Your BEST BOOKS of 2008

The annual "Best Books" thread. Early again, but you have a month to think about it! (there will also eventually be a 4th quarter 'best of' also). The clunker or 'worst of' thread is already in progress.

Please list 5 to 10 highly recommended books from what you have read this year. The numbers 5 and 10 are a guideline. That said, I would suggest you pull out roughly 10 - 15% of your total reading but not more than 15 titles, I think.

It would also be interesting to hear how you would summarize your reading, beyond just numbers, that is.

I'm off to look at my 2008 reading and make a preliminary list and see if I can avoid breaking all my own guidelines:-)

Great idea. Truly enjoyed this year:

Three Cups of Tea by Craig Mortenson
Lush Life by Richard Price
The Razor's Edge W. Somerset Maugham
Jesus Land Julia Scheeres
Tender is the Night F. Scott Fitzgerald
Bagombo Snuff Box Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Nicholas Nickelby Charles Dickens
Einstein Walter Isaacson
John Adams David McCullough

My best ten - in no special order.

An Ordinary Man – Paul Rusesabagina
Beaufort – Ron Leshem
Special Topics in Calamity Physics – Marsha Pessl
Maus I– Art Spiegelman
Maus II – Art Spiegelman
The Blessing of a Broken Heart – Sherri Mandell
The Cat Who Came for Christmas – Cleveland Amory
The Omnivore’s Dilemma – Michael Pollan
What is the What? – Dave Eggers
Duma Key - Stephen King

I spent a little more time this year exploring (1) graphic novels and (2) books about our food culture in the United States. I'm also getting more interested in books about African countries. This year I read about Rwanda and Sudan.

I read mostly fiction but my favorites this year have been non-fiction... interesting!

I agree with Three Cups of Tea

Also, I'd add

Monique and the Mango Rains by Kris Holloway
Gang Leader for a Day by Sudhir Venkatesh
Finding Angela Shelton by Angela Shelton
Help for the Helper by Babette Rothschild- work related but life changing

This has been a really good reading year for me so far: only two 3-star books, and none below that--a pleasant change from last year! I hope I'm getting better at figuring out what I'll like.

My top books so far, in the order I read them, are:
Elantris
Black Ships
Life as We Knew It
The Twilight Saga (okay, so maybe I'm cheating a bit by trying to count three books as one--I read the first one last year--but I don't think they would have had the same impact individually)

I'm hoping to read 1-6 more great books this month to complete my list :)

I normally try to stick to a Top 5, but it looks like I'll end up with a Top 6 unless my opinions change pretty drastically over the next month. I also have a niggly feeling that I could end up with a Top 7, if my current read continues on in the same vein.

In the order I read them:

The Secret Countess by Eva Ibbotson - my only new 5-star book. (I also had three rereads that retained their 5-star ratings, but I don't count rereads in best-of lists). I loved it straight from the first word to the last, and that almost never happens.
Flora Segunda by Ysabeau S. Wilce - Wilce's Califa is my current setting obsession. I want to know everything there is to know about the place, and it seems that she's happy to oblige; all her novels and stories are set there. I love her use of language, her characters and her world building.
Melusine, The Virtu and The Mirador by Sarah Monette - I'm all about the triad of character/setting/style, and Monette does all three really, really well. Her characters won't get out of my head. Even though none of the books gained a full 5-star rating, I'd consider them the best things I read this year. Of all the books I've read in 2008, these are the ones that have really stuck with me.
Flora's Dare by Ysabeau S. Wilce - the one that bumped this list from a Top 5 to a Top 6. I loved it just as much as Flora Segunda, and couldn't think of leaving either book off.

Five of my six picks belong to two series; I considered counting them as series so I could fit a few different books on, but I decided not to bother. I haven't read all that many great books this year, but the ones that blew me out of the water really blew me out of the water.

Most of the books that I read were quite good..^^
These are in no particular order..
My best ten so far...who knows..it might change at the end of December..

Far from the Madding Crowd -Thomas Hardy
Crown Duel -Sherwood Smith (well..I'm combining the two books into one...)
Stardust-Neil Gaiman
Hexwood-Diana Wynne Jones
Archer's Goon-Diana Wynne Jones
Washington Square-Henry James
Antony and Cleopatra-William Shakeseare
Love's Labour's Lost-William Shakespeare
Mill on the Floss-George Eliot
Odyssey-Homer

I only keep a book after reading it if I love, love, love it (or as I sometimes say, it becomes a part of me). These are the ones that managed to stay on my shelf this year:

The Book of Lost Things I grabbed this off the bargain table on a whim and I am so thankful I did!

Burning Bright My book club chose this, and now I will definitely read more books by Tracy Chevalier.

Prodigal Summer Barbara Kingsolver 4-Ever

And
I'm not done with A Pirate of Exquisite Mind yet, but it has already rocked my world.

2008 was another excellent reading year, and while my Best Books list includes several really great novels, there's also 3 especially fine short story collections, led by Lahiri's masterpiece Unaccustomed Earth and followed by Millhauser's Dangerous Laughter and Chris Adrian's A Better Angel. Anyway, here's the whole fiction list and I can recommend every one of them.

Lush Life - Richard Price

Unaccustomed Earth - Jhumpa Lahiri

The Northern Clemency - Philip Hensher

Shadow Country - Peter Matthiessen

A Better Angel - Chris Adrian

Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout

Beginner's Greek - James Collins

Dangerous Laughter - Stephen Millhauser

The Garden of Last Days - Andre Dubus III

Beautiful Children - Charles Bock

My favorite books of all time i dont know their authors but here they are.

Hummer
Twilight
New moon
Eclipse
Breaking Dawn
Revenge of the Witch
Quilty Pleasures
I am the Cheese
Quiet Sensibility ( a book im writing)
How to clean practically anything

Great question, I'd been thinking about it for a while. From January to December :

Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild
A Room With a View by E.M. Forster
A l'Ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs by Marcel Proust
The Home-Maker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher
The Closed Door and Other Stories by Dorothy Whipple
Saplings by Noel Streatfeild
Mistress of the Revolution by Catherine Delors
Hons and Rebels by Jessica Mitford
The Weather in the Streets by Rosamond Lehmann
Decca : The Letters of Jessica Mitford
The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy
The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter
Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn by William J. Mann
My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin
Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters
Dusty Answer by Rosamond Lehmann
His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
The Tiger in the Well by Philip Pullman
Coraline by Neil Gaiman
The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling

This year was particularly good.

Thanks for starting this thread. I'm getting some good ideas for next year.

Women in the Wall by Julia O'Faolain
The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead
The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton

The Post-Office Girl by Stefan Zweig
All Passion Spent by Vita Sackville-West
Arcadia by Tom Stoppard

I read a lot of very very good books this year.

I've had a fantastic reading year!

My top reads for 2008.
Fiction:
By the Sea by Abdulrazak Gurnah
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton
The Seasons of the Beento Blackbird by Akosua Busia
Small Island by Andrea Levy
Mosquito by Roma Tearne
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga
After You’d Gone by Maggie O’ Farrell
Lemona's Tale by Ken Saro-Wiwa

Non-Fiction:
Gift From the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Neither East, Nor West: One Woman's Journey Through the Islamic Republic of Iran by Christiane Bird

So far, my favorites this year are:

The Translator: A Tribesman's Memoir of Darfur by Daoud Hari - an ER book
Duma Key by Stephen King - This may be my favorite King book.
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
World Without End by Ken Follett
Mudbound by Hillary Jordan
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes - This is a reread, but always great!
A Gathering of Old Men by Ernest Gaines - Another reread, but worth every minute.
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens - I'm still reading this one. I read it years ago, but I'm finding it absolutely wonderful this time through.

I'm sure I'll have a couple more to add before the end of the year. My TBR pile is growing with each post! Someone, stop the insanity! :)

My favorites from 2008 so far. I attempted to put them in order.

fiction
1. Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson
2. Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton
3. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
4. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
5. The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson
6. The Road Home by Rose Tremain
7. The Red Tent by Anita Diamant

Nonfiction
1. A Knock at the Door by Margaret Ajemian Ahnert -- on the Armenian genocide
2. The Weather Makers by Tim Flannery -- on global warming
3. How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber & Elaine Mazlish
4. The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner -- A fun book I keep thinking about

So far, all the books I've read this year have been good, with one or two exceptions (Inherit the Stars stands out here). Here's my top 10, in no particular order:

Fantasy:
The Color of Magic - Terry Pratchett
The Chosen - Ricardo Pinto
The Eye of the World - Robert Jordan

Science Fiction:
Childhood's End - Arthur C. Clarke
Ptath - A.E. van Vogt
The Listeners - James E. Gunn
The Island of Dr. Moreau - H.G. Wells

Non-Fiction:
The Search for the Elements - Isaac Asimov
3x Carlin: An Orgy of George - George Carlin
Earth: Our Crowded Spaceship - Isaac Asimov

Some of my '08 favorites, in random order:

American Purgatorio by John Haskell

The Wreckage of Agathon by John Gardner

Grotesque by Natsuo Kirino

Lala Pipo by Hideo Okuda

Tetherballs of Bougainville by Mark Leyner

Indignation by Philip Roth

Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald

A high wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes

Watch your mouth by Daniel Handler

In order of date read:

Cannibals and Kings: The Origins of Cultures by Marvin Harris

Playing for Keeps by Mur Lafferty

Heaven: Part Four - Wasteland by Mur Lafferty

Ten Little Indians by Agatha Christie

Tideline by Elizabeth Bear (short story)

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

Star Trek: New Worlds, New Civilizations by Michael Jan Freidman

7th Son by J.C. Hutchens

The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead by Max Brooks

Preliminary list (still working on it...)

Fiction (no particular order)
Where the Line Bleeds by Jesmyn Ward, debut novel set on the pre-Katrina Mississippi coast - by a promising new writer.
Memory of Departure by Abdulrazak Gurnah, earlier novel by a favorite author.
The Hiding Place by Trezza Azzopardi, a grim but riveting and well-crafted story set in 1960s Wales.
Sorry by Gail Jones, the lyrical writing in this Australian author's short novels has made her a favorite.
Children of the New World: A Novel of the Algerian War by Assia Djebar, early novel by a favorite author - one day in the war in one town. Written when she was just 26.
The Outcast by Sadie Jones, another debut novel which made the Orange Prize longlist.
Pillar of Salt by Albert Memmi, a classic by the noted Tunisian author.
Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga, a coming-of-age novel by a Zimbabwean author.

Mystery
Tough call, but it goes to Exit Music by Ian Rankin. The Fifth Woman by Henning Mankell (although the Rebus would still be the sentimental favorite).

Short Fiction collections
Why the Devil Chose New England for his Work by Jason Brown. A debut collection by a young writer and set not-so-far from the Strout book listed next.
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout, a composite picture of Olive and her surroundings.
Tiny Deaths by Robert Shearman, clever and thoughtful stuff.

Poetry, nonfiction
Still working on whittling this down. . .

>10 LouisBranning: Louis, I didn't realize Millhauser had a new novel out! (I've had my head buried in research and am getting behind on the new stuff).

I'm currently reading Proust (into the third volume) and will be for quite some time, so I believe I can submit my list now. That Proust is on my list is a given (esp. Swann's Way, which is so, so wonderful), but maybe I'll leave it off until next year, when I'll officially finish the book as a whole.

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Famished Road by Ben Okri
The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles
Wizard of the Crow by Ngugi wa Thiong'o
Fifth Business by Robertson Davies
Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter
A Room With a View by E.M. Forster
Galatea 2.2 by Richard Powers
Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte (not sure why this one has stuck with me so much, but it has)

...I think. I read so many wonderful books this year, I could easily give a top 25. This year marked my first foray into African literature since reading Things Fall Apart in high school, and I read more female authors than usual. Both of these ventures have been quite successful (as you can see above). I also decided to delve into science fiction, with mixed results. And Proust. Proust Proust Proust Proust Proust!

This is difficult-but the following made this a very good reading year so far.

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
Shining At The Bottom of The Sea by Stephen Marche
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood( a reread but well worth it!)
A Journey to the End of the Millennium by A.B. Yehoshua
Conceit by Mary Novik
Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O'Neill
Black Swan Green by David Mitchell
Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones
The Flying Troutmans by Miriam Toews
The Last Train to Kazan by Stephen Miller
Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson

I read more books that I enjoyed this year than I have in years past. So far, my top picks are:
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott
The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff
Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Silk by Alessandro Baricco

I may add one or two more, but those are the ones I really can't stop talking about, it seems.

Urk. I know this is a good question because it's hard to think of something concise to say.

Orderlessly:

Before I Lose My Style by Mike Kaspar--relationships writ small, and well, and worth a place in your shopping cart.

A Pirate of Exquisite Mind by the Prestons--fascinating character, reprehensible and unredeemable on some levels, and brilliantly ahead of his time on others.

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon--pleasurably Gothic book-passions. 'Nuff said.

My Lucky Star by Joe Keenan--because sometimes ya just need ta yuk it up.

The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham--post-apocalyptic tale that's scarily apropos 58 years on.

Off Armageddon Reef by David Weber--lush, luscious storytelling.

Betcha I think of others before 12/31.

I have a few:

Remains of the Day by Ishiguro

Never Let Me Go by Ishiguro

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons

Time and Again by Jack Finney

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips

Lush Life by Richard Price

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon

Time and Chance by Sharon Kay Penman

and my favorite was (drum roll, please)

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Magnificent books past and present. I name the author if there is more than one book out with the same title.
The Lucky Ones- (Nicolas Sparks)
Wuthering Heights (again)
The Secret Countess
Katherine
Peony in Love
Eternal Love-(Angel Taormina)
The Shack
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle
The Secret Garden (:) again... I can't help it)
That makes only 2 on my list that are new. But then there are the ones I read over and over. Flora's Dare was superb as well; and there is another book also called Eternal Love; but it's book of poetry; not a historical romance- but I thoroughly enjoyed that as well.

I'm not sure I can list fifteen -- I don't keep track of my reading -- but a few certainly stick out.

Jane Eyre
The Thirteenth Tale
The Secret of Lost Things
Byron: Life and Legend
The Woman in White
The End of the Affair
Westmark, The Kestrel, The Beggar Queen (a series that made me sorely miss YA lit)
Mrs. Dalloway
The Tempest
Possession

I'm particularly proud of Jane Eyre. Three tries at reading it and I finally made it through. I'm glad I took another whack at it. It was the first book in awhile that I immediately wanted to reread after finishing.

I read a lot this year and a lot of what I read was stellar. It was really hard to choose. Note: items may change due to poster's discretion.

In no particular order, sort of.

Fiction:

Anna Karenina

Year of Wonders - Geraldine Brooks

Remains of the Day

When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka

War and Peace

Half of a Yellow Sun

The Blind Assassin

The Girls by Lori Lansens

Music and Silence - Rose Tremain

The Secret River = Kate Grenville

Graphic novels/memoirs:

The Invention of Hugo Cabret

Persepolis

Blankets

The Arrival

Ethel and Ernest

The Lost Thing

Short Stories:

Interpreter of Maladies

Olive Kitteridge

Come to Me - (Amy Bloom)

Nonfiction:

In Defense of Food - Michael Pollan

Amish Grace

Three Cups of Tea

The Partly Cloudy Patriot - Sarah Vowell

2008 highlights (in no particular order):

fiction:
The Book Thief by Markus Zuzak
Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini
O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
The Chosen by Chaim Potok

nonfiction:
The Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuscinski
The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan
Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson

This was my year for discovering Isabel Allende, and I count the three novels I read by her as one of the best things to happen to me this year. I also joined the LT Early Reviewers group and was privileged to read two amazingly excellent books from that program. I still think about Tigana and Calamity Physics, though I read both quite awhile ago. All in all, it was a very good year...and it's not over yet! I may well add another one or two to the list of 14 before midnight on New Years Eve.

The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
Portrait in Sepia by Allende (audio)
Ines of My Soul by Isabel Allende (Audio)
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer (LTER)
Mistress of the Art of Death (audio)
Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay
Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner
Special Topics in Calamity Physics (audio)
Mr. White's Confession by Robert Clark (LTER)
China Road by Rob Gifford (nonfiction)

EDITED to keep list to 10 (plus one non-fiction, which doesn't need to go on a list, I guess). The books I removed are Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana by Anne Rice (audio), The Gargoyle by Davidson, Dreamers of the Day by Mary Doria Russell, and The Gallic Wars by Julius Caesar (nonfiction).

ETA it appears I can't count before my second cup of coffee in the morning. The non-fiction pick actually is the 10th book so should be counted.

I borrowed Inherit the Stars from a friend many years ago. I remember nothing about it now, except that I enjoyed it.

#32 storeetllr - I have China Road on my 999 challenge so I'm glad to hear that someone really liked it.

#31 AMQS - ditto O Pioneers!

Here are my best books of 2008 (so far)

Killer Angels by Michael Shaara - Pulitzer Prize Winner of 1974
Independent People by Halldor Laxness - Nobel Prize for Literature 1955
The Road by Cormac McCarthy - Pulitzer Prize Winner of 2007
The Quiet American by Graham Greene
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell

It's been a great year so far, and I have to thank the 75 book challenge and the 888 challenge for inspiring me to search out new categories and new authors.

Perhaps I haven't had enough coffee yet...but I actually had to think about this; usually, at least four or five present themselves as obvious

Reading the OED by Eamonn Shea
The Making of a Philosopher by Colin McGinn
The Last Kingdom, The Pale Horseman, Lords of the North, and Sword Song by Bernard Cornwell
The Discovery of France by Graham Robb
Lavinia by Ursula K. Le Guin
Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
Last Night by James Salter

2008 has been a great reading year for me! I've explored new genres and discovered many new authors.

In no particular order:
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
1984 by George Orwell
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Lisey's Story by Stephen King
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
Atonement by Ian McEwan
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

.. I think.

DCHAIKIN!!!!!
Was Out Stealing Horses any good?

2008 was an excellent reading year for me, too. Normally I would wait to choose until later in the month, but I don't think anything I have planned for the month will change this list.

Fiction:

No Country for Old Men
Small Island
The Reluctant Fundamentalist
The Road
Half of a Yellow Sun

Non-Fiction:

Enrique's Journey
The Zookeeper's Wife
Three Cups of Tea
About Alice
Infidel

#37 SilverSummer - Well, I enjoyed it more than any other book I've read in at least the past two and half years, and I've read some wonderful books this year. I don't imagine everyone will love Out Stealing Horses as much as I did. For me it was cathartic and it just resonated very strongly.

Also, I should note that it won the IMPAC Dublin award in 2007.

I read a lot of wonderful books this year - standouts include

The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett & will be reading the rest of the Lymond Chronicles next year
A Question of Upbringing by Anthony Powell - I've now read another 4 of the Dance to the music of Time series
Gatty's Tale by Kevin Crossley-Holland
Love in a Cold Climate omnibus of 4 novels by Nancy Mitford
If this is man and the Truce by Primo Levi
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame - was surprised at how much I enjoyed this
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte - revisited a few classics this year
Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith was probably the best thriller, mainly because of the setting.

Well, my top favorites have been pretty consistant since this past spring when I discovered the majority of them. In my order of favoriteness (my new word!):

Stalking Darkness by Lynn Flewelling
Luck in the Shadows by Lynn Flewelling
Traitor's Moon by Lynn Flewelling
(The above three being part of the Nightrunner series)

Pagan in Exile by Catherine Jinks
Pagan's Crusade by Catherine Jinks
Pagan's Vows by Catherine Jinks
(These three also being part of a series)

Havemercy by Jaida Jones
Shadow's Return by Lynn Flewelling (also part of the Nightrunner series)
Lady of the Lakes by J.C. Hall
Magic's Price by Mercedes Lackey
Vintage by Steve Berman
Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr

Okay, that's 12 but since most of them are part of a series I figured I could go a couple more :-)

For manga my favorite series this year (although I started reading it last year) has been Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles, particularly the last few volumes.

As anyone can see the fantasy genre basically ruled my world this year!

Books I read this year that I had a hard time putting down are as follows:

The Crimson Petal and the White
A Lesson Before Dying
The Thirteenth Tale
Judgment in Stone
Mildred Pierce, Double Indemnity, and The Postman Always Rings Twice
The Big Sleep
Madame Bovary
The Friday Night Knitting Club

#38 I've enjoyed everything I've read by Calvin Trillin, but I haven't read About Alice yet. Something to look forward to.

I'm not getting my fiction list pared down very well, so maybe if I break it down into smaller chunks I won't break the rules in the OP.

I don't read that much YA fiction but I really liked these three:
The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman
Little Brother, Cory Doctorow
Madapple, Christina Meldrum

It's been another great year for book reading, and since joining LT six months ago, the experience has deepened beautifully. Here's my choices, in no particular order:

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
The Known World by Edward P. Jones
March by Geraldine Brooks
Duma Key by Stephen King
World War Z by Max Brooks
Lush Life by Richard Price

What's next year going to be like! Wow!

OOO, thought of another one: Why We Hate Us by Dick Meyer. Trenchant, wise, and timely. I wonder what Mr. Meyer, the believer in and preacher of listening more and better, would think of LibraryThing. Most people here seem to be very good cyber-listeners, and respectful of differing opinions. This is a very civil place, on the whole.

Most of my best books for this year have been read in the last quarter, which has been a particularly good one. But from the whole year:

Love Over Scotland - Alexander McCall Smith
The Children of Men - P. D. James
The Touch - Colleen McCulloch
Pompeii - Robert Harris
Sayonara Bar - Susan Barker
Daniel Deronda - George Eliot
Lilith - George MacDonald
Ilium - Dan Simmons (haven't finished this yet but I know it's going to make my favourites list!)

I loved Fingersmith by Sarah Waters immensely, I am going to reread it in 2009. Never let me go by Kazuo Ishiguro touched me deeply. It is my number one for 2008.
Thank you for reminding me.
Machteld

#49, Marchteld, have you read other books by Sarah Waters ? All four of her books are terrific. Tipping the Velvet is a great favourite of mine and it has one of the best characters I've ever met in literature (Florence Banner). I really envy you, I wish I were discovering her stuff for the first time !

I have not compiled my list yet as I am reading some very good ones right now and will definitely want to add them. But...I am seeing many books listed here that are sitting, as of yet, unread on my shelf. This tells me next years reading is going to be as good as this years. Of course, as per usual, I have now also added books to my wishlist. I'll never catch up!

I read hardly anything in the first part of the year followed by quite a lot of reading since then. Unsurprisingly, with one exception, my favourites have come from the last 5 months.

My favourites so far have been:

Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro (which I see is on a few lists here)
Three to See the King - Magnus Mills
Fup - Jim Dodge
Naive, Super - Erlend Loe
Light of Day - Graham Swift
The Hypocrisy of Disco - Clane Hayward
The Year of Magical Thinking - Joan Didion
Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes
84 Charing Cross Road - Helene Hanff
Choke - Chuck Palahniuk

I discovered lots of writers for the first time this year, and my reading was influenced by recommendations on here, another book site and by one friend in particular. I also discovered the 1001 Books to Read Before You Die which has also had some bearing on my reading.

After enjoying the responses on this thread, I realized I have no list of my own reading for the year. Is there a way to keep track on LT? I know I should have a notebook to do this, but online would be easier. Would appreciate any advice.

There are many ways. You can keep a journal in the 50 Book Challenge or 75 Book Challenge.

Or you could use the "Date Read" fields for your book and keep a date log in your library. (Check out my library, recommended viewing style, if you want to see an example). You can then click on the column heading to sort by date to get the order in which you read the book.

You could also simply tag the books you read "read2008" or something like that and filter by that tag to get the books you read in 2008. If you use a tag like that, you wouldn't be preserving the order you read the books, but that may not be important to you.

I'm sure there are many other ways that other people could suggest. . .

The following novels were my 4-1/2 to 5 star books so far this year:
The Given Day - Dennis Lehane
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle - David Wroblewski
The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse - Louise Erdrich
The Master Butcher's Singing Club - Louise Erdrich
O Pioneers - Willa Cather
Tom Bedlam - George Hagan
and
the last 4 Harry Potters - J.K. Rowling
I always vow I'm going to read more nonfiction, but it never happens. I'm just a sucker for losing myself in an imaginary world.

Read and LOVED this year:

• Belong To Me by Marisa de los Santos
• Little Stalker by Jennifer Belle
• Little Earthquakes by Jennifer Weiner
• Party Favors by Nicole Sexton
• The Longest Trip Home by John Grogan
• Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks

The first four would probably be considered "women's fiction." Grogan and Brooks are well-known authors who, in my opinion, deserve absolutely all of the praise they receive!

Picking and choosing from the 80-odd books I've rated 4½ or 5 this year (it's been a tough year and I've re-read a lot of comfortable light-fiction favourites) and trying to choose as wide a range as possible:

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day - Winifred Watson
Going Postal - Terry Pratchett (I had never read Pratchett before, and had three or four people keep on telling me to read this book; I finally caved, and loved it)
A Damsel in Distress - PG Wodehouse
84 Charing Cross Road - Helene Hanff
A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini
Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
Cotillion - Georgette Heyer
Have His Carcase - Dorothy L. Sayers
Hubbub - Emily Cockayne
Paradise Regained - John Milton
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - Mark Haddon
The Talisman Ring - Georgette Heyer
Pompeii - Robert Harris
and because I'm a romance junkie:
The Trouble with Paradise - Jill Shalvis
Bet Me - Jennifer Crusie

kerrlm, I used to keep track of the books I'd read in my Outlook calendar. A few months ago, someone on LT recommended the website evernote.com and I've been keeping track there ever since. This is nice if you use more than one computer or you use outlook for work (I don't). There are other gadgets that are really cool on there, too, but I really just use it to track books. Check it out.

BTW - I'm not ready to make my list yet because I have about sixteen books from the library and there are quite a few that look like they may make the list.

Seconding the plug for evernote.com!

My favorite reads from 2008 so far have probably been:

19 Paula Spencer
Roddy Doyle 1/15/2008 ****
23 The Siege Of Krishnapur
J.G.Farrell 2/2/2008 *****
36 Dylan Thomas In America
John Malcolm Brinnin 4/6/2008 *****
62 The Trouser People
Andrew Marshall 10/3/2008 Nonfiction *****
71 Eugenie Grandet
Balzac 11/23/2008 *****
75 South Of The Border West Of The Sun
Haruki Murakami 12/3/2008 *****
70 The Woman Who Walked Into Doors
Roddy Doyle 11/20/2008 *****

The dates after the authors are my finish dates. I have to say that once I had gotten into 'Dylan Thomas in America' I found it gripping. The emotional impact upon me was huge, I found that afterward I wanted to read 'Under Milkwood' which I did while listening to the live recording of Dylan's performance of that play. Devastatingly good. Soul wrenching.

Well, I can attempt this, since I think I'll be reading Doctor Faustus for the rest of December, although I may mix in a few lighter, shorter, reads.

It's been a good reading year for me. These lists are not in order, but I've tried to put my top favorites first in each category. I may try to narrow them down later.

Also, the touchstones are a little off today -- couldn't get the "others" list to come up for wrong touchstones -- sorry.

New Fiction

Netherland by Joseph O'Neill
Lush Life by Richard Price
Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson
The Condition by Jennifer Haigh
A Most Wanted Man by John Le Carre
The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano
The Clothes on Their Backs by Linda Grant
Dear American Airlines by Jonathan Miles
The Story of Forgetting by Stefan Merrill Block
The Boys in the Trees by Mary Swan
The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich

Older Fiction

Unforgiving Years by Victor Serge
Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann
The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth
The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andric
A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes
In Hazard by Richard Hughes
Petals of Blood by Ngugi wa Thiong'o
By the Sea by Abdulrazak Gurnah
What's for Dinner? by James Schuyler
The Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies
The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim
Beware of Pity by Stefan Zweig

Nonfiction

Blood-Dark Track by Joseph O'Neill
The Cave Painters: Probing the Mysteries of the World's First Artists by Gregory Curtis
The Dark Side: How the War on Terror Turned into a War on America's Ideals by Jane Mayer
A Way of Life, Like Any Other by Darcy O'Brien

My five star reads are:

Night by Elie Wiesel
Bleak House by Charles Dickens
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie
Half a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Mao II by Don DeLillo
The Ministry of Special Cases by Nathan Englander
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
Middlemarch by George Eliot
After Dark by Haruki Murakami

There are more, but these are the best........Great year, and much thanks to LT and the 1001 list!

These are my in the order that I read them (all 4-1/2 to 5 stars):

The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan
The Lonely Londoners by Sam Selvon
By the Sea by Abdulrazak Gurnah
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Death at Intervals by Jose Saramago
Netherland by Joseph O'Neill
The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie
84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
A Case of Exploding Mangoes by Mohammed Hanif
Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh
God's Own Country by Ross Raisin
The Spare Room by Helen Garner
Onitsha by Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio
Carpentaria by Alexis Wright

At month's end, I may also include 2666 by Roberto Bolano.

My favorites of the year (so far):

Lies of Locke Lamora and the sequel Red Seas Under Red Skies
The Gift
Reindeer People
Sharp Objects

Books in 2008 that I loved:

Transformations by Anne Sexton
Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Flora Segunda by Ysabeau S. Wilce
The Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden by Catherynne M Valente
The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner
The Invention of Love by Tom Stoppard
The Virtu by Sarah Monette
A Storm of Swords by George RR Martin
The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing: The Pox Party by MT Anderson
The Book of Imaginary Beings by Jorge Luis Borges
The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel
Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart

I think I'm ready to post my nonfiction and poetry favorites:

I read nine volumes of poetry this year, all women poets as it happens, all living except for Anne Bradstreet. I enjoyed them all. One tends to like some poems in a collection more than others much like one does with music compilations, but for excellent poetry and intriguing subject matter, the winner is:
Poetry: The Anatomy Theater : Poems by Nadine Meyer

My nonfiction reading was of older works, many relating to the research I'm doing. It is very difficult to pick the 'best', but the winners are:

Louisa May: A Modern Biography by Martha Saxton
In the Devil's Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692 by Mary Beth Norton
Fevered Lives: Tuberculosis in American Culture since 1870 by Katherine Ott.
A contemporary memoir I enjoyed was Socialism is Great! by Lijia Zhang.
The other book that I have not finished yet, destined to make the 2009 list is Gregory Rabassa's If This Be Treason about his life as a translator.

I don't have any best books this year which is really sad!

I didn't read much this year because I was really busy so 2009 may be better as I won't have much on.

Also I didn't discover any 'wow' books... As comparison in 2007 I 'discovered' Sharon Penman books. Wow. Looking at 2008 nothing really compares, there were lots of 'nice' books but none that made me stay up late reading because I HAD to.

It took some effort, but I managed to get my Best Of 2008 list down to 10. In the order I read them:

Perfume: the story of a murderer by Patrick Suskind
Possession: a romance by A.S. Byatt
A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell
An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro
If On a Winters Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino
The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell
Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman
The Letters of Noel Coward edited by Barry Day
Ulysses by James Joyce (no, really!)
Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov

I'm cheating like mad, counting both a 12-book series and a 4-book quartet as 1 book.

edited to get it down to 10

Reading war and Peace for most of the past year. I read it for a while, put it down and read something else then come back to it. It is becoming quite the commitment on my part.

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold - I read it in two days, which is saying quite a lot for a book these days, if I can get through it that quickly.
Violin Dreams by Arnold Steinhardt - it's about music, the violin and Bach's Chaconne - who could resist?
The Rebirth of Witchcraft by Doreen Valiente - she left me feeling hopefully that the Craft will flourish and grow, even if it changes.
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini - This was the first selection I read with my book club. It started off with such promise! Oh, well. The book was good.
Bitter is the New Black by Jen Lancaster - She laughs at other people, but most of all, she laughs at herself.
Porn for Women by Cambridge Women's Pornography Cooperative - I read this one when I was feeling depressed and needed some cheering up.

I attempted some serious books this year: A Russian Diary by Anna Politkovskaya, The End of America by Naomi Wolf and now I'm in the midst of three (count 'em, THREE) books: In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan, Girls Like Us by Sheila Weller and Mysteries of the Dark Moon by Demetra George. Will I finish any of these before year's end and add them to this list? We shall see!

I haven't looked at my 2008 list yet to see books farther back in time, but those I just recently finished:

The Shack by William P. Young
Emotionally searing, and very thought and discussion provoking.

Tengu by John Dodnhue
3rd book in a series. Love the characters and the construction of the stories, mystery/thriller Asian overtones, martial arts, and Japanese history and culture.

Forgot:

The Coroner's Lunch by Colin Cotterill
Start of a mystery series set in Laos in 1978 after the communists take over. Very well done.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
Story told by an autistic teen, about his life, and the mysterious murder of a neighbor's dog.
.

Oh, yeah, I forgot Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I think that was my favorite.

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
Through Black Spruce by Joseph Boyden
Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden- my favourite!!
A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin
The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper

I'm still hoping to add something really great to this list before year's end. 2008 wasn't my best year of reading. Even most of these "bests" aren't as good as my bests from other years. So here goes:

Bleak House, Dickens
Family Matters, Mistry
Never Let Me Go, Ishiguro
The Poisonwood Bible, Kingsolver
Alias Grace, Atwood
Infidel, Hirsi Ali
Survival in Auschwitz (aka If This is a Man), Levi

#73 Iudita

Did you read the entire Dark Is Rising series, or just the one book by that name, which is the 2nd book in the series?

These are the highlights for me so far this year:

Freddy and Fredericka
Interred with Their Bones
A Drink Before the War - actually I read all five of Lehane's Kenzie/Gennaro mysteries and all were quite good.
On the Shoulders of Giants
Fool's War
Old Man's War
The Big Sleep
All Mortal Flesh
Pirate Freedom

Thanks to all for your lists... now I'll never run out of things to look for.

From the 78 books I've read this year, the following are my favorite:

A Clockwork Orange
Crime and Punishment
Notes from Underground
Seize the Day
Fatelessness
The Death of Ivan Ilyich
All the Pretty Horses
The Crossing
The Old Man and the Sea
One Hundred Years of Solitude
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
No Country for Old Men
The Stranger
Catch-22

This list doesn't include rereads, because this list is long enough!
Gentlemen of the Road
The Road
Fragile Things
Heart-Shaped Box
Coraline
Night Watch
Reaper Man
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell
Flowers For Algernon
No Country For Old Men
The 19th Wife
Mort
A Short History Of Nearly Everything
The Book Of Lost Things
When You Are Engulfed In Flames
The Three Musketeers
Wyrd Sisters
The Year Of Magical Thinking
Disgrace
Guards! Guards!
The Prestige
20th Century Ghosts
Moving Pictures
Dreams From My Father
Small Gods
An Anthropologist On Mars
The Graveyard Book
Girl With A Pearl Earring
Lords And Ladies
Collected Fictions

Is anyone else having a problem with this thread?

There are so many books being listed that I'm having a hard time really deciding which were the best books that people read in 2008.

Yes, more than 5 or so and I'm not bothering looking. Usually I take the thread and make a list of all the books to come up with a top ten list, but I'm not sure I'm going to do it this year. The lists are just too long for my summary to be all that helpful.

#79: I'm approaching it the same way I usually approach the weekly reading threads in this group--look for the people whose tastes I know are similar to mine, and zero in on their picks. If I remember properly, after the best of 2007 thread had picked up a couple of hundred replies, one of the users went back and made a list of the books that received more than one mention.

ETA: Need more coffee. Looked up the thread--obviously you & Morphidae know what's up. Also, what is wrong with my internet connection this morning? *wanders off grumbling*

>81 Medellia: Yep, that was me that made the list. It's a real pain because I have to copy/paste then edit most lines. It wasn't too bad when people stuck to 5 to 10 books, but these lists are way too long. I don't have the time or inclination.

ETA: *looks over the lists again - waffles in her decision*

I agree that the longer lists are unwieldy. I believe if a Top Ten is good enough for David Letterman, then it's good enough for me...so here goes, although I begin with my most favorite book of 2008.

1. The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich
2. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski
3. Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill
4. The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry
5. Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset
6. The Master by Colm Toibin
7. Home by Marilynne Robinson
8. Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson
9. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
10. The Maytrees by Annie Dillard

Now I am *popping* over to my Profile Page to post my "Special Awards"

Okay, now I feel guilty. I will whittle my list down to ten.

I edited mine (#32 above) down to 10 fiction and one non-fiction to make it easier to use in a compilation, if Morphidae decides to do one this year.

In case I haven't said so before, Morph, thank you for doing the compilation in prior years. I always found it very interesting ~ I like seeing how my favorites stack up.

ETA I can't count (need my second cup of coffee for higher mathematics). I actually got it down to 10 total, including the non-fiction. Yo!

Just in case anyone is interested here is the "Top 5 of 2007" thread link:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/24770#489837

I didn't want to bump it and cause any confusion. I couldn't find Morph's best of list though :( It's probably in a totally obvious place I'm overlooking.

I enjoyed a lot more books than the four I'll list. Four is just shy of 8% of my total.

Fiction
The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh
The Secret River by Kate Grenville

Non-fiction
The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan
The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert A. Caro

I felt guilty too so I edited my message (#12) and kept only 10 books. It's a bit silly because it's not my fault if I've read 20 particularly excellent books this year but I'll post the real comprehensive list on my journal.

Hey, for every category you can come up with, there are at least 20 schools out there calling themselves top 10 schools. So if someone wants to list 20 top tens, it's OK by me.

So here are my top ten:

1. James Agee, A Death in the Family
2. Light in August, William Faulkner
3. Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote
4. Dylan Thomas, Under Milk Wood
5. Beowulf
6. Crime and Punishment
7. Halldor Laxness, The Fish Can Sing
8. Naguib Mahfouz, Palace Walk
9. Menocal Ornament of the World
10. Kalidasa, Recognition of Sakuntala
11. Cheng'en Wu, The Monkey King
12. Sauptikaparvan

I'm sure there are a few others.

THE SHORT LIST HERE:

I missed that we were shortening for a Good Reason! If we need a very short list for an absolute "tops" summary, I'd suggest The Monkey King, The Fish Can Sing, Recognition of Sakuntala and Crime and Punishment as perhaps standing out. But, hey, no one else is going to suggest any of mine, anyways!

>86 Jenson_AKA_DL: Post 220 has the list.

In the next couple of days, I'll start the summary. If people keep it to 5 to 10, it should be manageable.

I think I see an easier way to manage the summary - I can paste the "touchstone works" into a spreadsheet and then sort them alphabetically. Then it just becomes a matter of checking a box each time the name appears.

Of course, if a touchstone doesn't take, we have to add it, but that's not so bad every now and then. And touchstones add to the bottom, so it should be pretty easy to add subsequent posts.

If you'd like, since you did it last year, I could run it this year.

FYI, there are 473 works in the touchstones thus far!

>91 A_musing: It works for me. Feel free to take it on this year. I was stressing about when I would get it done.

92, you're off the hook. With thanks for last year!

Now I have to figure out if there's a solution that's funkier and higher tech still.

I take full responsibility for the long lists of books this year. It seems that I failed to follow my own previous example "Top Five of 2007" thread, and the previous 2006 thread started by amandameale. I didn't create the thread with a thought about a year end summary. Apologies. However, that said, it would have been nice for those of you unhappy about the lists to have come in here and taken a less critical approach by offering a positive suggestion and explaining one's reasoning first. There is no need to make others feel bad about their enthusiasm (speaking as someone who failed to name just five or ten or even 15 books, come to think of it). Thanks to Sam for coming up with a helpful solution.

I would suggest now that, if you like, someone could create a "Top Five of 2008" thread (with explanation as to why just five titles) and link this one to that one. I think most would repost and there will be plenty of new posters as the year ends. My further suggestion would be that you solicit just fiction choices for simplicity's sake. It is difficult enough to choose between books of like genre, then to have to choose between all kinds of literature as if they can be measured on the same scale.

Will do.

Favorite 5 thread:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/51614&newpost=1#lastmsg

What's with people feeling guilty? Librarything is for pleasure!

I wasn't feeling guilty. I just wanted to help make it easier for the compilers of the Best of 2008 List. :)

Surprised to find that the books I rated the highest this year were nearly all non-fiction, which is strange because i generally read fiction.
1. Before Green Gables by Budge Wilson
2. The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone
3. Longitude by Dava Sobel
4. Sisters in the Wilderness by Charlotte Gray
5. 84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff

--> 95

My post (# 79) wasn't to make anyone feel guilty. In fact, I'm glad there were so many worthwhile reads. It's just that I, personally, found it difficult to sort out the best reads with so many books listed.

I posted my top 5 reads in hemlokgang's thread and will look forward to reading A_Musing's compilation.

Sorry if anyone took offense. My apologies.

As with many of you, i've had a great reading year, and whittling the list down to the 15% suggested limit took quite an effort. I have read 95 books so far this year (may be finishing 2-3 more until yearend), largely fiction, but with a good number of non-fiction titles too. Here are my top reads

A Heart So White by Javier Marias
Liquidation by Imre Kertész
The Family of Pascual Duarte Camilo Jose Cela
Blindness by Jose Saramago
Agamemnon's Daughter by Ismail Kadare (a novella and stories)
Runaway Horses by Yukio Mishima
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
If Not Now, When? by Primo Levi
The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andrić
Night by Elie Wiesel
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Hunger by Knut Hamsun
Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
The Yellow Wind by David Grossman
The Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuscinski

I've enjoyed this thread and I hope people will still continue to post their longer lists here as well as contribute to the Top 5 List.

I can see how these lists were a bit overwhelming but the way I approached them was to look for people with books in their lists that I've enjoyed myself and then see what else they were recommending.

I'd like to thank everyone here for being a tremendous help this morning, especially those of you with longer lists. ;) My husband gives books as Christmas gifts to all his staff and he asked for my help with compiling a list to shop from. I went down every single post and pulled out a really healthy list of suggestions from all of your faves. Very much appreciated.

My top TEN for 2008: HUGE EDIT HERE AS I WENT OVER MY READS SO FAR THIS YEAR
1. The Master by Colm Toibin...his writing knocked my socks off
2. The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa...what a beautiful story
3. The Brontes went to Woolworths by Rachel Ferguson
4. Miss Mole by E.H. Young
5. Jenny Wren by E.H. Young...fascinating look at class differences in England
read as a pair with
6. The Curate's Wife by E.H. Young
7. Tea with Mr. Rochester by Frances Towers...what a fey, quirky, wonderful set of stories
8. 84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff...I loved this little book, just loved it
9. Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? by Anita Rau Badami
10. Embers by Marai Sandor

Many of my tops for 2008 have already made lists from some of you on LT, but I'd like to also add:

The Wednesday Letters by Jason Wright
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

I feel bad, too. I'll go through and cut down to five or ten.

i am reading right now The Lost Estate (Le Grand Meaulnes).and after that i'll finish my Twilight book

>106 ellevee: ellevee, don't feel bad! enthusiasm is a wonderful thing. I would leave your list here as it is, but perhaps you might like to pick five novels for the other thread (I know, I know. It's torture).

*whines* But I actually need to ADD to that list! Is it my fault I pick good books?! (Don't answer that)

OK, you're going to be stranded on an island and your captors have allowed you to take only five of those books. Which five do you pick? (it is so much easier to ask these questions than to answer them).

Not including re-reads here are the best of the year.

5 stars – John Adams by David McCullough
As an American who isn’t ashamed of being so, perhaps my view is a bit biased, but this is a powerful book that documents one of the most world-changing events in history; the creation of a government by its own people. We went from being subjects to citizens and it was a difficult process requiring sacrifice and valor that probably doesn’t exist anywhere anymore. Adams was an interesting figure and his relationship with Abigail is one to envy.

5 stars – Duma Key by Stephen King
Wow. I haven’t liked one of King’s books this much since Needful Things. DK was published just after Lisey’s Story and isn’t as choked and forced as that one feels. This one just flows and wraps around you like a blanket. As are a lot of his books, this one is about friendship overcoming evil. It’s well paced and features characters so likable that you wish you could join them down on Duma Key. Well, not really. I am hopeful that Mr. King is indeed back.

4 ½ stars – The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles
Very different than I thought it would be and very enigmatic. FLW is structured in such a way that the author tells you about the tale he’s going to tell. The commentary approach isn’t the only unique thing about it though; the multiple endings is also fairly uncommon. Some didn’t like the ambiguity of it, but I figure why should authors all tell their tales the exact same way. None of the players is entirely likeable, but that’s another thing that works in Fowles’s favor.

4 ½ stars – Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
So yeah, this is a soap opera set in the middle ages, I still liked it and found it very compelling. Overall it is a historical novel, full of details surrounding government and religion at the time as well as the intricacies of cathedral building. The way these facts were woven into the tale keeps them from falling into monologue or lecture territory. A stellar work whose follow-up fell far short of.

4 ½ stars – The Whiskey Rebels by David Liss
Again, my American status may affect my judgment, but I thoroughly enjoyed this tale connected to the establishment of a fiscal foundation for the newborn United States. The two narratives enmesh sinuously at first and then collide resoundingly with plenty of action, intrigue and violence. Again there are historical details aplenty, but very little lecturing the reader (something I can’t abide). Also, some familiarity with the characters and their places in history is assumed – a nice touch.

Close finishers - all four stars

The Likeness by Tana French
The Maltese Falcon by Dasheill Hammett

In the Woods by Tana French
The Book of Air and Shadows by Michael Gruber

Twilight at Mac’s Place by Ross Thomas
The Bridesmaid by Ruth Rendell
The Forgery of Venus by Michael Gruber

New England White by Stephen L. Carter
What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman

I've read some fantastic books this year and picking only 10 is difficult. After much deliberation these are the ones I have picked:-

The Crimson Petal and the White - Michel Faber
The Red Tent - Anita Diamant
No Country for Old Men - Cormac McCarthy
The Gargoyle - Andrew Davidson
The Sound of Butterflies - Rachael King
Breakfast at Tiffany's - Truman Capote
Inkdeath - Cornelia Funke
On the Beach - Nevil Shute
A Thousand Acres - Jane Smiley
Jamaica Inn - Daphne Du Maurier

Hands down, my favorite book this year was Peace Like a River by Leif Enger.

Top in Fiction:
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
The Kindness of Strangers by Katrina Kittle

Top Memoir:
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
Night by Elie Wiesel

Top Humor/Essay
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
Naked by David Sedaris
but then again, David Sedaris doesn't write anything I don't like...

And top for pure, guilty, escapist pleasure...
Twilight by Stephanie Meyer

>113 jhedlund: that is a nice book, jhedlund. Did you know Enger has a new novel out?

avaland, as a matter of fact, yes. I have a signed copy. He came to our local bookstore when I was on a business trip and I made my husband go get the book, get it signed, and give him a letter about how much I loved Peace Like a River. I haven't read the new one yet, which by the way is So Brave, Young and Handsome. I loved Peace so much that I fear being disappointed. That being said, I do have it on my tbr list for 2009.

It hasn't been a very outstanding year but here's o few

Fiction;

The Book of Common Dread/a Novel of the Infernal by Brent Monahan. A little different take on the standard vampire fare. Also invols libraries and ancient manuscripts. Can't go wrong with all that.
"Bill the Galactic Hero" by Harry Harrison. Just for the shear fun of it.

Naval history;

Black Ship by Dudley Pope. Fascinating history of a bloody mutiny in the 18th century on a British Man-O-War.
Escape from the Deep: A Legendary Submarine and Her Courageous Crew
by Alex Kershaw. Story of a WW2 Submarines last voyage, battle, sinking, escape and capture.
Mutiny: The True Events That Inspired The Hunt For Red October
by Boris Gindin. Not so much for the mutiny, but the insights to the day to day living of the Soviet Sailors.

History;
The Case of Abraham Lincoln by Julie M. Fenster

Top 5 Fiction:

Steinbeck, John: Of Mice and Men
I’m at a loss how to describe this beautiful, haunting story. The setting is near Soledad, California during the 1930s on a farm where most of the workers are drifters who work for a while to earn a little money and then move on until they need more money and go to another place. Steinbeck writes so descriptively that I almost feel as if I were there observing places and events in person.

Crane, Stephen: The Red Badge of Courage
I’m not sure how I managed to miss reading this for so many years because it is one of the most well known American classics about the Civil War. It was never a reading assignment for me in school for which I am now glad because I’m sure I enjoyed it more as an adult than I would have as a student.

Winspear, Jacqueline: Birds of a Feather
The second book in the Maisie Dobbs series, this story deals with a case of finding a young woman in her 30’s who runs away from her father’s house and the wealthy father wants her returned. As Maisie searches for the girl she finds a connection with 2 murders that the police are investigating and also with a supposed suicide. This series has reawakened my interest in the period around WWI and between the wars.

Orwell, George: Down and Out in Paris and London
This was the first novel that Orwell wrote and is seems to be more autobiographical than fiction. Although the subject matter is definitely not a happy one this was a fascinating and compelling read. In Paris we learn about the seamy side of working behind the scenes in restaurants (I may never want to eat in a French restaurant again!) and in London we learn about the life of tramps (homeless people who must stay on the move if they don’t want to end up in jail). We see great misery and depression of people barely able to find enough food to keep themselves alive but we also see people who are trying to make the best life for themselves that the circumstances allow. Even more important we see them as individual people with the same kind of attributes of goodness and evil that we all have.

Chesterton, G.K.: The Man Who Was Thursday
A fantastical story with more twists and turns than a labyrinth. The story is about a man who has been recruited to track down a master criminal—but that is only the tip of the iceberg. He infiltrates the ranks of the criminal by impersonating the person whose code name was Thursday—hence the title. I was able to anticipate some of the “surprises” but that in no way diminished my pleasure and the ending was magnificent—although many reviewers disliked it because it did not neatly tie up all the loose ends. However, this book was not about answers but questions.

Top 5 Nonfiction:

Mortenson, Greg & David Oliver Relin: Three Cups of Tea
Everybody should read this book! It is such a good story with so much to teach us on many levels. The story is how Greg Mortenson, a young man who was a trained nurse with a passion for mountain climbing but not much direction for his life turned a failed quest to honor his dead sister into a life changing occupation. On one level it is an inspiring tale of how one person with determination and perseverance can “change the world.” This alone makes it worth reading and discussing. However, for me, it was being taken on this journey with him and discovering so much about the area in which he worked, Pakistan and, later, Afghanistan, that had the biggest impact.

Preston, Diana & Michael: A Pirate of Exquisite Mind
This was the story of William Dampier, explorer, naturalist, and buccaneer who lived from 1651 to 1715. He was one of the most accomplished navigators at sea and circumnavigated the world 3 times; he took meticulous notes of what he observed of wild life, botanical specimens, and native peoples. Some of his botanical specimens can still be seen in collections in Great Britain. He also made detailed maps of unexplored places that were helpful to those who came after him. He was a celebrity in his time but faded into obscurity for future generations until Diana Preston wrote this book.

Corson, Trevor: The Secret Life of Lobsters (LT Author)
Science, sex, and politics. What more could you want? Of course, it’s lobster sex we are talking about.
Corson does a magnificent job giving us glimpses into the live of the fishermen and their families as well as a wonderful over-view of much of the science that has been conducted researching lobsters and the politics involved in trying to keep lobster fishing a viable business. He reveals so much about lobsters, how they live, reproduce, and behave that the reader is amazed at how intricate the lives of these creatures are. Also fascinating is the number of scientific experiments that have been going on for years and the variety of intricate apparati that have been developed to aid this research. But all this explanation of what the book covers doesn’t begin to describe the joy and satisfaction the reader feels as he reads this story. This book deserves to become a classic and I will be encouraging everyone I know to read it. It is an absolute pleasure and a literary treasure.

Wiesel, Elie: Night
It is difficult to understand how something this horrendous could have happened in my lifetime. No wonder the people of Sighet couldn't believe Moishe the Beadle when he tried to warn them about what happened to him when he was taken by the Gestapo. If he had escaped, could it have been that bad, people reasoned. While reading this book I had a hard time coming to terms that these events actually happened and not to just a few but to millions of people. The mind can hardly grasp evil on that magnitude. Yet, we must be aware that this can happen and that today similar atrocities are occurring. It is important that we never forget what can happen if good people turn a blind eye and deaf ear to acts of oppression just because it doesn't affect us. Everyone should read this book, as painful as it is. Wiesel kept his account of that terrible year (spring of 1944 to April 10, 1945) short--if he could live it we at least can read about it.

Ali, Ayaan Hirsi: Infidel
Before I read this memoir I was naïve about the Muslim practice in Africa and the Middle East. I assumed that the fundamentalists and terrorists were a small minority in this large group of people who consider themselves Muslim. When I read Reading Lolita in Tehran I was appalled by what was happening to some of the women as the Ayatollah started enforcing Muslim rules for women. But we were led to believe that this was not the normal way for Muslims and at the time that book was written the transformation of Iran was just beginning so I did not get the full impact that Ayaan reveals. As I read Infidel I realized that in Africa and the Middle East this treatment of women is not an aberration but widely practiced. If noting else, this book can open our eyes to how a large segment of the world’s population is living by 3rd century standards, especially where the treatment of women are concerned.

#111 Bookmarque

Loved your review on John Adams. It was in my top 5 last year. It's one of the best biographies I've ever read and really gives the reader insight into the making of this country. It's better than any history course I ever had! BTW Have you read his "companion" book, 1776? It's a very fast read but it is also fascinating and helps one understand what a "miracle" it was that we ever became a nation! You learn a lot about George Washington.

I remember studying about the Whiskey Rebellion in school. After reading your review, I'm going to find The Whiskey Rebels. I think I may learn more about that part of our history, too!

Thanks MusicMom. I do have 1776, but as it's a big huge coffee table book with lots of maps and illustrations and envelopes with document reprodcutions in them, it doesn't lend itself to easy reading. I should tackle it though. I meant to this past Independence Day, but had an attack of lameness and didn't, merely limited myself to reading the Declaration of Independence out loud to my husband.

Whiskey Rebels is worth finding. Enjoy.

Wow! Where did you get that edition of it? Mine is just an ordinary HC edition--and not so thick that it is hard to carry around. It went with me everywhere for the 2 days it took to read. Check it out of the library and keep your "collectors" edition in pristine condition!

Book of the Month club. it's pretty impressive. Slipcase...about 12x18". Many maps and envelopes full of letters and stuff. I should really read the silly thing.

>115 jhedlund: the new one got a great review in Publishers Weekly, if I remember correctly.

My Peace Like a River is signed. I got to sit at his table at the American Booksellers "Booksense Awards" the year it won. I hadn't read the book at that time, but he impressed me with what he had to say about the book and the writing it; and he was notably self-effacing (or perhaps just humble). I read it shortly thereafter. I miss those kind of 'perks':-)

Great reviews, MusicMom. Infidedl was on my top five list this year, along with Survival in Auschwitz, which is chilling in the same was as Night. I also loved Down and Out in Paris and London when I read it a few years ago. Great reading!

>Bookmarque& Musicmom- Nice job on presenting your choices! I just listed my book titles! Boring!
> jhedlund- I have both Leif Enger books in my tbr pile. Looks like I'll go to Peace Like a River first! January is starting to fill in!!

avaland - perks indeed! I'm jealous! msf59 - do go to Peace Like a River. I have yet to meet someone who doesn't love this book.

I'll add my endorsement for Peace Like a River -- I stayed up late one night to finish it, and then turned back to the first page and re-read the whole thing in one sitting. Yes, I was up most of the night. Yes, it was worth it.

> AMQS- Wow, what an endorsement! thanks!

The Queen's Gambit by Walter Tevis
I’ve always been fascinated by chess, but I have not the right mind to play the game. For the first ten... fifteen minutes I strain myself to follow a pattern, to keep the control of the middle of the board to protect my pawns and so on, but after a little while my mind gives way to my restlessness, and I start charging headlong. Useless to say the outcome is always the same, my pieces are scattered all around the board, as sacrificial prey for the enemy. (Having watched “The Charge of the Light Brigade” when I was a kid, didn’t teach me anything about military strategy.)
The Queen’s Gambit is not only a book describing a chess player mind , as The Defense by Vladimir Nabokov and others, but there long and detailed descriptions of the game, and even if I couldn’t figure out the position of the various pieces, while they were moved by the players, I kept on reading , as though I was listening to a football or soccer game on the radio.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
This book is really good, , the story is poignant and believable, the characters are all well developped, and the idea of death telling the story is original. But waht captivated me most, maybe because I am not a English mother tongue, was the figurative use of English, I found a lot of expressions, I was sure I wouldn’t find on the dictionary, but the meaning was plain to understand.
I would recomend it to foreigner learners to improve their vocubalary and the use of words.

Pictures from Italy by Charles Dickens
I’m reading it at the moment toghether with other stuff. Also if his English is a little challenging for my grammatical and reading skills (I can’t say I manage to get the whole meaning of a few sentences, sometimes). It is fascinating for me to read about a country where I was born and live, but I had never known. I can immagine the places, at least some of them, as they are now, not as they were, and especially, from a foreigner’s point of view. Tricky!!!!

Your link to The Queen's Gambit is incorrect, btw. I remember reading that ages ago, but can't remember what it was about unfortunately.

thanks a lot Bookmarque, for correcting it

I've never been a huge fan of science fiction, but this series has blown my mind! It is so unique and different than almost anything I've read. I highly recommend it!

Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson
The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson
The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson

Expect Resistance by Crimethinc
Doris: An Anthology 1991-2001 by Cindy Crabb
Ham on Rye by Charles Bukowski
The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Making Stuff and Doing Things by Kyle Bravo
Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco

I reread The Master and Margarita this year and it's one of my all-time most favourite books. Didn't count it because it was a reread.

I am glad you made the number so high. It was a good reading year. I had a hard time getting it down to 15.

Fiction

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
Choiring of the Trees by Donald Harington
Made in the USA by Billie Letts

Non-fiction (I seem to have read a lot of good non-ficiton this year)

Icebound by Dr. Jerri Nielson
The Circus Fire by Stewart O'Nan
The Day Donny Herbert Woke Up by Rich Blake
Against Medical Advice By James Patterson
Shattered Dreams by Irene Spencer
Escape by Carolyn Jessop
Stolen Innocence by Elissa Walls
Marley and Me by John Grogan

Edited for Tocustones

Best Mysteries

The Dark Tide by Andrew Gross

Turning Angel by Greg Iles

Body Double by Tess Gerritsen

Best Christmas book

The Christmas Wish by Richard Siddoway

Touchstone for above book does not work.

Some Children's Books

from reading to my 4-yr-old:

1. The Serendipity books by Stephen Cosgrove and Robin James. There are tons of these, and we've only read four. But, what a wonderful find.
2. The Let's-Read-And-Find-Out Science series. We've read seven, they vary but overall are fantastic.
Some links:
tag page: http://www.librarything.com/tag/Let%27s-Read-And-Find-Out+Science
the ones I've read (see my comments): http://www.librarything.com/catalog/dchaikin&tag=Let%27s-Read-And-Find-Out+S...

etc.
Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson - a classic
Llama, Llama Red Pajama by Anna Dewdney - just cute
Ish by Peter H. Reynolds - a boy learns he doesn't need to draw perfectly
At Night by Jonathan Bean
Wave by Suzy Lee - no words, just a girl playing with the waves on a beach.
How I Learned Geography by Uri Shulevitz
Pinkalicious by Victoria Kann
Jordi's Star by Alma Flor Ada - a man creates an oasis in a desert because of a star reflected in a pond.
Abbey the Cavi by Lisa Balaam - well, i really only included this one because it's about a King Charles Cavelier Spaniel

from reading to my 2-yr-old:

1. every book by Sandra Boynton
etc.
Everywhere Babies by Susan Meyers
Cows in the Kitchen by June Crebbin
Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson
Oh! by Josse Goffin (bad touchstone, link here: http://www.librarything.com/work/book/21905100 )
Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown
Trains by Byron Barton
Airport by Byron Barton
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin jr. & Eric Carle
From Head to Toe by Eric Carle
My Friends by Tarō Gomi

Is that too many?

Here's my list--and just to be different, I'll put them in order:

The Deportees and Other Stories by Roddy Doyle
Afterwards by Rachel Seiffert
Sorry by Gail Jones
Restoration by Rose Tremain
Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones
The March by E. L. Doctorow
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope
The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka

I keep track on the 75 Book Challenge with short notes added; also keep notes in a spiral journal and try to rememebr to post LT reviews on books I've finished.

This was a good year. Mainly classics but some non-fiction and others.

Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
The Bay of Noon by Shirley Hazzard
The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
The Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuscinski
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
The Cairo Trilogy by Naguib Mahfouz
Death in Rome by Wolfgang Koeppen

I'm trying to remember. I can't get to my list of "50 books" because the "next" button doesn't work. So some of these might be from 2007.

The Heaven Tree Trilogy by Edith Pargeter. On of the best books set in Middle ages.
the Road by Cormac McCarthy Scarey because we keep coming closer & closer to this destination.
Empire Falls Richard Russo. A good reead & well-written.
The March by E. L. Doctorow. Actually I was a bit disappointed in this but it was still a good story.
The Gathering Ann Enright. A subject that hit maybe too close to home, but a well written book.

I was amazed at all the long lists. Then looking back at my year of reading, I realized I have read more books this year than ever before and read more good books than clunkers.

The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson
The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway
No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Septembers of Shiraz by Dalia Sofer
The Whiskey Rebels by David Liss
Pride and Prejudice, which I am still reading, buy will finish this year.

And winning for best fluff book;
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

I read lots of good books this year and no clunkers!

My top reads for the year (in the order that I read them) are:
A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell
Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul by Tony Hedra
The Radioactive Boy Scout by Ken Silverstein
Paradise Lost by Milton
Our Man in Havanna by Graham Greene
If This is a Man by Primo Levi
Tarka the Otter by Henry Williamson
Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset
The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
Beloved by Toni Morrison

Lots of other great books read, too. :)
--BJ

I just got done reading Guilty Pleasures by Laura k. hamilton and it was AWESOME!!! a little confusing but awesome. now im reading The Laughing Corpse also by her and i like the first page!!!

A bit late but never mind...hard to pick from a great year!

My top fiction reads:

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
The Idea of Perfection by Kate Grenville
A Thread of Grace - Mary Doria Russell
Frost in May by Antonia White

Non-fiction:

All too Human by George Stephanopoulos
Parting the Waters by Taylor Branch (I can't believe I finished this one and couldn't read it in bed!)
The Second World War by John Keegan
Articles of Faith: A Frontline History of the Abortion Wars by Cynthia Gorney
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

My favorite read of the year is definitely The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

After that, this year's favorites in no particular order other than genre:

Fiction:
Another Hill by Milton Wolff. A great autobiographical novel about the Spanish Civil War
My Dreams Out in the Street by Kim Addonizio
Selected Tales by Nikolai Leskov
Indignation by Philip Roth
Rob Roy by Sir Walter Scott
The Final Confession of Mabel Stark by Robert Hough

Non-fiction:
Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage by Noah Andre Trudeau
The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan
Frank Frisch: The Fordham Flash by Frankie Frisch

I can't swear with any certainty that I didn't read one of these titles in late 2007. Also, my memory doesn't permit me any certainty that something I loaned out shouldn't be on this list. Both are among the reasons I just joined LT!

Anathem by Neal Stephenson
What is the What Dave Eggers
Black Swan Green by David Mitchell
The Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon
The Time Traveler's Wife Audrey Niffenegger

All compelling and well written. Black Swan Green frustrated me initially with the abundance of British slang - but once Mr. Green had used up his inventory of colloquialisms and I was able to proceed at a normal pace, I was glad I stuck with it. Perhaps surprisingly, I was not frustrated with Anathem, despite the necessary glossary, and several geometry-heavy supplements.

Alright, I think it's late enough in the year that I can safely create this list and not find it necessary to tweak it later (though I reserve the right to do so, of course). :-) Here goes, in the order I read them:

Fiction:
Book of a Thousand Days
Bloody Jack
The Name of the Wind
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell
Princess Ben
Victory of Eagles
The Shadow of the Wind
Flora's Dare
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Nonfiction:
84, Charing Cross Road
Understanding Manga and Anime
Word Freak
Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader
Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages

Manga:
Tsubasa
Her Majesty's Dog
Ouran High School Host Club

I kept it down to, um, 15-ish top titles, right? It was extremely hard to narrow it down even to this, and I'm finding that it's really hard to measure a nonfiction title against fiction for a "favorite" read. (Maybe next year I should separate by genre...) A surprising number of nonfiction made my "top" list this year, especially considering I only read about 1-2 nonfiction titles a month. My fiction favorites are typical of what I chose to read, so pretty unsurprising.

One book of fiction, Peace Like a River by Leif Enger.

The rest are nonfiction:

The Architecture of Happiness by Alain de Botton
Fred Astaire by Joseph Epstein
Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression by Amity Shlaes
Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
Tesla: Man Out of Time by Margaret Cheney
Manliness by Harvey Mansfield
Donnie Brasco by Joe Pistone
Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
Faith, Reason, and the War Against Jihadism by George Weigel
Against Depression by Peter Kramer

Religious Literacy
The Omnivore's Dilemma
The Last Lecture
Outliers
Hot, Flat and Crowded

And for fiction,
The Plague
A Confederacy of Dunces
Vanity Fair
The Master and Margarita
War and Peace

My favorite reads this year, in order from lowest to highest.

05) said the shotgun to the head by Saul Williams
04) The Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire
03) Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
02) All About Lulu by Jonathan Evison
01) Demian by Hermann Hesse

... and that's just the tip of the iceberg. Tons of good ones this year.

There were so many that I loved. Here are the top 10 in the order in which I read them:

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore
The Alehouse Murders by Maureen Ash
Straight on 'Til Morning by Christopher Golden
Resurrection by Tucker Malarkey
The Given Day by Dennis Lehane
Small Favor by Jim Butcher
Battle Royale by Koushun Takami
Holmes on the Range by Steve Hockensmith
In the Woods by Tana French
The Witch of Agnesi by Robert Spiller

My favorite books this year are:

Change of Heart- Jodi Picoult
The Lives of the Muses- Francine Prose
My Sister's Keeper- Jodi Picoult
Island of Lost Girls- Jennifer McMahon
Promise Not to Tell- Jennifer McMahon
Titanic The Canadian Story- Alan Hustak
Pope Joan- Donna Cross

I had a slow year and didn't keep track very good this year of what I had read.

>153 Bklvrinva09: Bklvrinva09, I see they are making a movie of Pope Joan due out next year.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0458455/

Top 5 Fiction

He Knew He Was Right by Anthony Trollope
The Last Chronicle of Barset by Anthony Trollope
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
44 Scotland Street by Alexander McCall Smith
Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell

Runners-up Fiction

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams
Carry On, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
In Chancery/Awakening (Forsyte Saga 2) by John Galsworthy
The Old Wives' Tale by Arnold Bennett
The Good Husband of Zebra Drive by Alexander McCall Smith

Top 5 Non-Fiction

Australian Magpie: Biology and Behaviour of an Unusual Songbird by Gisela T. Kaplan
Shakespeare: The World as a Stage by Bill Bryson
A Pirate of Exquisite Mind: The Life of William Dampier by Diana & Michael Preston
Defining the World by Henry Hitchings
By Hook or by Crook by David Crystal

I always have trouble with these lists - I need a few months to really let a book "settle", and decide if it's worthy of inclusion. Consequently I've left out a couple that might have made it if I wrote this list in March...

Death and the Penguin by Andrei Kurkov
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson
Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov
The Lonely Hearts Club by Raul Nunez
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
The Trial by Franz Kafka
I am the Messenger by Markus Zusak
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Hmm - a tough one - here's my mixed bag:

Breath by Tim Winton
Wanting by Richard Flanagan
There's a Bear in there (and he wants Swedish) by Merridy Eastman
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie
Eat, Love, Pray by Elizabeth Gilbert
No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
Other People's Diaries by Kathy Webb
Indignation by Philip Roth
Infidel by Ayaan Ali Hersi
Wild Tea Cosies by Loani Prior

Ive read alot of good fiction books but fiction books are about the only books i read.
This month my favorites are:
The Frog Princess
Dragon's Breath
Once Upon A Curse
No Place For MAgic
Salamander Spell
Dragon Princess
Twilight
New Moon
Eclipse
Breaking Dawn
Firehorse
Eragon
Eldest
Brisingr

Top 5 Fiction:

Steinbeck, John: Of Mice and Men
Crane, Stephen: The Red Badge of Courage
Winspear, Jacqueline: Birds of a Feather
Orwell, George: Down and Out in Paris and London
Chesterton, G.K.: The Man Who Was Thursday


Top 5 (oops! 6) Nonfiction:

Wolf, Maryanne: Proust and the Squid
Mortenson, Greg & David Oliver Relin: Three Cups of Tea
Preston, Diana & Michael: A Pirate of Exquisite Mind
Corson, Trevor: The Secret Life of Lobsters LT Author
Wiesel, Elie: Night
Ali, Ayaan Hirsi: Infidel

edited to make easier to read! and correct a touchstone.

For 333 read I hope I can be forgiven a top 30:

Eugénie Grandet by Honore de Balzac
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
Le Comte de Monte-Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, père
Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
Absolom, Absolom! by William Faulkner
The Immoralist by André Gide
The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence
A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov
All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
The Wild Geese by Ogai Mori
The Confusions of Young Törless by Robert Musil
The Third Policeman by Flann O’Brien
À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs by Marcel Proust
The Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Schulz
Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
Le Rouge et le Noir by Stendhal
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
The Chronicles of Barsetshire by Anthony Trollope
The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas by Frederick Douglass
The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn

In random order, my favorites were:

Homestead by Rosina Lippi
Girl With a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
The Kommandant's Girl by Pam Jenoff
Stones From the River by Ursula Hegi
The Big Red Train Ride by Eric Newby
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

My best reads for 2008:

The life and times of the thunderbolt kid by Bill Bryson
The lord of the rings by Tolkien
A short history of tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka
Beatriz en de hemellichamen by Lucía Etxebarria
The boy in the striped pyjamas by John Boyne

My 5 favourite reads from 2008, in the order in which I read them:

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
The Complete Maus: A Survivor's Tale by Art Spiegelman

My best reads for 2008:

FICTION:
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon.
The Rachel Papers by Martin Amis.
Death of a river guide by Richard Flanagan.
Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquival.
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood.
Of mice and men by John Steinbeck.
The life of Pi by Yann Martel.

NON-FICTION
Shipwrecks: Australia's greatest maritime disasters.

I was trying to cut this down to a top 5 fiction. The Rachel Papers didn't make it to my top 5 because I didn't like it quite as much as the others. But I was stuck with the other 6, and couldn't decide which one to drop. I asked Mr Bookgirl, who said Of Mice And Men should go, because it's a small book & everyone has heard of it. Can't argue with logic like that.

Very best top dog winner of 2008 for me is

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.

Others at the top o' the pile:

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
The Things they Carried by Tim O'Brien
Duma Key by Stephen King
Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
Timbuktu by Paul Auster
The Bear Went Over the Mountain by William Kotzwinkle
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
The Mystic Arts of Erasing all Signs of Death by Charlie Huston

I thought I didn't have too many winners this year, but when it comes down to picking ten favorites I'm having a hard time!

Happy New Year everyone.
Ingrid

This list and the Clunker one made me go and clean up my LT library. I hadn't updated all my 2008 read books (tags, stars and dates). I have all the info on my Access database, except for stars.

The LT stars let me sort by my highest rated and lowest rated, so I can list them easily. I found I had to enter 2008 in my tags to get just books read in 2008. (I use 'read mm/yy' also but it pulls up too many books - All month 08)

So here are my books I scored 4 or higher. Highest rated have a ^

Fiction:
Hogfather by Terry Pratchett, - Re-Read *
Shadows Return by Lynn Flewelling *
Tengu by John Donohue *
Woken Furies by Richard K. Morgan *
Consider this, Senora by Harriet Doerr
The Coroner's Lunch by Colin Cotterill
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon
Death Du Jour by Kathy Reichs
The Praxis by Walter Jon Williams
The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas llosa
A Great Deliverance by Elizabeth George
Half the Blood of Brooklyn by Charlie Huston
In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez
Into the Blue by Robbert Goddard
Lean Mean Thirteen by Janet Evanovich
Mahu Fire by Neil Plakcy
Mahu Surfer by Neil Plakcy
Pattern Recognition by William Gibson
Pavilion of Women Pearl S. Buck
The Shack by William P. Young

Non-Fiction:
King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild
Ronnie by Ronnie Wood
Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson

I don't write up what I read and when, but the book I read that is shining above all in 2008 is;

Mark Haddon; The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

My top ten reads of 2008 were:

Julius Winsome by Gerard Donovan
The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon
The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death by Charlie Huston
The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks
Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
Nation by Terry Pratchett
Suzy, Led Zeppelin and Me by Martin Millar
Love is a Mix Tape by Rob Sheffield
The Land of Laughs by Jonathan Carroll
A Song for Arbonne by Guy Gavriel Kay

Top fiction:
Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
Emma by Jane Austen
The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick
Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer
The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway (technically carried into 2009, but mostly read in 2008)

Top nonfiction:
The Translator: A Tribesman's Memoir of Darfur by Daoud Hari
Food and Faith: Justice, Joy and Daily Bread edited by Michael Schut
Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War by Tony Horowitz
Take This Bread by Sara Miles

Top fiction/nonfiction:
What is the What by Dave Eggers

My personal 2008 Book Awards:

Best/Favourite Book of the Year: Shriek: An Afterword by Jeff VanderMeer
Honourable Mention The Sandman: Endless Nights* by Neil Gaiman

Unexpected Favourite: Declare by Tim Powers

Most Humorous: The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases by Mark Roberts

Most Original/Creative: Snake Agent by Liz Williams

Quickest Read: Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis

Author of the Year: John Scalzi (Old Man’s War, Ghost Brigades, The Last Colony, Zoe’s Tale)

Best new-to-me Author: Liz Williams (Snake Agent, The Demon and the City)

Best Fantasy: Shriek: An Afterword by Jeff VanderMeer

Best Dark Fantasy: No Dominion by Charlie Huston (2nd in Joe Pitt series)
Honourable Mentions Fangland by John Marks; Violent Messiahs – Book of Job* by Joshua Dysart

Best Sci-Fi: Zoe’s Tale by John Scalzi (free Library Thing review copy)

Best Non-genre fiction: Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

Best Mystery/Thriller: The Coroner’s Lunch by Colin Cotterill

Best Non-Fiction: The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester

* - Graphic Novel

Thackery is pretty funny. I thought Shriek! also quite good . . .

I have to say that the 2 books I read in 2008 that stand out in my mind are both very different from the fiction and mysteries I normally read. They are Devil in the White City and The Road.

dmjhart ~ Two of my favorites from 2007!

In no real order:

1. Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult

2. The Sword in the Stone by T.H. White

3. City of the Beasts, Kingdom of the Golden Dragon and Forest of the Pygmies by Isabel Allende (FANTASTIC YA Fantasy!!)

4. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (re-read after only two years)

5. Romeo and Juliet (I read this every year, without fail)

6. Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer

7. The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama