Last year left vivid book memories for me -- here are 10 great reads that stick strongly in my mind:

1) Cat's Table, by Michael Ondaatje -- maybe the best novel I read during the year;

2) Half-Blood Blues, by Esi Edugyan -- the deserving Giller Prize winner, my favourite novel;

3) State of Wonder, by Ann Patchett, an imaginative environmental drama far up the Amazon in Brazil;

4) Room, by Emma Donoghue, a harrowing, fierce novel of kidnapped childhood in a single room;

5) Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese, evocative, emotional novel of Ethiopian childhood and immigration to America

6) The Witch of Babylon, by Dorothy McIntosh, best mystery/thriller of the year, with fine insights into the devastation inflicted in Iraq

7) Sanctuary Line, by Jane Urquhart, deeply contemplative story of family, passion, pain and death set in the Essex County I love

8) Native Speaker, by Chang-Rae Lee, his superb first novel, exploring the hubris of a Korean political boss in immigrant New York

9) The Water Man's Daughter, by Emma Ruby-Sachs, a fine first novel set in South African slums, with a probing take on the politics of water

10) Some Great Thing, by Lawrence Hill, his first novel (from 1992,) a hard-edged portrayal of being black in Winnipeg amidst tough political conflicts.