Whine & Cheese

2011: A Year in Reading

Here it is, the 6th Annual Year in Books!

(If you are interested in past years, you can conveniently find them all in Best Books Of The Year category)...

Also a tradition, my book cover collage from the past year:

This year's collage was a bit challenging.  Granted all that I keep do and keep track of re: reading is a bit geeky, but I have to admit when I get close to the end of the year I am thinking about making this graphic and having it come out "right"... but 38 books didn't quite jive... but I don't think I did such a bad job with 2 rows each of 6 books, with a middle bulge of 7 books.

Here are this year's stats:

38 - Number of Books Read (tho two of them were Kindle singles with another short novella - more a short story than a novella! - so I'd really 'fess up to about 35 books, but let's say 38 "titles")

12,500 - Total Pages (my "goal" this year -- and likely going forward, well at least until I am retired and then can really read more, more more! -- is 12,000... so not bad, especially with another extended vacation this year)

79% / 21% - Fiction vs. Non-Fiction (pretty typical)

43% / 57% - Male vs. Female Authors (Believe it or not, for the first time in 6 years this is the first time I have read more by female authors than males... that always surprised me since I don't really consider myself a "macho" reader... early in the year, I had a streak of 6 books by female authors)

97% / 3%  - Kindle vs. Non-Kindle (Almost had my first all-digital book year, but alas read one book in paperback... Death at La Fenice, the first of series of books set in Venice that was the only book in the series not available on the Kindle)

74% / 26% - Never Read This Author Before vs. Authors I Have Read Before (A bit higher on the new authors this year... had been 66% for the past couple of years... always looking for something or someone new!)

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Each of the below book links go back to my original "review" if you'd like to learn more...

Non-Fiction Notables:  With only 7 non-fiction books, there is not a whole lot to write about... but alas will still highlight the 4 stand-outs.  Rafa by Rafael Nadal was pretty much your typical, standard, run-of-the-mill tennis autobiography -- which for me, meant it wasn't a very good "book" -- but Rafa, with all his quirks and insecurities -- is still a 5-star guy and certainly an anomaly in many ways for an elite athlete.  For my fellow avid readers, there isn't a better love letter to reading than Nina Sankovitch's Tolstoy and the Purple Chair.  Nina sets out to read a book a day (yes, you read correctly!) as a way to deal with her grief over the loss of her sister.  It's not a rote zip-bang-boom list of books read, but how books make us think and feel about our own lives.

Non-Fiction Runner-Up: While I got some grief in my household and by others who read the book for not rating it 5 stars, Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand was still an amazing story of Louie Zamperini, a Olympic long-distance runner who ends up in WWII and into the Pacific Ocean... and into hands and prison camps of the Japanese... I dubbed the book, "Unrelenting."  My verdict was the I respected this meticulously researched book more than I "loved it" or felt that I really experienced it... but that still puts it far and above a lot of books from this year (and years past, for that matter).

Non-Fiction Book of the Year: While I didn't feel it was a "knock it out the ballpark" year with my non-fiction reads, my top pick goes to a book that made me care about two things I never thought I would care about: the science of the ocean/weather and the world of surfing... which narrows it down to Susan Casey's The Wave.  A literary combo of The Discovery Channel and ESPN it was a odd mix of a book, but compulsively readable. 

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Fiction Notables:  On Goodreads, I had two books that I rated 5 stars for the year... one was truly 5 stars and, needless to say, tops the list... the other was one of my beloved round-ups from 4.5 to 5 stars... after that, I had 4 other books that I rated 4.5 but rounded down to 4... and honestly, even as I type this, I don't know how to order them.

But before I get there, I will highlight some other books that were all quite good but didn't make it onto this final list.  First, the surprises... books that were critically acclaimed and/or award winners that didn't make the final cut.  Jennifer Egan's A Visit From the Goon Squad pretty much won every literary award out there (including the Tournament of Books), but I just felt like I had better experiences with other linked-stories-as-a-novel type books.  Pretty much anything Ann Patchett writes is going to get folks' attention, but State of Wonder was one of the biggest buzz novels of the year.  While I think Patchett created one of the best characters of the year in Dr. Annick Swenson and a novel with great atmosphere (set in the Amazon jungle)... and while your limberness of believability is supposed to be tested here, I was just stretched too much and it didn't all quite gel for me in the end.  The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach topped Amazon's Best Books of the Year list... again, quite good and would make my Top 10, but not my Top 5.  And just to wrap this up, others not making the cut, but on many other folks'/critics' lists:  The Family Fang, The Leftovers, We The Animals, and Swamplandia!.

Okay, onto the Final 7... and figuring out which of the 6 books rated 4.5 stars to not make it to the the Top 3... and oddly enough, I am starting with the one that I bumped up to 5 stars, Suzanne Collins' Catching Fire, the second book in the Hunger Games trilogy. A bit less fresh than the first book, it was still a thrilling read that always wanting me to get back to it (and that means a lot!).

Likewise, How To Talk to A Widower was another amazing read from Jonathan Tropper...  you may recall his This Is Where I Leave You was my top fiction pick of 2009.  I sense if I had read this book first, I may have felt differently about that book... again, it's an instance where a bold and fresh voice isn't quite as bold and fresh the second time around... but again, amazing writing and amazing author.  And I keep hearing his true masterpiece is The Book of Joe, which I will try to get to this year, so I another reason I am hedging my bets with this one.  

One of the more surprising reads of the year was James Hynes' Next.  I had never heard of this book, but it just landed in my lap when it was part of the Tournament of Books.  It's definitely not a book for everyone... taking place over the course of one day, with a hecka lot of flashbacks, it's the story of the life of one man.  The reader is lulled in with a lot of details and minutia, but one wallop of an ending.

Just missing the Top 3 cut is Amy Waldman's The Submission, a book that I thought might land near the top of the heap.  It was a brash, multi-perspective post-9/11 tale of anonymous design competition for Ground Zero that goes to a Muslim-American.  Provocative and testing even the most liberal thinkers, it was a great read... tho not quite staying with me as much as would have expected, and kind of wondering now how stereotypical it might have been vs. fleshed-out 'real' people, but still recall really liking it when I was reading it.

Are you still with me?  Here's the Top 3...

Fiction Second Runner-Up:  Just under the finishing line as a pre-Christmas read and perhaps getting that "late in the year" bump, Julian Barnes' The Sense of an Ending left me with more questions about the book and my own life than when I started.  The story is of a man in his 60s looking back on his college days and his group of friends and a woman he dated... his past comes back to haunt him and a secret uncovered.  Now, the plot is really not important here (at first, I was disappointed by the "reveal")... but the real story is how we remember things about other people and how our own memory, faulty at times, creates this very "shades of gray" narrative of our own life.  Short in length (about 160 pages), but thought provoking enough to move it into the winners' circle for the year.

Fiction First Runner-Up: If you told me back in January while I was a couple of of hundred pages in, that this book would be my runner-up of the year, I probably would not have believed you.  But I should know Barbara Kingsolver better by now and know she wouldn't disappoint me... and she ultimately didn't with The Lacuna.  This book requires patience (something that I am re-learning with my epic first book of 20102)... and that's a good thing... in this age of instant information and gratification, sometimes a slow and deliberate book is a lot more rewarding.  

Fiction Book of the Year:  And speaking of a long and epic read, my no-brainer top book of the year was definitely all that... Julie Orringer's The Invisible Bridge.  Very basically, the novel is about a Hungarian Jew in the years leading up to, during, and after WWII. Given his religious affiliation, you can imagine where this goess... but while a good chunk of this is a war novel, if that's not your thing don't be discouraged.  The only quibble I had with it was the title - which while explained in a scene of the book - doesn't quite capture the scope and emotions of this novel... but I can't come up with a better alternative.  The greatest testament I can give to Orringer is that she did make me feel the emotions of the main characters ... happy, hopeful, sad, betrayed, devastated... I kind of always (well, most of the time) thought I "felt" characters when I read books, but not to such an extent as in The Invisible Bridge.  In another year of some great reads, to have one book kind of leave the other in the proverbial dust is saying something.

2010: The Year In Books

It's time for the year in books!  Hard to believe that this is the 5th year.  If you are curious about previous years (I know I am!), I created a Best Books Of The Year category, so it's easy to see them all lined up in a row/back-to-back.  Here my 2010 book cover collage:

If you'd like to see a larger view of the above graphic, click on it and it should take you to the Flickr version (the "original" size is easiest on the eyes).

I admit that creating this collage motivates me to read just a bit more.  To make it come out even looking - and given the average number of books I have been reading each year of late -- I like it to hit 30 books, so a graphic of 5 rows of 6 books... but then there's not a good split 35 and 36.  Once I passed 30 this year, I was successful in reaching 35 books (same as last year).

Stats:

35 - Number of Books Read

12,589 - Total Pages (finally reaching my 12345 goal, tho I didn't have an official goal this year and according to GoodReads, which recently added tracking stats, I also passed that mark in 2007 & 2008)

80% / 20% - Fiction vs. Non-Fiction (pretty typical, should try to bump up the non-fiction as I have nothing against it!)

63% / 37% - Male vs. Female Authors (again, pretty typical which surprises me since I often feel like I read a decent amount of "chick" books)

91% / 9%  - Kindle vs. Non-Kindle (used to break this out by paperback vs. hardcover, but that no longer seems necessary... that 9% translates to 3 "real" books)

66% / 34% - Never Read This Author Before vs. Authors I Have Read Before (This stat has stayed remarkably consistent over the years, guess it's proof that I am always looking for something new)

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Each of the below book links go back to my original "review" if you'd like to learn more...

Non-Fiction Notables:  Despite getting off to a quick non-fiction start (3 of my first 6 reads), you see that books based on real-life people and events continue to be a fairly small part of my annual reading (if you don't feel like doing the math, the 20% translates to 7 books).  So that leaves a pretty small pool of books to pick a "best" out of.  I had only one kinda clunker (Andre Agassi's Open), but I think the rest are deserving of a "notable" nod.

Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder was about one man's mission to bring quality health-care to the people of Haiti, I picked it up shortly after the devastating earthquake there in January and it helped to understand the country just a bit... I think everyone could do a big favor for themselves, their health and their souls by following the slim volume of Food Rules by Mchael Pollan... Elizabeth Gilbert couldn't quite capture magic in a jar in her follow-up to Eat, Pray, Love in Committed, but how could she?  But I still love her and this mix of memoir and the history of marriage/commitment around the world... and it was a thrill that Paula Butterini left a comment on this very blog re: my post about her food/personal tragedy/living in Italy memoir, Keeping The Feast.  We even tracked down that gelato place she mentioned in her comment while we were in Rome, but unfortunately it was closed for renovations.  Next time! 

Non-Fiction Runner-Up: A staple on most 2010 year-end best lists (and Amazon's Book of the Year),  I am giving my runner-up non-fiction spot to The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.  A remarkable story of how one African-American woman, who in death, has changed the course of medical history/advancements. Thanks to Skloot a lot more people, most deservedly, know her name... whether Mrs. Lacks would like that or not.  

Non-Fiction Book of the Year:  In a tight race with Henrietta Lacks and again without any real slam-dunk, my non-fiction book of the year is Zeitoun by Dave Eggers.  Prounced "Zay-toon" it is the story of a New Orleans Muslim-American (or I should say an American-Muslim) family before, during, and after Hurricane Katrina.  If you think you know all about Katrina, this personal account of those days in September 2005 will re-open your eyes in far different and unexpected ways. While the broken levees and slow government response were well-documented, this memoir exposes far deeper cracks in this land of the free and home of the brave. 

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Fiction Notables:  While it was slim pickings in non-fiction, I have bounty of books here which makes it difficult to highlight fiction notables particularly since 16 of the 28 fiction books I read I rate 4 or 5 stars!

But before I get to the notably good books, I'll note two books that I am apparently in the minority for not liking so much.   A Gate At The Stairs by Lorrie Moore made many best-of lists in 2009, but I just thought it was a mess that didn't go anywhere.... and on this year's best-of lists, it is nearly impossible to find one that does not include Emma Donoghue's Room.  It was even just named Fiction Book of the Year by us normal folks over on GoodReads!  I often find it difficult to pin down what I don't like about a book or, for that matter, to be critical at all ... but I thought there was so much obviously wrong in this book that I really feel a bit insane reading rave after rave after rave.  

Okay, onto the good notable books of 2010 (in no particular order, until the awards stand)...

Despite having dabbled in the Twilight series for the past two years (including this summer with Eclipse, btw not a notable book), but 2010 is the year I started to take the Young Adult/YA-lit genre more seriously.  You'll see a bigger reason a bit further down, but other book that will have me digging into it more was the wonderfully quirky but razor-sharp Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A.S. King.

As my second read of 2010, Jess Walter's The Financial Lives of Poets already seemed to be an early contender for my year-end best list.  But just like the Oscars, there is always danger in something coming too early in the year.  So while Poets didn't quite make it to the victory stand, I still have fond memories of this snarky tale of trying to eke out of living during hard economic times.

A hot-shot debut was Brando Skyhorse's The Madonnas of Echo Park... but c'mon, how could you possibly go wrong with a author with that name?  This was one of those "everything is connected" kind of stories that you'll either embrace or hate.  But in my fiction, I certainly don't mind a bit of serendipity. 

One of my favorite, though not necessarily "best," reads of the year was David Nicholl's One Day.  Again, a bit of serendipity as readers follow the lives of Dex and Emma on the same day each year for a good decade or two.  I fell in love with these characters and found the whole book reminiscent of Nick Hornby, one of my favorite authors (who I didn't read this year, hmmm?).  There is a bit of a love or hate moment in the book, but for me it was pure love.

As far as books published this year, which I reading more of in "hardcover" thanks to the Kindle, I agree with many critics that one of the best books of the year was Jonathan Franzen's Freedom.  It was the first time I read this "author of his generation" and I kinda understand what all the fuss was about.  He has a skilled, surgeon-like way about him that is difficult not to be impressed with... even if it leaves the reader (i.e., me) just a bit cold.

My favorite book published/read in 2010 was Gary Shteyngart's Super Sad Love Story.  If Franzen is the precise surgeon, Shtengart is the wild, flamboyant artist.  I wasn't always along for the ride with this book, but it kept on making me feel... granted it often made me feel depressed and cranky, but it was still a thrill to have the written word move you... and c'mon, the first two words in the book's title are Super Sad! I almost popped this book onto my award stand as my opinion of it continues to warm over time/it has really stuck with me (though a caveat that is is definitely not a book to everyone's taste).

Fiction Second Runner-Up (Tie): I always cheat with the 2nd runner-ups.  But since I rated 4 books was 5 stars, it seemed silly to leave one out.  And... I am actually throwing in another book as well as I read the first two books in Stieg Larsson's Millenium trilogy, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played With Fire.  I rated both 4.5 stars, though gave Tattoo the bump up to 5 and Fire the round down to 4.  I felt late in getting to these books and was very surprised when they lived up to the hype.  The Swedish setting, Larsson's death prior to the books becoming a global phenomenon, and one of the great characters in contemporary literature in Lisbeth Salander all combined to create a complex and thrilling read.

And another book I could not put down was Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games and as with Larsson the first book in Young Adult trilogy phenomenon managed to live up to the hype and exceed all of my expectations.  I love to read, but I could not wait to get back to this book each and every time. From what I hear (and had suspected given how trilogies/series work), I can't imagine the further adventures of Katniss, Peeta, and Gale can live up to this first volume, but I will certainly spend part of my 2011 finding that out for myself.

Fiction First Runner-Up:  An epic tale that stretches from Ethiopia to the streets of New York City, Cutting For Stone by Abraham Verghese was my solid runner-up fiction book of the year. I spent nearly three weeks with this book and while I enjoyed it throughout, it wasn't until the end that the greatness and scope of it washed over me.  It's as if you climbed a hill and was able to view this long journey you had taken with these memorable characters.  Fans of Khaled Hosseini's books, if you haven't read this book do so now! 

Fiction Book of the Year:  And in an amazing literary one-two punch, the book I read before Cutting For Stone (and way back in March) is my book of the year:  Let The Great World Spin by Colum McCann.  Oddly enough, the first time I tried it out I put it down reasonging that I wasn't quite 'in the mood' for it.  I am glad that something nagged at me and I gave it a second chance because after setting a somewhat challenging foundation, McCann has created a simply majestic novel.  In an earlier draft of this post, I listed a bunch of effusive superlatives... but better not to oversell it too much! 

Serendipity seemed to be a thread in my reading this year, and it is very much what keeps McCann's Great World... well, spinning.  I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but this book was a work of art for me. I am sure some would say it's too heavily crafted, but for me it was if McCann's hand was gently guiding the characters along their journey in a very organic way.  Slam-dunk book of the year!

2009: The Year in Books

It's finally here... the year in review/best-of books post for 2009!

If you'd like to see a larger view of the above graphic, click on it and it should take you to the Flickr version (the "original" size is easiest on the eyes).

Stats:

35 - Number of Books Read

11,137 - Total Pages

77% / 23% - Fiction vs. Non-Fiction (Last year: 78% Fiction)

66% / 34% - Male vs. Female Authors (Last year: 56% Male)

3% / 6% / 91% - Paperback vs. Hardcover vs. Kindle (Last year: 65% Paper/16% Hard/19% Kindle)

66% / 34% - Never Read This Author Before vs. Authors I Have Read Before (Last year: 66% "new")

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Each of the below book links go back to my original "review" if you'd like to learn more...

Non-Fiction Notables:  The 23% non-fiction stat above calcs to 7 books, with 5 of those being memoirs.  I have to say it wasn't an outstanding non-fiction year and for the first time nothing really jumped out as top "best of" candidates.  Still, I didn't want to do away with the "notables" category, so I'll give third place to Elizabeth Edwards' Resilience. It was really a quite good book about a woman who has had to deal with an awful lot of tragedy in her life, from the loss of her son to her repeated battles with cancer.  But, while it is a very small part of the book, she kinda lost me on the most-publicized aspect of it, her husband's now high-profile marital infidelity.  Don't think she was quite ready to write about it.

Non-Fiction Runner-Up:  Eric Weiner's The Geography of Bliss probably should earn the the top spot as it really managed to be two books in one, part travelogue and part self-help book as well as he explored different countries and cultures trying to figure out what makes folks happy. 

Non-Fiction Book of the Year:  Even as pretty big fan of Kathy Griffin (just saw her stand-up for the 3rd time this past weekend), I honestly wasn't expecting much out of Official Book Club Selection, but this proved to be what every memoir should be very truthful, filled with lots of good dirt, and offering some insight into why the person has reached a point in life where they get paid some good $$ to write their story. Of course, this was a very fun and funny book, but far more serious than one would ever suspect.

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Fiction Notables:  I thought naming my top fiction books would be pretty easy, since I had pretty easily settled on my top book of the year.  However, when it came to ordering the rest of them, it proved to be quite a challenge (which is a pretty good/happy "problem" to have). But on a review of my GoodReads account, I was reminded I gave out four 5-star ratings this past year... so I'll honor that and highlight the others (all 4 stars, or perhaps even 4.5 stars if they allowed 1/2 star ratings) as notable:

Two of my favorite authors - one always fun, Nick Hornby's Juliet, Naked and one always very quite serious, Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach.

Three books landed on many "professional" year-end best lists (either this year or last) and they are worthy of mention and earned that praise even despite not making my final cut:  Netherland by Joseph O'Neill, Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon, and Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls. 

Very enjoyable literary debuts from Alan Bradley (at age 70!) and The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie and easily the crowd-pleaser of the year, The Help by Kathryn Stockett.  Bradley already has two sequels in the works and Stockett has a built-in audience for life, though I am sure she can retire on the profits of this run-away, word-of-mouth debut.

... and finally (no, I'm not naming every book I've read), I certainly thought back in March The Book of Dahlia by Elisa Albert would be in a runner-up position, but this sarcastic book about a young woman with a brain tumor would likely be my "next in" book.

Fiction Second Runner-Up (Tie): Okay, I am cheating here a bit. But, I told you I gave out four 5-star ratings, so I think i should highlight each of them with an "award." The first is yet another debut novel, A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz.  I am not sure how Toltz will top this epic Australian comedic and philosophical novel.  This was a book that you just strapped yourself down with and went on quite a wild ride.  Read in April 2009, I thought for sure Margot Livesey's The House on Fortune Street would be my top book of the year as as it was the first book I rated 5-stars since October, 2007!  While a bit of downer, I loved the structure of this book with it's slightly overlapping, but time shifting, narratives and perspectives. It made for a challenging, but utterly fascinating read.

Fiction First Runner-Up:  I think Jhumpa Lahiri's short-story collection, Unaccustomed Earth, is her best work yet... and that's really saying something given that her debut won a Pulitzer and her debut novel, The Namesake, was my runner-up fiction book of 2007.  I've been reading a lot more short stories these days and Lahiri has proven to be one author where each and every one is of the highest quality, even more amazing since she does tend to explore similar themes.

Fiction Book of the Year:  It may not be the most beautifully written work I read last year (I'd give that nod to Livesey and Lahiri), but I am not sure I have read as funny as a novel as Jonathan Tropper's This Is Where I Leave You.  This is not a book for everyone, a bit edgy and definitely off-color... heck, the first page starts with jokes about a funeral!  But there is a lot of heart and tragedy in here too, but it is the 'putting the "fun" in dysfunctional' Foxman family that were my entertainers of the year. 

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Previous Years:

2008: The Year In Books

2007: The Year In Books

2006: The Year In Books

2008: The Year In Books

Yes, it's time for the big 'ole book post!   I said it last year and I say it again... grab a drink, sit down, and get comfortable... this is a post that has been a year in the making!

While I didn't reach my goal of 12,345 pages, I still got pretty darn close with these 32 books:

By The Numbers:

32 - Number of Books Read
12,038 - Total Pages
78% / 22% - Fiction vs. Non-Fiction (Last year: 78% Fiction)
56% / 44% - Male vs. Female Authors (Last year: 73% Male)
65% / 16% / 19% - Paperback vs. Hardcover vs. Kindle (Last year 84% Paperback)
3 (9%) - Books Read For A 2nd Time (The Color Purple, Amsterdam, Diary of Anne Frank)
2 (4 books) - Authors Read More Than One Book: Alexander McCall Smith (2), Ian McEwan (2)
66% / 34% - Never Read This Author Before vs. Authors I Have Read Before
2 - Authors Who You Might Be Surprised Are Women (Lionel Shriver & Curtis Sittenfeld)

(FYI, any of the book links below will go to my "review" of it)   

Unlike last year, I didn't think this was a particularly outstanding reading year. That said, it was still very good.  I would like to think I am fairly picky about the books I pick to read, so there were only a few true clunkers in the bunch - but not too much that truly blew me out of the proverbial water. 

Non-Fiction Notables - Since I read only 7 non-fiction books (which I think is still pretty good), it won't take too much time/effort to give each of them at least a brief mention.  That said, 4 of the 7 I do not really consider "notable," granted for different reasons: disappointingly dry given such rich material (Rome 1960),  good / funny / entertaining but the literary equivalent of a potato chip (Idiot Girl and the Flaming Tantrum of Death), more "truthy" that I am not even sure it qualifies as non-fiction?? (Heartbreaking Worth of Staggering Genius)... or since the vast majority of what I read is contemporary, it's really hard to compare in an apples/oranges scenario (The Diary of Anne Frank). 

So, my only true other non-fiction notable is Barack Obama's The Audacity of Hope.  It was pretty much the standard "I'm running for President" tome, but the difference is he won and in these challenging times he somehow makes the title of the book ring true (well given the particular day, hour, or minute). 

Non-Fiction Runner-Up - Snark if you will, but this year's runner-up was a no-brainer (and don't think I didn't consider it for my top pick of the year): Tina Brown's The Diana Chronicles.  I know, I know... what could possibly be said in yet another book about the Princess and the fairy tale that went so badly awry?!?  Well, Brown has created the Diana book by bringing together and more importantly, sorting out, all those many books, stories, accounts leaving the reader with a fascinating, complex, and often contradictory (one can be both manipulator and a victim?!) portrayal of the People's Princess.

Non-Fiction Book of the Year - J. Maarten Troost's Lost On Planet China did something that I could not do after returning from our amazing trip to Beijing... even begin to successfully explain - as Troost dubs in the subtitle of this book - "the world's most mystifying nation."  I have read Troost's previous two books (about life in the fairly non-civilized parts of the South Pacific), but he takes it to a whole other level in this very funny and very informative book.  A shout-out to my reading buddy Joanna who led me to this book far quicker than I would have otherwise... and btw, the book also top her own year-end best list.

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Fiction Notables - Unlike the non-fiction category, I won't list all the fiction books I read (it will just seem that way), but I still feel the need to highlight all the stand-outs.

First up, are two books that were re-reads... so I think that disqualifies them for awards, but they were still amongst the best of the year: Alice Walker's The Color Purple and my warm-up to actually going to Amsterdam even though only a very small portion of the book takes place there, Ian McEwan's perhaps not so aptly titled, Amsterdam.  Speaking of McEwan and pretty much thinking he can do no wrong, his Atonement also deserves a shout-out . 

I did not read it at the very best time (during/post-Beijing)... coupled with not being the biggest fan of the short story genre... but my love for Jhumpa Lahiri (particularly after naming her novel The Namesake on of my top picks last year) made it hard to quibble with her literary debut (and Pulitzer Prize winner), Interpreter of Maladies.

Next, are two book that only make my "also ran" list despite landing on many "real" year-end/best-of lists.  First, is a word-of-mouth bestselling debut that only become more of the literary behemoth when Oprah picked it for her book club: The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski.  For me, its parts were greater than the whole and ultimately I thought tried a little too hard to be "great"... and there were a few little plot quibbles.  The other was Curtis Sittenfeld's American Wife, a kinda sorta fictional/imagined take on the soon to be former First Lady Laura Bush.  If it didn't follow the Bush saga so closely... and only diverging when it needed to be more entertaining or titillating... I would have given the book more credit.  A very good, well-written book, but I had to knock it on originality.

These next two, I also had some slight hesitations with, but they edged even closer to literary nirvana than either Sawtelle and Wife: Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows.  Wao was one of the most original and fresh-voiced novels I have read in some time, but I did fade out in a few spots and, like Sawtelle, I felt signs of it trying to be "hip."  I loved, loved, loved Guernsey, but for a story told by a dozen+ people the fact that they didn't "sound" different was something I couldn't overlook in this annual review.  That said, this is one of those books that I would unequivocally recommend to pretty much anyone... a charming, engaging, and fascinating look at a part of WWII history that I certainly was not aware of before this book.

And now the cruelest cut of all in the Olympics and here my year-end fiction list, the 4th place finish.  This year, that "honor" goes to The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon.  While I have owned Chabon's Kavalier & Clay for many (many, many!) years without reading it, in fairly typical fashion I skipped ahead and bought his newest release.  Now, I have to find the time to go back and finally read that one!  Yiddish was a mind-boggling and intriguing alternate-history mystery where Alaska is the home to millions of relocated European Jews saved from the Holocaust (with Israel never coming into existence).  The noir-ish tale with a cast of interesting characters (and I read this way before most of us ever heard of the Palins!) reminded me of a Coen Brothers film (think Fargo) and whattya know, the Academy Award winning duo is on tap to bring this one to the big screen.

Fiction Second Runner-Up - It's always hard to compare decades old (or even older!) books with the more contemporary stuff I tend to read, but Richard Yates' vision of a darker side of suburbia, embodied in the quite troubled marriage of Frank and April Wheeler, in Revolutionary Road has haunted me since reading it over the summer.  While I knew about the movie while reading the book, thankfully it was well before I had too many visuals of Leo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet from the just released film version.  Whle critically hailed when it was originally published in 1961, the work now has an extra layer now as a 1950s period piece.  While I haven't watched the TV series Mad Men, from what little I have read, heard, seen this book had that sort of feel to it (and it was confirmed in a recent Time article that made the same connection).  Warning:  this book is not for when you are feeling depressed or down... well, then again, maybe it is... you might just feel better about pretty much anything going on in your life when your are through with this one!  

Fiction First Runner-Up - I am a little surprised I read this one.  It seemed a bit too chick-lit for even me and while I am more than willing to suspend belief, I have my limits there as well.  But having seen this book on the bestseller shelf pretty much any and every time I went into a bookstore, I finally gave in and read The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger... and while it did end up being a chick-litty romance beyond all possible imagination, I was totally swept up in this tale of the time-jumping Henry and his soul mate Clare as the meet-up at different times/ages.  What should be as confusing as all heck, and what some might accuse of being gimmicky, I found to be incredibly well-crafted and very un-put-downable (according to my records, I read it at nearly a 50 page pace/day over 11 days).

Fiction Book of the Year - If you weren't pleased with that selection, I doubt this one will be any improvement as there is also a alternate time continuum/must suspend belief aspect to it.  Imagine how your life would be different if you just did just one thing differently.  Meet Irina McGovern, an ex-pat American in London. who is encouraged by her long time beau to continue their annual tradition of having dinner with Ramsey, the ex-husband of a family friend.  Dinner, a few drinks, new-found chemistry, and a trip back to his place leads to the moment where Irina must choose to kiss or not to kiss Ramsey?  What does she do?  Well, both!  In Lionel Shriver's The Post Birthday World, the reader, in alternating chapters, follows Irina's life based on each of those moments.  Sometimes these life's trajectories are quite similar, other times dramatically different.  Again, this will seem gimmicky but like my runner-up, I just found it to be very well and cleverly constructed work.  While not the longest book I read this year, it is kind of interesting that it took me the longest to finish - 24 days at just over 20 pages a day (which meant a serious hit to the reading challenge goal of averaging about 34 pages/day)... so I don't know if I was savoring it or that it was just a bit thick (it was quite detailed, so it's probably a bit of both!).  Also of note this was Entertainment Weekly's top fiction book of 2007, and while I hate to be a copy-cat that's where it ends up on my list as well!

Hope you enjoyed this year's re-cap and while I would love to say that I hope it inspired you to read some of these books, I am always a bit wary.  We all come from different places, experiences, heck even moods which makes reading such a personal and unique experience.  So, I should just say that I hope it inspires you to read something and even better yet share it with others as well!

And if this wasn't (gasp!) enough, here are my previous best/year-end book round-ups:

2007: The Year In Books

2006: The Year In Books

2007: The Year In Books

Grab a drink, sit down, and get comfortable... this is a post that has been a year in the making!

Time for one more look back at the books of 2007... all part of my uber-successful Reading Challenge Goal to read 10,000 pages last year (Mission Truly Accomplished: 12,204 pages!).

Though, this year, I must read more divisible number of than 37.  There seemed to be no good way to do the below graphic without one or more of the book covers sticking out like the proverbially sore thumb... so I just relented with the 6 x 6 grid + 1!

If you want to see a bigger version of this graphic, I uploaded one over on Flickr.

By The Numbers:

37 - Number of Books Read
12,101 - Total Pages of Above Books (+103 pgs counted for '07/1st completed book of '08)
78% / 22% - Fiction vs. Non-Fiction
73% / 27% - Male vs. Female Authors
84% / 16% - Paperback vs. Hardcover
4 (11%) - Books Read Due To Oprah (The Road, Middlesex, Love In The Time of Cholera, Eat Pray Love)
4 - Authors Read More than One Book: Alexander McCall Smith (4), Nick Hornby (2), Cormac McCarthy (2), Khaled Hosseini (2)

As I always seem to say, it was a very good year for books.  But given time constraints, my selection process is pretty tough, so I would hope there would not be too many clunkers in the bunch!

(FYI, any of the book links below will go to my "review" of it)   

Given that there were so many good books... this year, I've added a "notables" category for all those books that aren't my runner-ups (one for non-fiction, two for fiction) or "book of the year."  If a book isn't listed below or "after the jump" it's still probably a pretty good book (due to the length of this entry, I am putting my "Not Best" books there... or at the end of the post for those reading this via RSS).

Non-Fiction Notables - Granted there were only 8 of them, but a tough call.  Any avid book reader (and more importantly... buyer!), will simply devour Nick Hornby's  book reading/purchasing essay collections, The Polysyllabic Spree and Housekeeping vs. The Dirt.  Similar in age and where we grew up, J.R. Moehringer's The Tender Bar certainly was an entertaining and enjoyable read.

Non-Fiction Runner-Up - Named, deservedly so, to many "best of" year-ends lists is Ishmael Beah's A Long Way Gone... a truly harrowing tale of surviving civil war in Sierra Leone... and comes out of it with optimism and faith in mankind.  (And, although fiction, for these very same reasons... I should also mention What Is The What, Dave Eggers' "truthy" memoir of Valentino Achek Deng's survival of the Darfur genocide and rocky new life in America).

Non-Fiction Book of the Year - While not an official book club selection, I had avoided the physical and spiritual travel memoir Eat, Pray, Love until the immensely likable Elizabeth Gilbert appeared on Oprah.  Even though it got a tad too new-agey for me at times, Gilbert never presents it in a judgmental manner -- in fact, quite the opposite with a lot of humor and charm.  After the James Frey fiasco, this wonderful story of restored my faith in the memoir genre.

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Fiction Notables - I thought I may have already had my book of the year with the very first one I read this year, Nicole Krauss' The History of Love... and now is likely only getting the "also ran" shaft due to my faulty memory.  I finally learned why Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner has been a best seller for years (and years!), though I found his follow-up A Thousand Splendid Suns to be a smidgen smoother - but both books I would recommend to anyone, even the non-everyday reader.  While not "literature," I was thrilled to read where my "friends" from Barbary Lane are doing now in Armistead Maupin's Michael Tolliver Lives (spoiler alert: Mouse is still alive!), I read this one way too fast.  If Little Children is any kind of barometer, I will certainly be reading more of Tom Perrotta's social/suburban satires... and the same for Gabriel Garcia Marquez who I finally read thanks to the Oprah pick of Love In The Time Of Cholera. Lastly, even I am a bit surprised that Jeffery Eugenides' gender-bending epic Middlesex and Carlos Ruis Zafon's thrilling The Shadow of the Wind are finishing outside my top 3... but, for sure, two of my favorites of the year.

Fiction Second Runner-Up - If I haven't hedged enough with all those fiction books listed above, I give you a Cormac McCarthy deadlock here... The Road and No Country For Old Men.  If you must force my hand, I'd give the edge to post-apocalyptic The Road which was my first exposure to McCarthy's stark, poetic, lyrical prose.  I will admit to not always "getting" McCarthy (and thus this second runner-up placing), but I am not sure my mind has the capacity to take the greatness in. Challenging reads, but in the very best way.

Fiction First Runner-Up - Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake was the best of both worlds... allowing me to play the book snob with some very fine writing and being entertaining/accessible enough to be able to recommend it with hardly a reservation.  With the country's emerging presence on the world scene, I've been try to learn more about the Indian (that's India, not Native American) culture... but hadn't had much luck finding something (a novel, Bollywood film) that I could embrace... until The Namesake.  I am going to do my best to find time for Lahiri's much acclaimed (and recommended!) short-story collection, Interpreter of Maladies, some time this year.

Fiction Book of the Year - Given all the books just listed, it seems like I am setting incredibly high expectations... so, keeping in mind, that if you'd ask me next week or month... the order of all these books probably would change... but after a week or so of brewing... my book of the year for 2007 is J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace.  Like McCarthy, Coetzee is a master of stark/simple prose (though, in my opinion, considerably more readable)... this tale of a middle-aged South African professor who heads off to visit his daughter after a voluntary dismissal from his teaching position packs a whallop with few words... or should I say precisely enough words.  This is not a happy or hopeful novel (and I recommend not reading the back cover or researching too much of what the book/plot is about beforehand) -- so tonally not for everyone -- but one that has swirled in around in the back of my mind since reading it in May.

Whew!  What a year!  I know I have mentioned way too many a lot of books... but I'd rather that be the case than the opposite... here's to more good books and all the time to read them!

(If you'd like to check out what made the cut last year, here's a link -- 2006: The Year In Books)

The Year In Books: 2006

Can you judge a book by its cover?   

Here are the books I read in 2006:

By The Numbers:
25 - Number of Books Read
8,162 - Number of Pages Read
20/5 - Fiction to Non-Fiction Ratio
17/8 - Male to Female Author Ratio (this one surprised me!)
3/22 - Hardcover to Paperback Ratio
12 - Number of books with a British connection (Brit author, set in England, etc.)
2 - Booker Prize Finalists (the British equivalent to the Pulitzer)
2 - Booker Prize Winners

Overall, it was a very good year of books.  The proverbial kid in the candy store is me in a bookstore... and like many an avid reader, my mantra is "so many books, so little time."  So I think I did a pretty good job and for the most part avoided any real clunkers.

(FYI, the book links below go to my entry about that book)

That said, let's first get the negative out of the way.  Hands down, The God of Small Things was my least favorite book of the year.  I barely made it through it.  Likewise, it sent me into such a tail-spin that I think it had a negative halo effect my next two reads, Wicked and No God But God, neither of which I can admit I full out enjoyed.  Funny thing is Small Things was one of those Booker Prize winners and was widely lauded by critics and regular folk alike.  But I just thought it was a big mess and just didn't get "it."  Likewise, I was quite disappointed with Scott Smith's sophomore effort The Ruins.  I loved his debut novel (A Simple Plan), but I thought this was...well, just sophomoric... a D-level horror script, more laughable than scary and not containing a character I cared the least bit about.  But again, different strokes... Entertainment Weekly named it one of the best books of the year (as did the readers) and the king of horror himself, Stephen King, was one of its biggest supporters... so, go figure!

Beyond that, I pretty much liked (really liked!) everything else.

So onto the "best" list... and just because a book isn't mentioned doesn't mean it wasn't good, but I have to at least try to narrow things down!

Non-Fiction (Runner-Up): The Mighty and the Almighty by Madeleine Albright  Some good government spending would be to give every person with any kind of responsibility for U.S. foreign affairs, a copy of this book.  Wise, practical, and actionable advice from the former Secretary of State.

Non-Fiction Book of the Year: The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls  In a year that the memoir took a hit (thank you James Frey!), Walls' "I can't believe it" childhood and rags to riches (quite literally) story was a book you wanted to pass on to someone else the moment you turned the last page.

Fiction (2nd Runner-Up): The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon One of the most original novels I have read in recent memory.  The story of 15-year old autistic Christopher will tug at your heart and make you laugh, often on the very same page... a breezy page-turner, this was one of my quickest reads of the year.

Fiction (Runner-Up): Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro I still find myself thinking about this book every so often... definitely haunting... if you couldn't tell that by the book cover alone (I'll go ahead and give this "book cover of the year" as well).   You may have more questions that answers when you finish it... but much this book's credit you really don't mind.  Definitely have to find some space another Ishiguro in 2007.

Fiction Book of the Year: Saturday by Ian McEwan  Just narrowly edging out his countryman for the top spot, this only solidified my opinion that McEwan is one of the great authors of our day.  As with some of his other works, McEwan is a master of psychological suspense... there is rarely blood or gore, but his prose can make your heart beat faster.   

So that's a wrap on 2006... stay tuned for what I have in store for this year!