I hope everyone had a happy holiday season – ours was very different with Himself gone just before Christmas, Eldest not here at all, and youngest and I went down to my Mom’s to visit with my Brother and his family et. al. It took me a very long time to catch up on all the blog reading and to my delight it is the season for Best Reads for 2010 and I have really enjoyed reading other reader’s Best Reads. Some lists have books that I also liked, a few have had one’s that I disagree with and there have been several who have read things that are on my list of books to read or books that had not yet crossed my radar. My own list will be posted tomorrow but for now, these are some of the lists that Caught My Interest:
Bibliophile By The Sea has a Top Ten List of fiction, non-fiction, audio, and Children’s books – Strangers at the Feast remains on my TBR list; perhaps I will get to it this year.
Nonsuch Book sums up her thoughts in writing with links to past reviews. I must say her review of Virgina Woolf’s The Waves is absolutely beautiful. I, too, really enjoyed The Waves and appreciate what Frances has to say about this work. I have also put Life: A User’s Manual by Georges Perec on my reading list.
Kim of Reading Matters offers a very eclectic list with some books you most likely won’t find on other lists. I read her review of Beijing Coma by Ma Jian, an exploration of the student rebellion in China, the Tianamen Square massacre of 1989, and what happened in as the City and government prepared for the Olympic games, and promptly added it to the list. I was also intrigued by her inclusion of The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas. I liked the book but for me it didn’t reach the level of a top ten book.
Kevin From Canada, one has one of the best book blogs out there put his list together in early December. Kevin has a fondness for short story collections and I already want to read Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It by Maile Meloy and Light Lifting by Alexander MacLeod. I also want to read Damon Galgut’s In a Strange Room (Booker Short List) and The Cello Suites by Eric Siblin.
Jen from Devourer of Books, who read an incredible number of books in 2010 (over 230) doesn’t want to pick just 10 (or 4% of her reading) so she writes about the books “she gushed about” and I can see why I like her blog so much. I have read three on her list: The Weight of Heaven by Thrity Umrigar (one of the best books I have read about what happens after you lose a child); The Nobodies Album by Carolyn Parkhurst (and excellent story of loss, memory, and creativity), and The Tricking Of Freya by Christina Sunley (mental illness,coming of age, Icelandic lore and history all combined with beautiful writing). And I have four more on her list on my To Be Read list (The City, The City by China Mieville, The World in Half by Christina Henriquez, Red Hook Road by Ayelet Waldman, and The Report by Jessica Francis Kane).
Matt from A Guy’s Moleskin Notebook (who also writes wonderful posts about independent bookstores in San Francisco) came up with 12 books of 2010 which made an impression with him. He includes The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman which is about the staff of a newspaper in Room. This book is appearing on so many lists that I may have to rethink reading it. He also includes The Meaning of Night by Michael Cox (a historical book set in the Victorian Era about a murder, revenge, and the murderer and murderee). I was quite jealous when my friend Muong scored a copy of this book during her recent visit to Powell’s in Portland. And one of my Christmas presents in on his list, The Palisades by Tom Schabarum, which Himself found incredibly hard to find – fortunately for me, Himself persisted. And Matt includes one of my all time favorite books, East of Eden by John Steinbeck, an epic about love and family with one of the best depictions of an evil person you will find.
Marie from The Boston Bibliophile mentions a book I have never hear about by Poet Adam Schwartzman called Eddie Signwriter and she says “This is the kind of novel that readers of literary fiction wait for”. She also chooses The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson (the 2010 Booker Prize Winner) which seems to be a book that you either love or dislike. She also picks The Invisible Bridge by Julia Orringer which is about a Hungarian Jewish family in the years just prior and during WWII. I had mixed feelings about this book – I liked learning about Hungary in the war but thought the writing and the story was a little uneven. If you like family epics, you might enjoy this book. Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson is charming about a retired English militaryman trying to find is place in modern-day England.
Trevor, of The Mookse and the Gripes, is another one of the great literary book blogs. I love his list, not only because I want to read much of it, but also because of his descriptions. In just a short bit, you have a very clear picture of the novel he is discussing. With In a Strange Room, Light Lifting, and Harry Mulisch’s The Assault on the list, now I have to add Cynthia Ozick’s back list (The Cannibal Galaxy along withher newest Foreign Bodies) and add a new author to the mix – César Aira.
Other lists worth perusing:
Tom from A Common Reader (an English Blogger so some of the books are not yet published in the US as yet)
Pechrorin’s Journal – an eclectic list
John Self from Asylum – I haven’t read any of these and only heard of three – hurray for book blogs!
Simon from Stuck in a Book has an interesting mix including a number of classics and Debo Mitford’s memoir Wait for Me.
What a great collection of lists, thank you so much for including mine! There are a few here I haven’t seen, so I’ll have to check them out.
Thanks for this wonderful overview on some recent posts. I think I had missed several of those. I also appreciate the “shout-out”.
Happy New Year; Happy Reading.