Wanted: Your Best Reads of 2009
About 10 years ago I sent an e-mail to a group of friends from college asking them all for a list of the best books they had read that year. I did it to reconnect with friends who share a common interest (most of us were English Majors) and because I have trouble finding new authors and I figured they might have some great suggestions. For several weeks we swapped e-mails, sharing our favorites, and making must-read book lists for the coming year. Over time, it’s become a tradition, and after most of us joined Facebook, I created a group to make it even easier for participants to share. From my friends’ recommendations I’ve discovered some of my now-favorite authors: David Sedaris, Jeannette Walls, and Elizabeth Gilbert.
You can check out everyone’s picks for 2009 by clicking on this facebook link. I’d love to hear your suggestions – either on the facebook page or at this blog in the comments section.
My suggestions for this year included:
1. Memoir – “Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia” by Elizabeth Gilbert. I like to include at least one book that someone recommended from last year’s list, so my thanks go to Liz Salan for recommending this great travelogue. After a nasty divorce, Elizabeth Gilbert embarks on a spiritual and physical discovery across continents that is funny and inspiring. She also wrote the article that was the basis for the movie Coyote Ugly (which I have yet to see, but is on my list this year).
2. Fiction – “People of the Book” by Geraldine Brooks: This book is both well-written and has a gripping plot, a combo that is nearly impossible for me to find these days. I’m increasingly becoming impatient, skimming through books, but this tale of a rare Jewish book and the people who either make it or try to save it made me read every word. Geraldine Brooks won a Pulitzer for her book “March” in 2006.
3. Fiction – “One Shot” by Lee Child: Stuck in an airport over the holidays and out of reading material? Pick up a Lee Child book. His mystery/thriller books will keep you from going crazy while on standby. They are all told from the point-of-view of Jack Reacher, an ex-military man who has no home, but always ends up in a place or position to solve a crime (and then moves on). He’s smart and brutal, but I’m never disappointed in the ending, and I read every word.
4. Memoir – “Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life” by Steve Martin: I really enjoyed this tale about Steve’s start in comedy at Disney, his spare family life, and why he ended his stand-up career. A lot of great stories about other famous comedians come up in the book. It’s not really a funny memoir, but very illuminating.
5. Fiction – “The Other Boleyn Girl” by Phillipa Gregory: I haven’t seen the movie, so I can’t compare it to that, but I can say that I normally don’t like historical fiction (or fiction that is based on someone else’s sense of history) but this book brought Henry VIII alive in a new way to me, and what it must have been like to vie for his attention. Plus, it was just a good old-fashioned romance.
Tags: best of 2009, books, literature
March 21st, 2010 at 5:00 pm
December 28th, 2009 at 8:29 am
my best reads1. Emergency Sex:and other desperate measures by Kenneth Cain and heidi postlewait. The accounts of 3 UN workers and their experiences in Rwanda, Haiti, Bosnia and Cambodia. its raw and real what the UN failed to do or actually accomplished.2. Shantaram – Gregory David Roberts autobiography of sorts by bank robber and heroin addict who escaped from an Australian to flee to India. In india he begins to see the world through fresh eyes, become involved with the mafia as the village Doctor. Its beautifully written you feel like you are there and his character descriptions are in depth. I find the perspective refreshing.3. breaking dawn: the final twilight book, come on i had to put one of them in.4.Nineteen Minutes: Jodi Picoult a woman that can make you understand that every incident has multiple points of view. It is a tae about a school shooting in a small town where the shooter used to befriend the star witness and the judge is the witnesses daughter.5. The Pact Jodi Picoult: it is about a double suicide gone wrong and the aftermath of the ones left behind
December 29th, 2009 at 7:46 pm
Okay, I was going to join “the group,” but couldn’t think of FIVE books. I’m in a book club and it’s been interesting to see who picks what. Yes, we read Eat, Pray, Love. My pick was A Spot of Bother. I also highly recommend The Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri (Winner of the Pulitzer Prize). I also enjoyed reading White Tiger, which was the pick of my friend Lesley’s book club in England. Since I was going to be there when their book club met, I read the book. Very interesting indeed.
Thanks! Great recommendations. They are going on my “to-read” list for 2010. Janelle