Books I Enjoyed in 2010

In years past, I've called this list "Books Worth Reading," but I'm trying to cut down on pretentiousness (is that a word?), so I'm going with the slightly less snooty "Books I Enjoyed in 2010."  I seem to always come up with about a dozen, out of many dozens that I read.  If you've been reading along all year, I don't think there are any surprises this time.  If there's a link, it's to the review I wrote--which may be further down the page than where you land with the link. 

Coop-Michael Perry
Little Ray of Sunshine-Lani Diane Rich
Spell of the Sensuous-Abram
American Gods-Gaiman
Equal Rites-Pratchett
Good Omens-Pratchett/Gaiman
Last Exit to Normal-Michael B. Harmon
Guards! Guards! Pratchett
Age of Innocence-Edith Wharton
House of Mirth-Edith Wharton
Wild Ride-Crusie/Mayer
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo-Larsson

It seems to have been a Pratchett/Gaiman kind of year but I'm not going to complain because all the ones I read by them were great.  I read all the Tiffany Aching books with my kids, but I'd never made it past the first couple of Discworld books, so I have lots of catching up to do.  and as long as I'm still typing along, I will just add that I don't think the review I wrote of David Abram's book (Spell of Sensuous) came anywhere close to doing it justice.  It's not so much about environmentalism as it is about perception and ways of knowing.  His ideas about language will be familiar to anyone who read Snow Crash (loved that book, but it's been at least ten years since I read it)(and the ideas probably weren't original to Neal Stephenson, either), but his ideas about the way we exist as physical, perceiving entities in the world are really fascinating.

Click on "booklist" below to see lists from previous years.  (p.s., not that you care, but this is a scheduled post, I didn't really write it on the day we drove four hours to New Orleans, then took two flights to get back home).

For the past couple of years I've posted a list of books I read during the previous year that were worth reading. I almost didn't do it this year because, as you probably already know, 2009 was my year of reading genre fiction, and it doesn't do much for my reputation as an intelligent person to post a list of genre books. But what the heck. It's what I read, and some of them really were good reads. I did, of course, read a few literary fiction books and a few non-fiction, but when I went over the list, other than the Michael Chabon books, I couldn't really remember them. So why bother?

I've discovered that with genre fiction it is often pointless to recommend particular books, since people (including me) can be turned off by some little thing that another reader won't even notice (like Charlie All-Night has a weird bit about medical marijuana in it that didn't bother me a bit but thoroughly turned off one of my friends). So I usually just recommend authors. But what is the point of a "books worth reading" list if you're not going to list books? So I've picked books, but in some cases it was really tempting to say "anything by this author."

here 'tis, books I read in 2009 that were worth reading (in no particular order):

The Last Olympian, Rick Riordan (Young Adult)
Fade Away, Harlan Coben (Mystery/Thriller)
The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman (Young Adult)
Miss Wonderful, Loretta Chase (Romance)
Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman (SciFi/Fantasy)
Maps and Legends, Michael Chabon (non-fiction)
Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Chabon (literary fiction)
The Serpent Prince, Elizabeth Hoyt (Historical Romance)
Charlie All-Night, Jennifer Crusie (Romance)
Fast Women, Crusie (Romance)
Unnatural Causes, P.D. James (Mystery)
The Devil Went Down to Austin, Rick Riordan (Mystery)

An even dozen. Honorable mention to Crazy Wild by Tara Janzen, whose "Crazy" series I have decided is the the female equivalent of a guy pouring over the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue-- pure female fantasy.

AB

Books I read or re-read in 2008 that were worth reading (in the order that I read them):

John Adams - David McCullough

Persepolis - Marjane Sartrapi

Holy Cow - Sarah MacDonald

To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

Leaving Church - Barbara Taylor

This Book will Save Your Life - A.M. Homes

The Satanic Verses - Salman Rushdie

Stranger Things Happen - Link

a couple by Christopher Moore

Agnes and the Hitman - Crusie/Mayer

Kids/Young Adult

Rick Riordan's Lightning Thief series

The Pinhoe Egg by Diana Wynne Jones

The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart

A bit shorter than last year's list. I almost didn't type it up when I was just thinking back over the year, but when I actually got around to pulling out the back page of the calendar where I keep the list, I remembered these. You'll have to go back to the posts about trashy novels to see the ones I read during that phase :-). Thanks to the anonymous poster for recommending Jennifer Crusie, who was perfect for the beach vacation we went on at the end of the year.

Here are the books I read last year that were worth reading, in no particular order:

The Year of Magical Thinking, Didion
Great Expectations, Dickens
What Remains, Radziwill
Leaving the Saints, Beck
Beowulf, Heaney trans.
The Seven-Storey Mountain, Merton
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Rowling
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Foer
Three Cups of Tea, Mortensen
Wintersmith, Pratchett (young adult)
Jane Eyre, Bronte
Thirteenth Tale, Setterfield

An even dozen. Not bad.