**Top Reads of 2010

Recognizing that 2010 is not quite over yet, what were your top reads of this year in any and all genres or media (books, articles, blog posts, cereal boxes, etc)?

My favorites from 2010 (so far I suppose):

Fiction:
Light in August by William Faulkner
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner – my favorite of the Faulkner’s
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
Mariette in Ecstasy by Ron Hansen – wonderful Catholicism
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
My Antonia by Willa Cather – probably my favorite of the year, possibly all time
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky (only halfway but I fell pretty confident putting it in anyway)

Short Fiction:
Death in Venice by Thomas Mann
The Last Day of a Condemned Man by Victor Hugo
The Lesson of the Master by Henry James
On the Marble Cliffs by Ernst Junger
The Stranger by Albert Camus

Drama:
Equus by Peter Shaffer

Nonfiction:
Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time by Dava Sobel
The Craftsman by Richard Sennett
Nine Lives: Death and Life in New Orleans by Dan Baum
Texas Tough: The Rise of America's Prison Empire by Robert Perkinson – highly, highly recommended
Where We Know: New Orleans As Home edited by David Rutledge

Fantasy:
Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson
Mistborn, The Well of Ascension, and The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson

I probably won't finish anything else this year so probably the final list for me.

Not a ton of favs in 2010 - hopefully 2011 will bring more outstanding books!

Fall - Colin McAdam
Deep Hollow Creek - Sheila Watson
Chess Story - Stefan Zweig
Burnt Shadows - Kamila Shamsie
The Rehearsal - Eleanor Catton
February - Lisa Moore
Room - Emma Donoghue
The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins
The Night Watch - Sarah Waters
Lemon - Cordelia Strube

Hmm, I think I'm going to hold off making my list until the end of the month. I'm hoping to get to some more good stuff in the next few weeks.

I'm holding off too. I had a great reading year and will have a long list, which I will attempt to hone down to something manageable.

Ditto.

I don't think I will be finishing any more books till monthend, so here's my list of the best out of the 54 reads I managed this year, ranked as follows:

Fiction

1. The Abyss by Marguerite Yourcenar (France)
2. The Lost Steps by Alejo Carpentier (Cuba)
3. The Last of the Just by André Schwarz-Bart (France)
4. Suttree by Cormac McCarthy (US)
5. The Crime of Father Amaro by Eça de Queiros (Portugal)
6. Pereira Declares by Antonio Tabucchi (Italy)

Non-fiction

1. Christ Stopped at Eboli by Carlo Levi (Italy)
2. The Snows of Yesteryear by Gregor von Rezzori (Austria)

Short stories

The Collected Stories of D.H. Lawrence by D.H. Lawrence

I think I'm done for the year, so I'll list mine now:

Fiction:

The River Why by David James Duncan
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder
Fires on the Plain by Ooka Shohei
The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly
Locke & Key by Joe Hill

Non-Fiction:

Maus and Maus II by Art Spiegelman
Good Without God by Greg Epstein
A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold
Bonk by Mary Roach
The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris
Maps of Time by David Chirstain

One day my favorite reads of the year won't constitute 36% of the total books read for that year.

Revealing myself as a discontent, I would find it a lot easier to mention the reads that disappointed me this year - as the distance from most of the books read lengthens, the memories become more negative.

I did, however, enjoy Leviathan or, The Whale by Phillip Hoare which was a fascinating study of the whale. I also enjoyed the Anne Frank bio. by Francise Prose, which did fade a bit at the end but was a very good read. Demick's book about North Vietnam was also very interesting - Nothing to Envy

I guess I was not in the mood for fiction, but I enjoyed The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet by David Mitchell and the sublime Jane Gardam's The Man in the Wooden Hat.

Hyped up disappointments for me were both authors I usually love and adore:
Solar by Ian McEwan
All that follows by Jim Crace

plus, to my mind inexplicably popular:

One Day by David Nicholls
Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay

as I look over the list of books I completed in 2010 there are several that stand out...

in no particular order

In Pharoah's Army by Tobias Wolff
Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes
Feed by Mira Grant
Wicked by Gregory Maguire
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
The Player of Games by Iain Banks
A Pirate of Exquisite Mind by Diana Preston

several that did not stand out (but I finished anyway)...

Solar by Ian McEwan
She by H. Rider Haggard
The Family Trade by Charles Stross

and a couple I could not finish...

Ghostwalk by Rebecca Stott; tried twice to get into this story
People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks; I WILL finish this, I picked it up several times... and always put it back down for some reason
The Structure of Evolutionary Theory by Stephen J. Gould; I picked this 1000-page tome up in May, intending to read a few pages a day... dense incomprehensible prose defeated me. I'll have another go at it sometime.

My favorites for the year...

Jane Eyre by Charlotee Bronte
Chess Story by Stefan Zweig
The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
O! Pioneers by Willa Cather
Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin (an ER book!)
The Good War by Studs Terkel

fuzzy-patters - you have two of my all time favs in your list. The Dostoevsky and the Zweig are right up at the top for me, as is the Bronte. I have not read your others, but here goes the pile.

I two had a terrible reading year. I read a lot of junk. However in making up my best reads list, I find I did read quite a bit that I found excellent.

Top Eighteen
1. A Dark Stranger by Julien Gracq
2. The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton
3. The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas
4. Doctor Glas by Hjalmar Soderberg
5. The Dwarf by Pär Lagerkvis
6. Wish Her Safe at Home by Stephen Benatar
7. Homer's Daughter by Robert Graves
8. Merry Hall by Beverley Nichols
9. The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
10. The Illusionist by Françoise Mallet-Joris
11. The Great Indian Novel by Shashi Tharoor (hysterically funny satire)
12. The Woman of the Pharisees by François Mauriac
13. Stoner by John Williams
14. The Man from Beijing by Henning Mankell
15. The Confusions of Young Torless by Robert Musil
16. Trio by Dorothy Baker
17. Miss Mole by E.H. Young
18. Elephant Winter by Kim Echlin

Novellas
Clarimonde by Théophile Gautier
Sweet Days of Discipline by Fleur Jaeggy
A Memory of Wind by Rachel Swirsky
History of the Thirteen by Honoré de Balzac (a collection of novellas)
Love, Anger, Madness by Marie Vieux-Chauvet - three linked novellas

Short Story Collections
A Life on Paper by Georges-Olivier Chateaureynard (Chateaureynard has been publishing in French for almost 40 years. This collection, which came out in May of this year, is the first translation of any of his work into English. If you like magical realism or interstitial fiction, you should read this collection. There is not a weak story in the lot.)
The Wife and Other Stories by Anton Chekov

Young Adult
Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart

And just because stats interest me (YA novels are excluded from this list):

Number of countries represented in my best 2010 reads: 13
Countries tied for top place: France (6) USA (6)
Languages: 14 works in translation; 11 works in English (USA, England, India, Canada, New Zealand)
Average number of LT members owning one of my top 25: 228
Median number of LT members owning one of my top 25: 130
Male authors: 17
Women authors: 8

Male/Female ratio is equivalent to the usual NY Times ratio year after year. Hmmm . . . I wonder what that says about me. I need to check all the works I've read, which will not be complete until the end of the year, to see how the numbers stack up.

Favorites in various categories:

novels & novellas:

--Black Mirror by Gail Jones (2002, Australian)
--Dreams of Speaking by Gail Jones (2006, Australian)
--Strange Meeting by Susan Hill (1976, UK)
--Wide Open by Nicola Barker (1998, UK)
--The Broken Shore by Peter Temple (2005, Australian)
--A Bloodsmoor Romance by Joyce Carol Oates (novel, 1982, US)
--The Last Summer of Reason by Tahar Djaout (novella, Algerian, T 2007)
--Deep Hollow Creek by Sheila Watson (novella, 1992, Canadian)
--Touch by Adania Shibli (novella, T 2010, Palestinian author)
--The Patience Stone by Atiq Rahimi (Afghan author, novella, translation 2009)
--I Lock My Door Upon Myself, Joyce Carol Oates (1990, novella, US)

Short fiction:

--Tunneling to the Center of the Earth by Kevin Wilson (2009, US)
--A Taste of Honey: Stories by Jabari Asim (short story collection, US author)
--Everything in This Country Must: A Novella and Two Stories by Colum McCann (Irish author, 2000)

Poetry:

--Bicycles: Love Poems by Nikki Giovanni (2009, US)
--Dark Things by Novica Tadic (Serbian poet, Translation: 2009)

Favorite Nonfiction:

--Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism by Natasha Walter (UK, 2010)

Police procedurals:

besides the Peter Temple listed above,
--The Shadow Woman by Åke Edwardson (1997, T 2010, Sweden)

~13 Urania - as a bear of little brain I am wondering about interstitial fiction - between genres I presume, a sort of crossing over of boundaries, can't make up which way to go type of book ..... or I am mistaken? If so please enlighten me.

>16 juliette07: Julie,

You are right on target.

Thank you dear urania - I have since gone and 'wikied' the phrase. Only time I heard of it previously was in the zoological world ....

I suppose that it would depend upon which genres said interstitial books fell between as to wether one would be drawn to reading them or not.

My top 10 books of 2010:

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
A Fortunate Man: The Story of a Country Doctor by John Berger
The Siege of Krishnapur by J.G. Farrell
Troubles by J.G. Farrell
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
Room by Emma Donoghue
The White Family by Maggie Gee
I Hotel by Karen Tei Yamashita
Pereira Declares by Antonio Tabucchi
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddharta Mukherjee

My 5 star books of 2010:

We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
The Waitress Was New by Dominique Fabre
The True Deceiver by Tove Jansson
The Wake by Margo Glantz
Women of the West by Cathy Luchetti and Carol Olwell
The Brontes Went to Woolworths by Rachel Ferguson
Derek Jarman's Garden by Derek Jarman
In Love and Trouble by Alice Walker
The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
Bedelia by Vera Caspary
Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
The Essential Dykes to Wacth Out For by Alison Bechdel
Blindness by Jose Saramago

The Wake and Blindness were my favourites out of all of these.

> 20 Haven't heard of The Wake-- can you tell me a bit about it. :o)

>21 GCPLreader:, Here's my Belletrista review of The Wake: http://www.belletrista.com/2010/issue5/anth_12.php

It's about a woman's reaction to the death of her ex-husband. It's beautiful and thought-provoking and challenging to read.

OK, mine are:
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison
A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
Suite Francaise by Iréne Nemirovsky
Raising Jake by Charlie Carillo
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

A record number of female authors -- 6 out of 7!

k4k

Charlotte, I love your review and it looks right up my alley. --not carried at my library though, so will keep my eyes open.

Alright, I was planning to list this in my reading thread, but I can list it here too... I gave all of these books five stars:

Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Not Wanted on the Voyage by Timothy Findley (Actually a re-read, from high school, but worth it)
The Corrections and Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Contact by Carl Sagan
Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh
Night by Elie Wiesel
and Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Since I only seem to be starting more books, rather than finishing the ones I've got outstanding, as the year creeps to an end, I've decided to post my top reads now.

It's been a rather meager year for me, in terms of numbers, but I did have a few items worth noting. Unsurprisingly, I had more standout non-fiction than fiction because it is easier for me to be drawn to books aboutthings, I guess.

Fiction

Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth - I recently his and am still processing, trying to figure out exactly what I though about it, but I know it was one of my top reads this year.

Donna Tartt's The Secret History - There was something inexplicably gripping about this book about a cultish group of students learning ancient Greek. I wanted to live in it.

White is For Witching by Helen Oyeyemi - Creepy old house, creepy twins, very atmospheric. Probably the only book with which I found no faults at all. When I was done, I immediately clicked (Kindle) back to the beginning and started re-reading it.

Kate Morton's The House at Riverton - a comfort read but a great one. I love these books about old houses, strange families, and long-buried secrets. Such a cliche, but when done well, such fun.

Suzanne Collins’s Mockingjay (The Final Book of The Hunger Games) - Yes, I picked a young adult book as one of my best reads of the year. And I’m not ashamed to say that I bawled like a baby at a number of points during this book.

Non-Fiction

At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson - This book was basically like spending an extended amount of time with an incredibly well-read but rather distractable friend who loves to entertain with random anecdotes. He intends to make a larger point with all these facts and sometimes he succeeds, but even when he doesn't it's entertaining as hell and there's no way you're asking him to stop regaling you with stories.

Katie Roiphe's Uncommon Arrangements: Seven Portraits of Married Life in London Literary Circles 1910-1939 - fantastic, silly gossip about literary and aristocratic types.

Nicholas Blanford’s Killing Mr. Lebanon: The Assassination of Rafik Hariri and its impact on the Middle East - A gripping, novel-like account of Lebanon’s recent history. The best resource I’ve found on Syria-Lebanon relations since 2000.

A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918 - G.J. Meyer’s great one volume history of World War One is like a gateway drug. The book intersperses military history with side chapters focusing on diplomatic, cultural, political, intellectual, and technical history and made me want to read everything I could about the this period in world history.

Robert O. Paxton’s The Anatomy of Fascism - A relatively short, one-volume intellectual and political history of fascist movements mostly in Europe, trying to tease out the phases that fascism moves through as it evolves from a narrow, particularist ideology to a broad-based governing philosophy.

If I can finish Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain in time, that one will also make the list.

My 2010 Top 10:

Fiction
The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman -- linked short stories about an English-language newspaper in Rome and its employees

The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey by Walter Mosley -- tender exploration of old age and race in 2006 south-central LA

You Know When the Men Are Gone by Siobhan Fallon -- linked short stories about contemporary life for deployed soldiers and their families at Fort Hood, Texas

Nonfiction:
American Terroir by Rowan Jacobsen -- why certain locales grow certain animals and plants so well, and the attentive harvesting and processing that transform them into outstanding foods

Packing for Mars by Mary Roach -- quirky scientific exploration of human space travel

Pheromone: The Insect Artwork of Christopher Marley by Christopher Marley -- stunning mounted arrangements of insects

The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean -- “a funny, or odd, or chilling tale” for every element in the periodic table

The Elements by Theodore Gray -- visually stunning coffee-table book that showcases physical samples and a “biography” of each element; pairs well with The Disappearing Spoon, and getting access to its enhanced e-version seems reason enough to purchase an iPad :)

The Geometry of Pasta by Caz Hildebrand/Jacob Kenedy -- an anthropology of pasta shapes plus recipes and pairings of pastas and sauces

The Visual Display of Quantitative Information by Edward Tufte -- the bible of information graphics

The years not over, I might yet read the best, but

Fiction:
Tinkers, by Paul Harding interlinked story of a dying man and his father. My favorite of the year.

Housekeeping, by Marilynne Robinson from the point of view of one of two girls whose mother killed herself, telling about her life with their aunt who experiences differently than most

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell about a Dutch clerk at the end of the 18th century on a Japanese island, and also of a Japanese midwife and others

Jamilia by Chingiz Aitmatov - a summer of growing up by a young man in Krygistan

The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly - a boy's loss of his mother causes him to go into a hidden world

Wizard of the Crow by Ngugi Wa'Thiong'O a satirical account of events in an imaginary African country

My Name is Red Orhan Pamuk - about a murder among Islamic miniturists during the time of the Renaissance in Europe.

The Children's book: a novel by A.S. Byatt set just before WWI in England about life among an artistic, free thinking family and those linked to them.

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel - about Thomas Cromwell (not Oliver) who served Henry the VIII, written in first person, present tense

Never Let me Go by Kazuo Ishiguru - about a special school in a possible reality

The book Thief by Markus Zusak - a story of holocaust time in Germany centered in a family and told from the point of view of death

the Brothers Karamozov by Doestoevsky (a reread)

The Children of Violence series by Doris Lessing (reread) - set in Rhodesia and Great Britain from pre WWI through about 1960's.

detective:
Frozen Tracks, Never End and Sun and Shadow by Ake Edvardsson

Non Fiction:
Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World through Islamic Eyes
The Elegant Universe (not yet finished with this) - about a unified theory of forces, and string theory

the Cross of Redemption by James Baldwin (not yet done, but based on first essays) - essays that hadn't previously been collected

My top reads for 2010 roughly in the order in which I read them:

Hunger by Knut Hamsun
This Blinding Absence of Light by Tahar ben Jelloun
House of Mist by Maria Luisa Bombal
Touch by Adania Shibli
All the Living by C.E. Morgan
The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa
Shadow by Karin Alvtegen
Djamilia by Chingi Aitmatov
The Last Brother by Nathacha Appanah
The Last Summer of Reason by Tahar Djaout

Two outstanding graphic novels:
The Rabbi’s Cat by Joann Sfar
Stitches: A Memoir by David Small

Non-fiction titles (all South African) that deserve a mention:
The Cohen Case by Benjamin Bennett
Irma Stern: A Feast for the Eye by Marion Arnold
Fruit of a Poisoned Tree by Antony Altbeker

I have my toes in the waters of too many books to finish any of them, so here are the 2010's best in order of reading:

Vermeer's Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World by Timothy Brook -- history
Primeval and Other Times by Olga Grushin
Catfish and Mandala by Andrew X. Pham -- fiction
Sonata Mulaticca by Rita Dove -- narrative poetic biography
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanetter Winterson -- fiction
The Line by Olga Grushin -- fiction
The Sea Lady by Margaret Drabble -- fiction
In Parenthesis by David Jones -- WWI epic of the trenches
My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk -- fiction
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith -- fiction
The Saga of Gosta Berling by Selma Lagerlof -- fiction
The Children by Edith Wharton -- fiction
The Tree of Red Stars by Tessa Bridal -- fiction
Elizabeth's Women by Tracy Borman -- history
Wars I Have Seen by Gertrude Stein -- WWII memoir

As 2010 draws to a close my thoughts turn to my review of the reading year so I have compiled top reads.

Non fiction first - reflecting my interests .... France, Travel, Education for Women, Matters of the spirit and Women and war.

The Lost King of France by Deborah Cadbury. A wonderful gift from an Australian LibraryThing friend.
Julian of Norwich: A Contemplative Biography by Amy Frykholm. A reflective historical account of Julian her life and her spiritual thoughts.
Bluestockings: The Remarkable Story of the First Women to Fight for an Education by Jane Robinson. An excellent acount - all the more so as it contains reference to my old school - Noth London Collegiate School!
Resistance: A Woman's Journal of Struggle and Defiance in Occupied France by Agnes Humbert. Women, and war combined with principled defiance.
Station Life in New Zealand (Dodo Press) by Lady Mary Anne Barker. A gift from my dear Sarah and more amazing stories of women defying the odds!

And in terms of my fiction reads there are books in tanslation, a Virago author, a poignant short story and a wonderful yarn!

The Blind Side of the Heart by Julia Franck
The Patience Stone by Atiq Rahami
The Face of War by Martha Gellhorn
24371::The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico
18789::Landfall by Nevil Shute

The last five share an international theme along with two books from my dear Mummy's (aka Granny) library. Hardly any surprise but my non fiction interests feed my fiction reads .... or is it the other way round I wonder.

Frustrated by touchstones - sorry!

At an even 100, this probably wraps it up for 2010, since I won't finish the other book I'm reading, The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford tomorrow. So, after much thought, here are my favorite books of 2010. I struggled mightily to reduce this list even more, but this is the best I can do. What can I say? It was a great reading year!

New and Recent Fiction

The Best
Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon
Great House by Nicole Krauss
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
The Siege by Helen Dunmore
Where the God of Love Hangs Out by Amy Bloom

Runners Up
Q Road by Bonnie Jo Campbell
The Last Brother by Nathacha Appanah
The Betrayal by Helen Dunmore

Classics and Older Fiction

The Best
Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen
Conversation in the Cathedral by Mario Vargas Llosa
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
The Balkan Trilogy by Olivia Manning
The Long Ships by Frans Bengtsson
The Mountain Lion by Jean Stafford
Captain Pantoja and the Special Service by Mario Vargas Llosa

Runners Up
School for Love by Olivia Manning
Wolf among Wolves by Hans Fallada
Terra Nostra by Carlos Fuentes
The Green House by Mario Vargas Llosa
Hotel Savoy by Joseph Roth
Wish Her Safe at Home by Stephen Benatar
The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa

Honorable Mention
Burning Secret by Stefan Zweig
Doctor Glas by Hjalmar Soderberg

Nonfiction

The Best
Bloodlands by Timothy Snyder
Murder City by Charles Bowden
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich byWilliam Shirer
Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick
The Road by Vassily Grossman (this collection includes both fiction and nonfiction, but the essay "The Hell of Treblinka" is the brilliant, horrifying heart of the book)
Travels in Siberia by Ian Frazier
Hitler and Stalin by Alan Bullock

Runners Up
The Whites of Their Eyes by Jill Lepore
The Eitingons by Mary-Kay Wilmers
Dreams in a Time of War by Ngugi wa Thiong'o
Great Plains by Ian Frazier
In Search of a Lost Ladino by Marcel Cohen
Operation Mincemeat by Ben Macintyre

It's just within the realm of possibility that I might finish one more book before the year is out, but even if I do, it's definitely not going to make this list. So, here we go! For simplicity's sake, I'm just listing books to which I gave 4 1/2 or 5 stars, and not letting myself second-guess any of those ratings. So...

Fiction:

The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Locke and Key: Welcome to Lovecraft by Joe Hill
The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly
Komarr by Lois McMaster Bujold
The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
The Simpsons Futurama Crossover Crisis by Matt Goening and Bill Morrison
The World Inside by Robert Silverberg
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
A Civil Campaign by Lois McMaster Bujold
Iron Council by China Mieville
Voices by Ursula K. LeGuin
Powers by Ursula K. LeGuin
Ring for Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit by P.G. Wodehouse
Shadow Tag by Louise Erdrich
I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett
Dear American Airlines by Jonathan Miles

Non-fiction:

Perfectly Reasonable Deviations From The Beaten Track: The Letters Of Richard P. Feynman by Richard P. Feynman, compiled by Michelle Feynman
The Magician's Book: A Skeptic's Adventures in Narnia by Laura Miller
The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University by Kevin Roose
Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void by Mary Roach
Doubt: A History by Jennifer Michael Hecht
Prisoner of Trebekistan: A Decade in Jeopardy! by Bob Harris

Which is a pretty good list of good reading! Although not, I think, too long of one, considering that my total for the year is 171 books. (Or, at most, 172.) I'm a little surprised by how strongly it skews to fiction over non-fiction, though. Maybe my standards for non-fiction are a little more strict?

Best of the Year
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace => defined my year.

other major books
Swann's Way by Marcel Proust => Combray was an amazing experience
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky => still digesting... (also, important for IJ, which needs a re-read)

regular fiction, the best ones
The Passport by Herta Müller
Empire of the Sun by J.G. Ballard
The Prospector & Desert by J. M. G. Le Clézio

Poetry
The Skin of Light by Larry D. Thomas
Five Lavender Minutes of an Afternoon by Larry D. Thomas => ~14 poems. You can read it here: https://sites.google.com/site/larrydthomasfive/home

histories - nothing was change-my-life good, but these were fun for me.
Destiny Disrupted : A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes by Tamim Ansary
History of Korea by Woo-keun Han => this was great for me personally, not sure anyone else would enjoy.
2168338::The River of Lost Footsteps : Histories of Burma by Thant Myint-U

literary reviews - not sure this belongs here. I tried some lit reviews out, and enjoyed them all. These left me wanting more
Sulphur River Literary Review (I read v. xx, no. 2, 2004) => for the poetry.
The Texas Review (I read v. xv, nos. 1 & 2, 1994) => mainly for the essays

My favorites in the order read:

Fiction

The Emigrants by Vilhelm Moberg
Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
Alamut by Vladimir Bartol
Light in August by William Faulkner
Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada
The Vagrants by Yiyun Li
Brodeck by Philippe Claudel
Drohobycz, Drohobycz by Henryk Grynberg
Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo
The Kindly Ones by Jonathon Littell
The Law by Roger Vaillard
War at the End of the World by Mario Vargas Llosa
Spies by Michael Frayn
The Maias by Eca de Queiros
The Royal Family by William Vollmann
The White King by Gyorgy Dragoman
The Liar by Martin Hansen
Manon of the Springs by Marcel Pagnol
Being Dead by Jim Crace

and Nonfiction

Black Hearts: One Platoon's Descent into Madness by Jim Frederick
In the Place of Justice by Wilbert Rideau

Well--my favorites are well-distributed geographically, but shame on me--Only one female author!

Here is my "What I Read In 2010" blog post, which includes my favourites in fiction, nonfiction and poetry:

http://timjonesbooks.blogspot.com/2011/01/what-i-read-in-2010.html

Seeing how few books I read, I'll just list one best: Yellow Blue Tibia by Adam Roberts. A serious science fiction novel that's also quite funny.

MIne, in no particular order:

Fiction
A good fall
Molly Fox's Birthday
One Day
Girl in Translation
The Four Ms. Bradwells - will be published in March 2011
Seedfolks
My American Unhappiness - will be published in June 2011

Business/work related:
Checklist Manifesto
Switch by the Heath Brothers
Brandraising

Nonfiction:
Game Change
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Must You Go?
Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother - will be published in March 2011
Agenda for a New Economy

I have joined Club Read for tracking my 2011 reads. One down already!

Love reviewing everyone's 2010 favorites. Lots of them are on my mount tbr - thanks for reminding me!

Here are my best reads of 2010, in no particular order:

Fiction
Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky (will officially finish this in the first few days of 2011)
Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Light In August by William Faulkner
Oranges are Not the Only Fruit by Jeannette Winterson
Summertime by J.M Coetzee
Quartet in Autumn and Excellent Women by Barbara Pym (Many authors have been said to be a “modern Jane Austen.” Pym’s the one for whom it might be true.)
The Vagabond by Colette
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell (just plain fun)
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
C by Tom McCarthy (annoying, but thought-provoking)
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (A reread on an Ipod Touch while waiting in lines, etc. There might be something to this digital thing…)

Poetry
A wonderful year of poetry reading. This is only a small sample.
I Am: The Selected Poetry of John Clare
John Keats: Longman Cultural Edition
Don Juan by Lord Byron
The Best of It by Kay Ryan

Non Fiction
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
Henry D. Thoreau: A Life of the Mind by Robert D. Richardson, Jr.

Young Adult
Mockingjay (Following Urania1's lead, I'll mention this one. My daughter encouraged me to read it, which lead to a wonderful discussion.)

I'm adding Sourland: Stories by JCO to my list in #15. Another great collection.

Still, there are so many other books I read during the year that I would give hearty recommendations to....

I've really been making a conscious effort to read more from around the globe and I'm glad to see that my list reflects my travels.

My favorite reads from 2010 are:

Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist (Sweden)--The movie was great, the book even better (much more graphic). This was an interesting twist to the traditional vampire story.
The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga (India)--A peek into the Indian caste system, relationship with the British and corruption, but what was most intriguing to me about this book is the tone in which Balram tells his story of rising out of poverty.
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (Afghanistan)--Even out of the tragedy, disappointment and conflict the two women in this story experience, hope still springs forth. A tear or two slid down my cheek in the end.
Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill (Canada)-- I read this book about a young girls journey from being sold into slavery to eventually telling her life story to an abolitionist group in England in two days.
Lisey's Story by Stephen King (United States)-- Typical King with a supernatural element, but Lisey's inner strength and intense love for her husband really made this story. The reader for the audio book version is awesome as well.
Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett (United Kingdom)--It took a month to finish all 31 CDs, but it was well worth the time. Although the tv series differs significantly from the book, it is worth watching.

Dukedom--I read Yellow Blue Tibia this year too. I wasn't always quite sure what to think about it, but loved the premise, and loved finding out the meaning of the title.