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.
