Best and worst books of 2010

Here's hoping someone else is still alive out there!

It wouldn't be Book of the Month Club without our 'books of the year'. On first thoughts, I don't think there is a book I've read this year that will stand out in my memory for all time as the best or worst book I've ever read but there was still some very interesting stuff. Among my fiction favourites were:
A Kind of Intimacy
Drood
My Mistress's Sparrow is Dead (short stories)
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society
Sacred Hearts
Crippen
The Hungry Ghosts
Steinbeck's Ghost
The Elephant Keeper
The Owl Killers
Now (Morris Gleitzman - no touchstones)
Remarkable Creatures
The White Woman on the Green Bicycle
Last Night at the Lobster
After (actually by Francine Prose but I can't get the touchstone to change)
Alone in Berlin
She's Come Undone
The Blasphemer
Room
A Prayer for the Dying

You'd think all of these books would come from my 'picks of the month' and certainly most of them do but there are always a few instances where I look back at an old POTM and find I no longer remember a thing about it - or others where a book I wasn't all that impressed with at the time has continued to haunt me ever since - The White Woman on the Green Bicycle was one of these.

From that list I now have to try and pick a shortlist and that's even harder but here goes:
The Hungry Ghosts
Steinbeck's Ghost
Now
Remarkable Creatures
After
A Prayer for the Dying

And I guess if I had to choose an overall winner it would be a very close thing but I just might have to go for a children's book this year and that would be Steinbeck's Ghost which was a real joy and which I know I'll read again.

In non-fiction it's a much shorter list and includes:
The Lady in the Tower (Alison Weir, not Jean Plaidy as touchstones insist)
At Large and at Small
Stiff
Bluestockings
Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad
The Purity Myth
I Never Knew there was a Word for it
Though any of those could have won I probably got the most enjoyment from I Never Knew . . .

So now on to the worst books of the year and, in a world where you can only discover The Shack for the first time once, that is much harder. I guess Robinson Crusoe has to be my out and out winner in this category, if only because I can't dump it halfway through and will have to read it again this year (study book). I'm absolutely dreading it. I'd also have to give an honourable mention in this category to the execrable Uppity Woman of Ancient Times.

I've also discovered a few new (to me) authors this year whom I will continue to read for a long time, either digging out their back catalogue or waiting impatiently for their next offering. They include Anne Berry, Christopher Nicholson, Monique Roffey, Nigel Farndale and the remarkable Stewart O'Nan.

It's taken me awhile, but here are my favorites from 2010.

Day of the Pelican by Katherine Paterson
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Clay's Quilt by Silas House
Whiter than Snow by Sandra Dallas
Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner
Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner
Five Skies by Ron Carlson

and my favorite Newberry & YA reads:
Caddie Woodlawn
From the Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
A Single Shard
The Graveyard Book
Bridge to Terabithia
Beauty
Hero and the Crown

And I'm not listing my least favorites - too much work!!

Oh, how lovely to get you here! It's such a shame to see the group slowly going under so I get very excited every time someone posts. As usual, I don't know many of your books but they've given me lots of food for thought even so - I'd certainly agree that Great Expectations deserves to be there in any year.

Doing my best to get to the February thread as soon as pos.

I know what you mean about seeing the group go under - I always get lots of great ideas about what I want to read next from this group. Maybe we should send messages to oldtimers and tell them we miss them!!

Great idea! I've just been 'bigging up' the group to a new member so maybe that'll help a bit.

Toe in the water. I haven't read any of the books you all list. I keep trying to find authors that people on LT suggest but I keep returning to my own favourites. I only read one book a month - and that's if it is short and I'm not writing. How can I join in? oldstick.

Tell us about that book you read last month! Because we have some fairly prolific readers here there's sometimes a danger of the group looking like a competition to see who reads the most but that isn't the case at all. It doesn't matter what you've read or how long it took, it's still of interest. It would be lovely to have you here. What was your February book?

Starting my list for Book of 2010. I'm listing any books that got four or more stars and I'm not including rereads.

http://www.librarything.com/topic/84293

Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical by Robert Shearman
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
Embroideries by Marjane Sartrapi
The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry
The Drowning Girl by Margaret Leroy
Blue Diary by Alice Hoffman
The Rapture by Liz Jensen
The Solitude of Prime Numbers by Paolo Giodano
Our Tragic Universe by Scarlett Thomas
The End of Mr Y by Scarlett Thomas
Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger
Important Artifacts by Leanne Shapton
The News Where You Are by Catherine O'Flynn
Liars and Saints by Maile Meloy
Skylight Confessions by Alice Hoffman
Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
World Without End by Ken Follett

There's some stiff competition. I love everything that Robert Shearman writes, Stephen King is one of my all-time favourite authors, Persepolis was one of those books that stuck with me for weeks afterwards, Scarlett Thomas was a breath of fresh air with both her books and one that really made me think about what I was reading and The Pillars of the Earth was just fantastic from start to finish.

But I think my winner has to be Important Artifacts by Leanne Shapton. It was different to everything else, original and fun. I loved it so much I read it twice in almost a row and have already had a reread of it this year.

Some great ones there, Jody (especially Love Songs). Why am I looking forward even more to hearing about the ones you hated?

(I'm reading Blackbird House by Alice Hoffman right now - can't believe I've only just discovered her, doesn't she write beautifully. Reminds me just a bit of Francine Prose.

Well, I hated a few too, I'll just find them.

Going Home by Harriet Evans - Posh people might have to sell their big house until black sheep daughter with terrible love life comes to the rescue.

The Harrowing by Alexandra Sokoloff - Boring teens do a seance and get murdered a lot, can't help being on the side of the evil spirit.

The Senator's Wife by Sue Miller - Politician has affairs and his wife pretends not to mind. Yawn.

Bad Friends by Clare Seeber - so awful I can't face writing a description.

And it has to be Bad Friends because it was so awful I wanted to throw it across the room every time I looked at it. It sounded so promising and it was so bad.

My three best of 2010:
The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Horns by Joe Hill

And my three worst:
Witch and Wizard by James Patterson
If Wishes Were Horses by Robert Barclay
Noah's Compass by Anne Tyler

Funny you should ask that. I usually stick to novels but last month I read 'Wanna Be A Writer We've heard Of?' by Jane Wenham-Jones because they were closing down our local bookshop and it was going cheap.
She's a UK novelist and journalist and often gives lectures at Book Fairs.
It made a change from wading through novels where I have to keep re-reading parts because I've forgotten who the characters are!
That is happening this month so I'll have plenty to tell you once that is finished.
oldstick.

Looking forward to it!