2008 Books

I thought about listing my favorite books of 2008 but as I looked over my list (yes, I keep a list) I couldn't decide. There was no one book that "wowed" me so much this year that I would put it on my list of all time favorites although there were many good books.

I decided, instead, to just list all the books I read in 2008, with occasional notations.  Here they are (in approximately the order in which I read them):

• The Emperor's Children, by Claire Messud
• Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions that Changed the World, 1940-1941, by Ian Kershaw
• Women of the Raj: The Mothers, Wives and Daughters of the British Empire in India, by Margaret Macmillan
• Shakespeare: The World as Stage (Eminent Lives), by Bill Bryson
• The Book of Airs and Shadows, by Michael Gruber (I truly enjoyed this novel even though on some levels it didn't make sense; at least not unless you were willing to suspend a lot of disbelief.  But that didn't matter to me; I highly recommend it.)
• Island of the Sequined Love Nun, by Christopher Moore.
• The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri
• The Monk Upstairs, by Tim Farrington
• The Purpose of the Past: Reflections on the Uses of History, by Gordon S. Wood (I never could get into this book; I'm not sure I finished it.)
• The Sorrows of an American, by Siri Hustvedt (I read this all in one sitting, I enjoyed it that much.)
• Motherless Brookyn, by Jonathan Lethem (I recommend this if only because it is told from the point of view of a man with Tourette's Syndrome but it is not a novel about Tourette's Syndrome.)
• The Plague of Doves, by Louise Erdrich (I recommend everything by Louise Erdrich.  This wasn't my favorite book she has written but I enjoyed every bit of it.)
• Becoming Justice Blackmun: Harry Blackmun's Supreme Court Journey, by Linda Greenhouse
• A More Perfect Constitution: Why the Constitution Must be Revised: Ideas to Inspire a New Generation, by Larry Sabato
• Our Undemocratic Constitution: Where the Constitution Goes Wrong (and how We the People can Correct it), by Sanford Levinson
• French Gold: A Novella of the Illinois Country, by David Kenney
• The Voyage Out, by Virginia Woolf
• The Lightning Thief: Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book One, by Rick Riordan  and The Sea of Monsters: Percy Jackson and they Olympians, Book Two, by Rick Riordan (These are kid's books, but I enjoyed them.)
• Garden Spells: A Novel, by Sarah Addison Allen
• Netherland, by Joseph O'Neill (This had so many great reviews, I was surprised I didn't much care for it.)
• Truth & Beauty: A Friendship, by Anne Patchett
• The Scarlet Pimpernel, by Baroness Orczy
• Careless in Red, by Elizabeth George
• Stephanie Plum Novels (#1 through 13), by Janet Evanovich (I'm not going to list them all; I read all of them although the last 6 made me wonder why I kept going.  But ... it was summer and I'm a sucker for a mystery series.)
• Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations, by Clay Shirky
• The Wasp Factory, by Iain Banks
• Mr. Pip, Lloyd Jones (I highly recommend this novel - the story of a village on a tropical island torn by war and the effect on them of the novel "Great Expectations".)
• Barchester Towers, by Anthony Trollope
• Sister Carrie, by Theodore Dreiser
• The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald (I re-read this for the first time since High School and understood it much better.  Reading comprehension levels don't always equal true comprehension.)
• Brick Lane, by Monica Ali
• Loving Frank: A Novel, by Nancy Horan (I blogged about it here)
• The Whole Truth, Ring of Truth, and The Truth Hurts, by Nancy Pickard (I re-read the first two before I read the third for the first time.  Very enjoyable. I should have saved them for deep winter though so I could have enjoyed the Florida weather when I needed it.)
•  Deja Dead, by Kathy Reichs
• The Amber Room, by Steve Berry (Not worth the time. I blogged about it here)
• The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand (I blogged about it here)
• Mudbound, by Hillary Jordan (I blogged about it here)
• Range of Motion, Elizabeth Berg (I blogged about it here)
• The Monsters of Templeton, by Lauren Groff
• The Story of Forgetting, by Stefan Merrill Block (I blogged about it here)
• Martin Dressler, by Steven Millhauser (I blogged about it here)
• A Thread of Grace, by Mary Doria Russell (I blogged about it here)
• The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World, by Lewis Hyde (I blogged about it here, here, here, here, and here )
• The Chalk Garden (a play), by Enid Bagnold (I blogged about it here and here)
• A Diary without Dates, by Enid Bagnold (I blogged about it here )
• The Thirteenth Tale: A Novel, by Diane Setterfield
• A is for Alibi, by Sue Grafton

Looking back on the year, I seem to have started heavily with non-fiction and gradually moved to mostly fiction.  I blame the election cycle - by about middle of May I needed an escape. 

One reason that I couldn't decide on a "best of" list is that I know very well that a book that I like very much on first reading may never entice me to read it again.  In the long run, I think great fiction books are books that get re-read.  There are two books on that list that I could see myself reading again to figure out how the author "captured" me: The Book of Air and Shadows and Mr. Pip.

If you are as anal as I am, feel free to add your own list to the comments. Or at least the books that stand out in your mind from this year.