Books on the Nightstand discussion

What were the best books you read this year? Preferably ones you've never read before, lol.

Mine was the Harry Potter series. This series own my heart now. So, so good. lol Even if it is catagorized in the children's section.

and were my favorite.

Linda - those were my two favorites as well!

The others on my list would be The Stieg Larsson books (as I read all 3 in succession this summer)and the Hunger Games trilogy (read all 3 in a weekend) for the sheer enjoyment factor. Plus, I have to add Beat the Reaper. It was a great way to read away a rainy Saturday. Felt like I was reading a movie. Far out and fun.

OK. I'll list the top 10 books I read this year. Not to be confused with books released in 2010, because I'm usually catching up. In no particular order:



Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert. Specifically, Lydia Davis's new translation of this classic.



Love and Rockets: New Stories, Vol 3 by Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez. That's a graphic novel, folks!



Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe. This was a re-read, but this series grows with every re-reading, and you certainly can't say that about all books.



Collected Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges.



A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore



Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann



The obligatory Freedom



Nixonland is the winner of my nonfiction sweepstakes.



Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book is a great spooky fairy tale for all ages.



And how about a Jack Reacher book for an even ten?

I found two new authors this year. The Russian Winter by Daphne Kalotay and The Invisible Bridge by Jullie Orringer. They both have a lot of ballet, which I enjoyed even though I'm not a dancer myself. The Cookbook Collector by Allegra Goodman was also one of my favorites.

Oh Nadine, thanks for reminding me about The Cookbook Collector, I had meant to add that to my TBR pile!

My favorites of 2010, in no particular order...

1) The Help, by Kathryn Stockett
2) Room, by Emma Donoghue
3) the Hunger Games trilogy
4) Little Bee, by Chris Cleave (probably my favorite bookcover as well)
5) The Lake Shore Limited, by Sue Miller, on audio as read by the author
6) Shanghai Girls by Lisa See (sequel supposedly coming out summer 2011)

My favorites of 2010 were (in no particular order)

Waiting for Columbus
Beginner's Greek
Await Your Reply

Here are my Top Reads for 2010..I tried to narrow it down to 10, but couldn't so there are 12...

Anna Karenina
Await Your Reply
Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter: A Novel
Middlesex
The Thieves of Manhattan
The Passage
The Help
Freedom
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
Lost on Planet China: The Strange and True Story of One Man's Attempt to Understand the World's Most Mystifying Nation, or How He Became Comfortable Eating Live Squid
Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War
The Pillars of the Earth

Happy reading to all in 2011 :)

My favorite books I read in 2010 are (in no particular order):
Speaks the Nightbird (Vol. I&II)
1776
The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag
The Life of Mozart
The Guardship
Caught
Small Favor
The Help
A Night of Long Knives
The Happiness Project
The Last Thing I Remember
Every Man Dies Alone

Good day everyone, and happy 2011! This is my first time posting here. I wanted to give praise to Maria McCann's 2001 novel, "As Meat Loves Salt":



It's one of the most engrossing, emotional and sensual novels I've ever read, and my favorite for 2010!

My five star ratings were:



Mockingbird was the only re-read.

Also, weird--I didn't intend for this to be a top 10, but as it turns out, I just gave 10 5-star ratings this year (removing cook books and a couple plays that I saw and recorded here as "read").

This was a good year for books :o)
Some of my favorites:
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand
The Hunger Games Trilogy Boxset
A Small Death in the Great Glen
The Tower, The Zoo, and The Tortoise: A Novel
The Good Son: A Novel
and yesterday I finished The Bells, which was just so beautiful. Thanks to Michael for that recommendation!

Oh, I finally read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. That should have been on my list. I'm on the waiting list at the library for The Girl Who Played with Fire.

Callie wrote: "6) Shanghai Girls by Lisa See (sequel supposedly coming out summer 2011) "

Yes, that's true... we just heard about it at sales conference a few weeks ago!

Marne wrote: "yesterday I finished The Bells, which was just so beautiful. Thanks to Michael for that recommendation"

I am so thrilled that you loved THE BELLS Marne! I just saw what the paperback cover will look like and I think it's stunning. I really hope the book finds a wider audience in paperback!

Loretta wrote: "My five star ratings were:

[bookcover:The Walking Dead Compendium Vo..."

Yay to the Walking Dead. Such a great series. It's a little uneven but its highs are so high!

I'm sure The Walking Dead would be on my list too, if I read it as a book, instead of as a monthly comic.

Misty wrote: "What were the best books you read this year? Preferably ones you've never read before, lol.

Mine was the Harry Potter series. This series own my heart now. So, so good. lol Even if it is catagor..."

I have to agree, the Harry Potter series was probably my favorite of the year, if not one of my favorites of all time.

Two of my favorites this year that I don't think I've seen mentioned much on the BOTN discussion threads (although there is a lot of discussions so I might have missed them) were The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters and Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. Mitchell's book is amazing with a Russian doll structure that tells 6 different stories that have a subtle thread between them. Water's book made for the best book club discussion my group has ever had. We STILL get into a (friendly) argument whenever it comes up. For anyone reading this thread to find their next read, check these two out.

I read 140 books in 2010. NO WAY am I doing the "add 11 more books challenge," since I doubt I'll ever repeat this year's feat. Instead, I am going to try and read from less familiar genres.
However, of those many books, I have to say that "Matterhorn" by Karl Marlantes left the deepest impression on me. C.S. Lewis said "in reading I become a thousand men and yet remain myself." As I read "Matternhorn," I became part of that platoon in the jungles of Vietnam. The book enabled me to understand in part what my veteran husband had experienced in Vietnam.
A book store about 30 miles from my house hosted Marlantes in mid-November. Despite a migraine, I dragged myself to the book signing. I simply had to tell that author (who, by the way, has the kindest eyes), in person, how much his book meant to me. How I never dreamed that a war novel would draw me closer to my husband. A veteran sitting next to me leaned over and muttered, "maybe if my ex-wife read the book, we'd still be married." He was buying copies for his grown children so they could understand dad better.
Books are powerful. They expand my world in so many ways.

@ Jennifer: I also loved The Little Stranger, and have actually been dying to discuss it with someone, as I'm still not certain I've settled on my interpretation of exactly what happened in it.

@ Michael: I agree completely. I've actually just purchased Book 5 (so volumes 9 and 10) to continue the story. I've been watching the AMC series, which is good, but can't hold a candle to the novels, IMO.

I only read about 30 books this year but along with that I read about 115 trade paperback comics.
My top six of the novels in no particular order were:
The Help
The Girl Who Played with Fire
South of Broad
Savages
The Last Run: A Queen & Country Novel
Skippy Dies

My top ten graphic novels read in 2010 dedicated to fellow comic lovers Eric and Michael:
Jonah Hex (any of them)
Gotham Central(all of them)
Sleeper
Parker: The Outfit
Scalped: The Gnawing but read all of them
Chew read the first two volumes and loved them
Cinderella: From Fabletown with Love
Ex Machina (The whole series)
The Losers (the comic is better than the movie)

sorry, forgot American Vampire.

Jay wrote: "My top ten graphic novels read in 2010 dedicated to fellow comic lovers Eric and Michael:


Okay. Now that more comic book (COMIC BOOK! Let's not be uppity!) readers are coming out of the closet, my favorite comic book reads this year have been:

The Walking Dead by Kirkman and Adlard

Criminal: The Sinners by Brubaker and Phillips

Ex Machina by Vaughan and Harris

Locke and Key by Hill and Rodrigues

Sweet Tooth by Jeff Lemire

Love and Rockets: New Stories Vol. 3 by Hernandez and Hernandez

Parker: The Outfit by Darwyn Cooke

Batman by Grant Morrison and various

Irredeemable by Waid and Krause

The Avengers line of comics by Bendis, Brubaker, Gage, Romita, Deodato, Immonen, and McKone

Honorable mention: Amazing Spider-Man by Dan Slott

Fantastic Four by Jonathan Hickman

The "A" books that I read this year:
Zeitoun
Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War
The Meaning of Matthew: My Son's Murder in Laramie, and a World Transformed
The Pillars of the Earth
Then We Came to the End
Cutting for Stone
Await Your Reply
The Millennium Trilogy

Loretta wrote: "@ Jennifer: I also loved The Little Stranger, and have actually been dying to discuss it with someone, as I'm still not certain I've settled on my interpretation of exactly what happened in it.

@..."
Loretta, maybe we need a separate Little Stranger thread where we can spoil the book without worry because there is definitely a lot to talk about!

I couldn't pick just 1 favorite, so here are my Top 5 read in 2010 (in the order I read them).

1. The Stieg Larsson Trilogy
2. Driftless by David Rhodes
3. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
4. Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson
5. Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum

My top five were:
1. The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers
2. The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
3. Before I Fall
4. Revolution
5. At Home: A Short History of Private Life

No five-star reads for me this past year. (A book has to be pretty darned special for me to give it more than four.) My top ten first-time titles were:

Nicholas A. Basbanes, Every Book Its Reader: The Power of the Printed Word to Stir the World
Mary Beard, The Fires of Vesuvius: Pompeii Lost and Found
Deborah Blum, The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York
Margaret Drabble, The Pattern in the Carpet: A Personal History with Jigsaws
Bernd Heinrich, Mind of the Raven: Investigations and Adventures with Wolf-Birds
Marilyn Johnson, This Book Is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All
Thomas Keneally, A Commonwealth of Thieves: The Improbable Birth of Australia
Simon Louvish, Keystone: The Life and Clowns of Mack Sennett
Martin Pugh, We Danced All Night: A Social History of Britain Between the Wars
D.J. Taylor, Bright Young People: The Rise and Fall of a Generation 1918-1940

No fiction in my Top Ten--that's odd! Martha Grimes'
The Man With a Load of Mischief and Alan Bradley's The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag came pretty close, though.

This was the first year I made a shelf for what I read during the year so I'm really prepared for this question :)


Where the God of Love Hangs Out by Amy Bloom.

The Grapes of Wrath, The Moon Is Down and Cannery Row by John Steinbeck (this was the year Steinbeck officially became my favorite author)

The Attack: Novel by Yasmina Khadra (a BOTNS recommend!)

Best mystery: Garnethill by Denise Mina

Best scifi: tie between The City & The City by China Mieville and The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Leguin

I also (largely thanks to Michael) overcame my prejudice toward graphic novels this year.

I tried to narrow this down to five but I just couldn't! So my top ten for 2010 (appropriate, I think) are, in no particular order:

The Unit
In the Woods
Paper Towns
House of Leaves
The Likeness
The Help
House Rules
Will Grayson, Will Grayson
Girl Overboard
Plain Truth

Here are the books that I most enjoyed in 2010, also in no particular order:

The Passage
Let the Great World Spin
The Poisonwood Bible
The Imperfectionists
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
A Game of Thrones
Kraken
Freedom
American Gods