 favorites:

Troubles by J.G. Farrell - thanks to a recommendation here!

The Siege of Krishnapur by J.G. Farrell

The View from Castle Rock by Alice Munro

The Case of Comrade Tulayev by Victor Serge

Hope to have more favorites for the next quarter!

1. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by Rowling
2. Cry of the Icemark by Hill
3. The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents by Pratchett
4. The Golem's Eye by Stroud
5. The Neverending Story by Ende

Fantasy anyone?

I'm going to hold my list to 3 for now:

1. Grapes of Wrath
2. Suite Francaise
3. Half of a Yellow Sun

Well, a couple of weeks ago I was complaining that I'd not read any really good books in a while, but looking back over my list this year, I suddenly realized what good ones I've gotten into! Here's my list:

1. The Road by Cormac McCarthy - Wow! May end up as my favorite book this year.
2. Time and Again by Jack Finney
3. The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio by Terry Ryan
4. Where Is the Mango Princess? by C.E. Crimmins

With all the recommendations above, I'll have to check out Half of a Yellow Sun for sure!

My favourites this quarter are( not in any order )
1. The Ruby in Her Navel by Barry Unsworth.
2. Moral Disorder by Margaret Atwood.
3. Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks
4. Istanbul, Memories and the City by Orhan Pamuk
5. Bodies and Souls-the Tragic Plight of Three Jewish Women Forced into Prostitution in the Americas by Isabel Vincent.

I must get this Half of a Yellow Sun! =)

My top five so far, in order:

1) The book thief - Zusak
2) The conjurer's bird - Davies
3) Abundance - Naslund
4) White Oleander - Fitch
5) Dear John - Sparks

I have 10 listed, but whittled it down to the best 5 of that 10:

1. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
2. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
3. Black Swan Green by David Mitchell
4. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
5. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

The three below were the only ones I gave a "9" to so far this year. I haven't had a "10."

1. Courage to Write by Ralph Keyes

2. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

3. Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein (re-re-re-re-re-etc.-read)

I thought I was going to have to do, oh, top five rereads and top five new reads or something, but...turns out when I went through my list to pick favorites, I picked exactly five, one reread (Sunshine) and the rest new. They're listed in the order I read them:

1. Conrad's Fate by Diana Wynne Jones
2. Sunshine by Robin McKinley
3. The Sagan Diary by John Scalzi (audio, free)
4. Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi (online, free)
5. Fifty Degrees Below by Kim Stanley Robinson

And honorable mention to The Blue Girl by Charles de Lint, which was picked as my favorite book of March.

I have three which I loved

1) Midnight's children by Salman Rushdie
2) Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh
3) Cancer Ward by Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn

Keep 'em coming...this is fascinating. I'll try to remember to start a thread the beginning of July so we can update our short lists at the half year.

In order read:

Fledgling byOctavia E. Butler
Pride of Baghdad by Brian K. Vaughan
Brother Roger of Taize's Essential Writings
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Kindred by Octavia E. Butler

No particular order:

Llama, Llama Red Pajama by Anna Dowdney
I love the crazy fast rhymes in this. Plus it's a great read aloud because you can pretend to get upset as baby llama gets more and more impatient.

Show Way by Jacqueline Woodson
An amazing book. I used it for storytime for 4 year olds during Black History Month.

MAMA: a TRUE story, in which a BABY HIPPO loses his MAMA during a TSUNAMI, but finds a new home, and a new MAMA by Jeanette Winter

This would be a great snuggle with your kid book, but I don't think it would work well for a read-aloud to a group. I read this book and Owen and Mzee: A True Story of a Remarkable Friendship and I definintely liked Mama better.

I'll leave it at three for now.. I'll also try to have more adult books, or at least YA read for July when we do this topic again. Happy reading

1.) Jane Eyre
2.) Water for Elephants
3.) The Namesake
4.) A Man Without a Country
5.) Me Talk Pretty One Day

Definitely some interesting reads, but I've had more than usually that I didn't really enjoy. Not my favorite reading quarter ever, but like someone else said, still nine months to go. I can't wait to check out Half of a Yellow Sun
though.

Almost everything I read in January.

Heat by Stuart Woods
A Painted House by John Grisham
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Mary by Janis Cooke Newman

If you like historical fiction, I can't say enough good about Mary about the life of Mary Todd Lincoln.

Vanity Fair
Neverwhere
Fight Club

1. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
2. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
3. A Man Without A Country by Kurt Vonnegut
4. Novecento by Alessandro Baricco
5. The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde

This was hard, I've had some great reading so far.

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
The Gardener by Sarah Stewart, children's book
The Last Continent by Terry Pratchett
Clouds of Witness by Dorothy L. Sayers
The Mark of the Christian by Francis Schaeffer

I feel as though I may not have read the best of this year yet, but so far:

1. The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak
2. Borgia Bride by Jeanne Kalogridis
3. Angus, Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison
4. But Enough About Me: A Jersey Girl's Unlikely Adventures Among the Absurdly Famous by Jancee Dunn
5. Trouble by Jesse Kellerman

I wouldn't be surprised if The Book Thief was the only one left standing by the end of the year...what a random list though...

kfl1227- I read Angus, Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging a few years ago and couldn't stop laughing through the whole thing.

this is a great idea. maybe my list reflects the fact that i am 64 years old and have been reading since eight years old. in no order, here are my top five from Jan. 1st -March 31st, 2007:

The Autobiography of Malcolm X -- Alex Haley

Different Seasons -- King

The Martian Chronicles -- Ray Bradbury

Strangers -- Dean R. Koontz

Cannery Row -- John Steinbeck.

I don't read much stuff writen in this century unless king, koontz, or tom harris writes it. i will give the da vinci code a try next, though.

After only three months? Sure, why not. It Hasn't felt like a great quarter for me, but I have come across some good books.

1. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
2. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
3. The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise by Michael Grunwald
4. The Mustangs by J. Frank Dobie
5. Riding the Bus With My Sister by Rachel Simon

And a separate list for poetry
1. With the Light of Apricots : Poems by Larry D. Thomas
2. At the Bonehouse by Jack Bedell

H
ave I mis-read the title of this group? Top books of first quarter of 2007.

No, you haven't misread it. Some of us read a fair quantity of books in three months and there are titles which clearly rise to the top, others may not feel they have read enough to make such determinations. I think it will be interesting to see how many of my top five make it to the end of the year. Of course, at the moment, I can't imagine anything bumping the top three...

>37 dchaikin: I hadn't though about my poetry reading but it's a good idea:
1. Lizzie Borden in Love: Poems in Women's Voices by Julianna Baggott

Books:
- Fables: March of the Wooden Soldiers
- Proven Guilty
- Childhood's End

Audio:
- Dracula
- The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
- Sea Wolf

>40 lucien: Isn't Childhood's End fantastic? It was the first science fiction book I read and I've never forgotten it.

Mr. White's Confession by Robert Clark - re-read a great novel that leaves some questions unanswered by its ambiguous characters.

The Education of Mrs. Bemis by John Sedgwick - not plot driven, but character driven and excellent prose.

Lamb - The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore. Surprisingly non-sacreligious take on what exactly Jesus was doing during those 'missing' years. Hilarious, but uneven in tone and voice.

The Egyptologist by Arthur Phillips - Recorded Books did a great job with this mystery involving many characters and many years and a convoluted plot. Not everything is answered and it is left to the reader to interpret the clues herself.

Lisey's Story by Stephen King - initially this felt so choked with detail that I could barely discern what he was trying to say, but eventually the feeling of the story evened out and was a pleasure to read. Lisey is an annoying twit though.

>41 Morphidae:
Yes, it was excellent. I picked it up because I had heard how influential it was, but it was great in its own right. I can understand why you've never forgotten it. It really stayed with me too - I kept thinking about it long after I read it. I've added the Rama series to my to be read list because of it.

I just wanted to pass on to anyone who was interested in getting a copy of The Logogryph, that Baker and Taylor, one of the bigger book distributors here in the states, is now carrying it so most bookstores who use B&T should be able to get it. Previously, one could only get them through the publisher in Nova Scotia...

The Club Dumas
The Road
Amulet

This exercise will be very interesting as the year progresses. Already, I have read a book that is going to bump one from the list when we make the half-year lists in June. But which one?

And the suspense! Will I read a novel which will knock my current #1 Half of a Yellow Sun out of its top spot? I find this highly unlikely but the prospect is intriguing...

My top 5:

1. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
2. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
3. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
4. Islands in the Stream by Ernest Hemingway
5. Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut

Obviously, I spent most of the first quarter of 2007 on a substantial Hemingay kick.

Going by what I rated 'em and cutting out some overlap and things I had not read recently (got to cut it to 5 somehow), and Robert E. Howard gets one on anyway.

Lady of Mazes
Blindsight
The Mark of Zorro
The Emperor of Dreams
Kull: The Fabulous Warrior King

bluesalamanders, glad you mentioned the Scalzi book. Didn't know there was a Sagan Diary audiobook. Very cool, thanks for pointing that out!

48 bluetyson -

Absolutely! I've been mentioning it (and Agent) wherever I can, since I recently turned into a Scalzi fan and think his books are fabulous. Plus free is great, right? Though I bought the actual book even though I downloaded and listened to the audio version :)

This Human Season by Louise Dean
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Mothers and Sons by Colm Toibin
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
Collected Stories of John McGahern by John McGahern

That is how the advertising thing generally works, yes. Bunches see (or hear :) ) and some buy. I found out about Scalzi thanks to his free book, so read Old Man's War after that. Now I can check this out, see if I like it enough to get The Ghost Brigades too.

Actually, I didn't find Agent - the free book - until just recently. I read OMW and TGB and even Android's Dream a while ago.

I read his blog for a while before it occurred to me that I liked this Scalzi fellow's writing and ought to check out his books ;)

An okay quarter ... I read about 20 books and the only true winners were Lipshitz 6 or two angry blondes by T Cooper, World War Z by Max Brooks and Last Things by David Searcy ... K2, the savage mountain by Charles S. Houston and Across by Peter Handke were recommendable.

I am waiting for World War Z, that is good then? :)

Scalzi's blog is pretty good, bluesalamanders, I agree, I have looked at that a few times. Makes sense he would be readable though given he writes all sorts of other stuff.

As far as more recent stuff goes :-

If you hadn't seen it, this one collects a bunch of links

http://www.freesfonline.de/

Android's Dream I haven't seen, what is that one about?

bluetyson -

It's....it's...it's funny. There's aliens, and.... I don't know what to say without giving stuff away. If you like his writing, just read it. Don't read about it beforehand. Be surprised. It's better that way, I promise :)

Thanks for the link!

bluetyson(#54): World War Z was an excellent entry in the zombie genre!

#3: I am assuming you read On Chesil Beach because it was an ARC?

please, tell me, how did you end up enjoying it? I had never read anything by McEwan, and this definitely proved why I should never even attempt again.

One word to sum up Chesil is...: DULL.

I yawned my way through the first 30 pages. So, if it was any good, I'd like to know!

Well, I suppose this easier than asking what my 5 favorite books of the year were.

In no particular order (in order which read):
1. Astrid and Veronika by Linda Olsson
2. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See
3. Cage of Stars by Jacquelyn Mitchard
4. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
5. The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls

Hello people of the top five picks....I am just trying to figure out the technical side of things so I posted separately, but my list is thus:

My top favorite books of 2007 thus far are:

1. Middlesex: Jeffrey Eugenides
2. The Song of Kahunsha: Anosh Irani
3. Lullabies for Little Criminals: Heather O'Neill
4. Family Matters: Rohinton Mistry
5. The Last Days of Dogtown: Anita Daimant

So far these are my 2007 all time faves, but the year has just begun!

But then again I also loved the Mermaid's Chair and The Sceret Lives of Bees.....too many to choose...

Enjoy!

We are happy to see favorites at any time of the year but as a clarification, the original intent of the thread was to post one's top five favorites from the first quarter of the year (January through March), with the intent to post again each quarter. It is expected to be an intriguing exercise to see what books remain on the everyone's list as the year progresses.

For those who wish to participate in this particular exercise, post at any time, just bear in mind that the quarter ended with March's reading. Next quarter ends the end of June, watch for the new thread.

If the exercise doesn't interest you, feel free to post anyway, we're always interested in these kind of lists:-)

Do we post whenever a new favorite displaces another book, or do we wait until June to post again?

The Long Road Home by Martha Raddatz
The Constant Princess by Philippa Gregory
The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory
The Atonement Child by Francine Rivers
Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers

Interesting. I guess I misread the first post, way back when, because I assumed this was going to be top five of first quarter, top five of second quarter, etc.

Just to clarify for you, those five I choose were fivwe I read in the first quarter (between Jan - March) I am behind on some titles, I know, but those are my 2007 faves! This quarter will bring new faves I am sure, and perhpas even a new genre, I am really enjoying Jodi Picoult right now....brain candy

Well, I thought when the end of June rolls around that I would start a new thread called "Top picks for the first half of 2007" asking, once again, for one's top five. Perhaps noting with an asterisk titles which were on your previous list...so we can track which ones stay on the list throughout the year.

Using this thread for three most quarterly posting could get cumbersome.

Does that sound okay? I have loved reading everyone "early" favorites. How many on this first list do you think will make it to the end? I think when readers are asked their favorites for an entire year, the natural tendency is to remember/list the more current reads, so I think it would be fun to track.

65 avaland

Well, I was assuming different threads for each quarter, but anyway, now that I think about it a little more, I like your idea a lot :)

I think at least one of my first-quarter books will definitely make it to the end (Sunshine is basically my favorite book ever right now) and so far I've read one book that I might like to displace one of those for, but...how to choose...!

Yes, I like the idea of tracking books. I'm pretty sure that Half of a Yellow Sun will make it all the way to December.

I think it's an interesting exercise. While I've pretty much always kept a reading journal, I've never ranked anything. I wonder if what I'm reading now will make it.

I too interpreted it as first quarter, and that we would have separate threads for each quarter, and then at the end of the year pick our favorites for the year from the favorite books of all four quarters. I know that last year when I picked my favorites of the year, my list skewed towards books I had read towards the end of the year, because I remembered them more easily (although Half of a Yellow Sun would have made it even if I hadn't just read it in October) . So this will help "keep me honest!"

Of my first quarter favorites, I think Troubles by J.G. Farrell could make it to the end of the year, and maybe The Case of Comrade Tulayev by Victor Serge.

I'd say Fledgling, Never Let Me Go, and Kindred stand the best chance of staying on until next quarter.

Yes, I also think Half of a Yellow Sun will make it through to December, but will it still be in the top spot. Hmmm. The more books i read the harder it gets because for some books it's like comparing apples and oranges.

I think we can work both the separate quarter lists idea with the cumulative idea. We will just list our second quarter list, then our first quarter list and then denote the current half year top five with an asterisk. Whether we will want to ultimately list 20 books when it gets to December, we'll sort that out later on. But, it will be fun to try...

I read War and Peace. It was a great book and took about three weeks to read. I cannot overemphasize the quality of the writing. I am already looking forward to reading it again.

avaland - From message 71, here's what I'm envisioning, but it may be too cumbersome. What do you think?

1st QUARTER
1) The book thief - Zusak
2) The conjurer's bird - Davies
3) Abundance - Naslund
4) White Oleander - Fitch
5) Dear John - Sparks

2nd QUARTER
1) BOOK
2) BOOK
3) BOOK
4) BOOK
5) BOOK

FIRST HALF OF THE YEAR
1) BOOK
2) BOOK
3) BOOK
4) BOOK
5) BOOK

#73, This was more or less what I was envisioning too, with the possible exception of not doing First Half but continuing with the 3rd and 4th quarters as with the 2nd quarter, and then doing full year. But doing half the year would certainly add interest.

>73 mrstreme: & 74 It sounds good, perhaps to make it less cumbersome we should do them in a line instead of a column?

I totally agree. We'll be scrolling forever. =)

And the good thing is one can copy and paste the earlier lists in from previous threads to the new one!

Mine would have to be (in no particular order):

Angelica by Arthur Phillips - So sad this didn't get more attention; it's really very good, especially for those of us who like historical fiction that takes place in the Victorian era. I have to check out his earlier stuff now.

The Know-it-All by A.J. Jacobs - Really entertaining, and good for trivia buffs.

The Six Wives of Henry VIII by Alison Weir - I bought this at the Tower of London, so that made it more interesting to me as I could go around to London museums seeing the portraits and miniatures as I read about them. But still, this was a very readable look at a perennially interesting subject.

Necessary Sins by Lynn Darling - A touching and brave memoir of the "other woman." I read this while waiting on a flight, and ended up crying in public. Like a younger Joan Didion.

The Custodian of Paradise by Wayne Johnston - I love smart-ass narrators; it's unusual to find them in historical fiction. Sheilagh Fielding is one of the best main characters you will ever meet. Wayne Johnston is amazing; more people should check him out

I'm sure I'm unjustly forgetting something, but at least I'll have a chance to re-do in a few months.

>78 bookishy: bookishy, thanks for reminding me! I read a really great review of Angelica somewhere, maybe Publishers Weekly, and jotted down to check out the next time I was in the bookstore. There must have been some disconnect there because I never did. I have his The Egyptologist but haven't read it, and, of course, Prague was critically acclaimed.

avaland & others: to avoid long lists we could 1) Set up a separate thread for each quarter 2) Set up a cumulative thread for end of June and End of Year, perhaps referring to the quarter in which one read the book, e.g.
End of Year Top 5
1. Half of a Yellow Sun (1)
2. Wise Children (2)
3. Hop on Pop (2)
4. A Christmas Carol (3)
5. Saturday (4)

I don't know. I like all of the other ideas anyway.

#80, That's what I was thinking of too - separate threads.

Yeah, I think separate threads would be a good idea too. I find it a lot easier to comment on other people's answers when it's a shorter thread. If it's a very long one, I get lost in how much there is, can't read it all, etc. etc.

This is late, but here are my top 5:

1. A Million Little Pieces by James Frey

2. The Famished Road by Ben Okri

3. The Good Doctor by Damon Galgut

4. An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro

5. This Cold Heaven: Seven Seasons in Greenland by Gretel Ehrlich

Interestingly enough, I felt that several of these had some writing or plot issues, but they nonetheless left a strong impression on me. I tend to choose my "best" books by how much they linger in the mind after I finish them.

>80 amandameale:; 81. Ok, general concensus: separate threads for each quarter and another separate thread for the half year and then again for the end of the year. Those of us participating in the quarterly lists can mark their entries as amandameale has illustrated (the half year and end of year threads will contain an explanation of the mystery markings).

It occurs to me that my pleasure reading is about to go down the tubes and I'm not sure how my studies will affect my future lists:-)

I am already starting to worry that I haven't read a really great book this quarter -- good ones, yes, but not great enough to be on a "top 5 list." I guess I won't have a great top 5 for this quarter, but will hope to end up with great ones at the end of the year.

avaland: just tell us what non-fiction you're reading - it's sure to be interesting.

>85 amandameale: well, you will hardly have to ask:-) (you know, I should throw aside that Russian thriller I'm reading and pick up Wise Children also. The critics call her prose "exuberant" and I've not found a better word. Her use of language makes me smile and sometimes laugh out loud!

>84 rebeccanyc: Well, it can be less than 5 certainly. I don't think I'll have five either, unless I decide to include poetry.

#86 I only had four for the first quarter; at this rate I may not have any for the second!

#87 That just shows how discerning you are.

#87> You'll be the opposite of me then, Rebecca! I'm racking my brains to come up with five for the first quarter of the year (still haven't posted anything) but have an abundance of choice for the second quarter!

I suspect my first quarter choices will all be non-fiction, as most of my fiction favorites that quarter were re-reads.

>89 marietherese: well, are you going to leave us in suspense?

#8 NOT! (But thanks anyway!)

avaland - Thank you for putting all the thought and effort into organizing this. It sounds like fun!

A quick glance over the first quarter posts suggests Half of a Yellow Sun is the big winner for new books with On Chesil Beach, The Road, and The Book Thief as distant runners-up. Not that we can really claim winners as we all collectively read such a range of books. Interesting, I read the McEwan and McCarthy and didn't get real excited over either (must be the "Mc" thing, eh?). But both fall in my 2nd quarter anywho!

#93 avaland: Thanks for the summary above - hope you'll do it again next quarter. I was so interested in Half of a Yellow Sun I didn't notice the others.

Since we're not limiting ourself to books written in 2007:

Slackjaw by Jim Knipfel
Love is a Mix Tape by Rob Sheffield
The Book of Proper Names by Amelie Nothomb
My Happy Life by Lydia Millet
Jesus Land by Julia Sheeres

If I had to pick books written this year, I couldn't even count five. I've liked not one 2007 novel I've read this year. I was particularly disappointed in Jonathan Lethem's You Don't Love Me Yet.

1. Man Gone Down by Michael Thomas
2. The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
3. New Orleans Mon Amour by Andrei Codrescu
4. Final Exam: A Surgeon's Reflections on Mortality by Pauline Chen
5. Wish I Could Be There: Notes from a Phobic Life by Allen Shawn

N.B. I read Half of a Yellow Sun last year, and loved it!

Had an okay first quarter; four books out of 25 with a +4 star rating (out of 5 stars):

A Team of Rivals by Goodwin (5 stars)
It Happened One Autumn by Kleypas (5 stars)
The Book Thief by Zusak (4-1/2 stars)
A Spot of Bother by Haddon (4-1/2 stars)

plus quite a few 4 starred books.

#78 Bookishy ~ Thanks so much for the info on Angelica by Phillips. I thought The Egyptologist was wonderful and am really looking forward to his latest.

#24 - Sunshine by McKinley is also one of my favorites. I read it a couple of years ago and continue to hope for a sequel.

#40 & 41 ~ Childhood's End is on my list of best sci fi I've ever read! I too haven't forgotten it, though I read it years ago.

Hi all, and a blissful Spring-ing! :)

Even though I'm a bit late for this post, having not gotten it in time... I thought I would make a gesture and leave my top 5 of the first quarter anyways.

*ahem* Soooo without further ado, here they are; in all their brilliant glory:

"The Shadow of the Wind" by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
"Literary Las Vegas" by Mike Tronnes (ed.)
"Fragile Things" by Neil Gaiman
"The Thirteenth Tale" by Diane Setterfield
"Mrs. Dalloway" by Virgina Woolf

Easy, War and Peace it also took up one-third of the first quarter. It was worth every moment and I will read it again next year. Wonderful book. Next was the Bruce Catton trilogy on The Army of the Potomac.

Okay, here are my top 5 from January to March:

1. Life as we knew it by Susan Beth Pfeffer
2. New moon by Stephenie Meyer
3. Sold by Patricia Mccormick
4. Looking for Alaska by John Green
5. Owly Volume 2: Just a little blue by Andy Runton

It's interesting looking back at my ratings, which are made just after I finish the book and therefore don't take into account how long a book stays with me after I set it down. I ended up changing a couple of ratings due to that very phenomenon.

wildbill #102, I loved War and Peace too and will reread it when the new translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky comes out (this coming November, I just discovered).

Just to let you all know, we are now roughly halfway through the 2nd quarter. Don't panic:-)

I was thinking the other day about how I would place a classic on a personal "top books" list, especially if it is one I reread. For example, it is likely in the next week I will need to, once again, reread Jane Eyre. Of course, I'm going to love it as I do every time, but it is fair to weigh a classic against newer novels? This occurred to me while listening to a spectacular audio edition of To Kill a Mockingbird (read by Sissy Spacek). Oh, what a book! (and how much I had forgotten). This one goes in my "audio" category and thus solves the immediate dilemma. But will I include Jane Eyre on my top list? Should I?

I would venture to say, yes, include it. Some books are nearly impossible to truly compare. (How do you comparie fiction or memoirs to heavily-researched nonfiction? They have complete different goals.) But the lists here mostly personal -- not the five best books read, but the five favorites. In this case I think anything goes.

I'm enjoying Janet Finch's Paint It Black.

I pick favorites from my ratings - a nine or ten. But my ratings are based on my enjoyment of the book. For example, 1984 is a classic and very well written. If I rated it strictly as good literature, it would get a nine. However, I rated it a six because I found it so bloody depressing.

I was rating a book twice, once for the writing and once for my enjoyment, but my reading journal was getting too cumbersome, so it was one of the fields I deleted.

#105 avaland: I don't think it's a matter of should or shouldn't, but how strongly you feel about it. So you love Jane Eyre but you might want to give a plug to a new book that you love. And then again Jane Eyre might move you so much it just has to be on the list. I'll be interested to see which you choose. (I love Jane Eyre forever and for always.)

>106 dchaikin:. Yes, I definitely understand the idea of comparing apples and oranges. When I worked at the bookstore, at the end the year we would do a display of our top book for the year. While some had no problem picking one book, I would argue the apples and oranges. How can I choose books which are so dissimilar - and, yes, as you say, have different purposes. Oftentimes, I forget to list nonfiction books because I tend to read them differently, picking away at them between novels or other fictions - and the pleasure in them is a different kind of pleasure than what I get from novels, short fiction or poetry.

We will see what happens, I guess:-)

Getting my first five in just under the deadline for the second quarter!

As I mentioned in a message above, my list includes non-fiction and I find that I haven't really read anything especially noteworthy published so far this year, so none of my choices date from 2007.

Non-fiction:
Hidden Anxieties by Lesley A. Hall
Two Sisters and their Mother by Françoise Héritier
Homophobia: a weapon of sexism by Suzanne Pharr

Fiction:
Hallucinating Foucault by Patricia Duncker
and a re-read: Joanna Russ' superb collection of slightly linked short stories Extra(ordinary) People

The new threads are up in case anyone is ready to post their best books of the 2nd quarter OR the first half of the year. Did anything from the 2nd quarter bump something off your first quarter list...guess, we'll find out!

I know this is late, and there are new threads up, but I would like to chronicle my first quarter favorites so I can compare them with the later ones. =)

1. Fragile Things, by Neil Gaiman
2. Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, by Haruki Murakami
3. Beasts, by Joyce Carol Oates
4. Best New Horror, edited by Stephen Jones and Ramsey Campbell
5. Year's Best Fantasy 5, edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer

in no order:
Anne of green gables
Verdigris deep
Stargirl
Charlotte's web
The amber spyglass
Blart

non fiction
Apples for jam a cookery book!

I realize I'm a bit behind, but better late than never, right?!

1. Surprise Me, God by Terry Esau
2. Dairy Queen by Catherine Murdock
3. Forever in Blue: The Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood by Ann Brashares
4. A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage
5. To Hate Like This is to be Happy Forever: A Thoroughly Obsessive, Intermittently Uplifting, and Occasionally Unbiased Account of the Duke-North Carolina Basketball Rivalry by Will Blythe

*Touchstones a bit wonky*