The end of the year is drawing near and "Top Ten This or That of 2009" lists are surely popping up everywhere. I won't make you list your top ten books of the year, but I'm sure everyone has had at least one that really wowed them in 2009.
You can go about this one of two ways, either your favorite book that was published in 2009 or a favorite book you read during the year, regardless of the copyright date. I'll do both.
If you're like me, it's hard to narrow things down to just one. My favorite "book" that was published this year is actually three installments of an ongoing series by romance writer Robyn Carr (yeah, so this is probably cheating a little, but like I said, it's hard for me to narrow it down to just one). A couple of friends introduced my to her Virgin River series last year, and the three installments published in 2009--Second Chance Pass, Temptation Ridge, and Paradise Valley--were just amazing. Ms. Carr has done something really special with this series in that it's more about the place--her small fiction town of Virgin River--than any of the characters. It's that setting that makes the books magical. This series can go on forever and I'll be happier for it.
As for books published in another year but that I happened to read in 2009, Jodi Picoult's Nineteen Minutes wins, hands down. I cannot remember the last time a book consumed me the way this one did. I couldn't sleep for several days after reading it. Anytime an author can make your heart break for a mass murderer, you know that author is good. Not just good, but amazing. If you have not read this book. Read it. Read it now.
So, those are mine. How about you? What was your Top Book of 2009. Or, for the more adventurous, how about your top book of the decade? I can't even begin to think about that. Way too many great ones to choose from.
I look forward to reading your answers when I get back!
3 comments:
So far this year I've read only 44 books, most of them not published in 2009.
My favorite book by a brand-new author was published in 2009, by a pair of new writers: Havemercy by Jaida Jones and Danielle Bennett. It has four main characters who don't all get together until the end of the book, when they and some mechanical dragons save their city.
It's hard to choose my favorite outside of that. Many of the books I read this year were excellent. I'll just name a few that jump out for me: The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson (fantasy); Where Serpents Sleep and What Remains of Heaven, both by C.S. Harris (historical mystery); and The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson (alternative history).
I love lists!
The only books published in 2009 that I've read are nonfiction so I'll just give the best book, period, that I've read this year: Kindred by Octavia Butler, published 1979. I couldn't put it down. Neither could my mother, and my sister was equally wowed. And we all have somewhat different tastes in reading matter.
Oh, that sympathy for a murderer business? Try Fade by Kyle Mills, and I'll add Nineteen Minutes to my list.
I envy you sailing around the warm Eastern Caribbean while here on the US East coast we are buried in snow.
Like Liane, the only books I read for this year were non-fiction, the favorite of which is Obama's "Audacity of hope", and it wasn't even published in 2009.
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