Some people get very annoyed by end of the year or best of lists that pop up in December. If you're one of those people, close this post now and back away. I get very excited when I see the first lists appear, and a lot of my reading suggestions for the upcoming year are harvested from collective wisdom of the lists. As a public service to my fellow OS readers who get as excited as I do, here is a compendium of the best fiction of 2008.
Still with me? Please comment with your favorite one (or five?) books from 2008. My list is at the end of the post. Happy Reading!
First, Here Are the Lists
Slate's editors pick their favorites
Salon's Fiction Awards click for entire article
Salon asks favorite authors for their picks
- 2666 by Roberto Bolano
- 2666 by Roberto Bolano
- Lush Life by Richard Price
- American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld
- Anathem by Neal Stephenson
- Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
- Personal Days by Ed Park
- The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows* (Read this and liked it a lot)
- When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson
- The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
- The Widows of Eastwick by John Updike
New York Times Best 5 fiction works of 2008
- Dangerous Laughter by Steven Millhauser
- A Mercy by Toni Morrison
- Netherland by Joseph O'Neill
- 2666 by Robert Bolano
- Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
- Lavinia by Ursula K. Le Guin
- World Made By Hand by James Kunstler
- The Wasted Vigil by Nadeem Aslam
- Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong
- Lost in Uttar Pradesh by Evan Connell
- Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen
- When Will There Be Good News by Kate Atkinson
- 2666 by Robet Bolano
- Hold Tight by Harlan Coben
- The Brass Verdict by Michael Connely
- Master of the Delta by Thomas H. Cook
- The Konkans by Tony D'Souza
- The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich
- The Likeness by Tana French
- Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh
- Ritual by Mo Hayder
- The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon
- The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon
- The Senator's Wife by Sue Miller
- Lush Life by Richard Price
- Dangerous Laughter by Steven Millhauser
Stephen King's Best 10 books
- The Garden of Last days by Andre Dubus III
- When Will There Be Good News by Kate Atkinson
- The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney
- Nixonland by Rick Perlstein
- Heartsick/Sweetheart by Chelsea Cain
- Hollywood Crows by Joseph Wambaugh
- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg larsson
- Old Flames by Jack Ketchum
- The Good Guy by Dean Koontz
- The Northern Clemency by Philip Hensher
- 2666 by Roberto Bolano (showed up frequently on the lists)
- American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld
- Anathem by Neal Stephenson
My Best Five Books read (not necesssarily written or published) in 2008
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz / Fresh and alive, this novel unfolds the stories of one troubled family besieged by the brutality of politics and the stain of a perceived curse. Diaz has an ear for the musical qualities of oral tales, and isn't afraid to embrace the influences of American culture into the Dominican transplants he introduces. How many times do you see a Harold Lauder reference in world lit? This harsh and unsparing generational story is funny and at the same time unbearably sad.
Seal Woman by Solveig Eggerz / A complex and haunting story of an artist who loses everything in the war and goes to Iceland. Many themes of loss, written with an aching beauty. Great book that won't be widely read.
Angels on Toast by Dawn Powell / "Angels on Toast" manages to be several things at once: it is a prescient critique of the rise of business and how from that ascent the American Dream is spun from vapor but ultimately falls flat; it is a psychological gender study that examines the plight of the white collar man, his harping and tragic wife (or wives), and the lures of the manipulative but self-preserving mistress. These characters might be stock in the mind of a lesser writer, but Powell achieves, with flair, to painstakingly mold the individual worlds of each of the three main characters so that the stock situation, when met by society's expectations, renders something far beyond a traditional American tragedy or even a comedy of manners.
Spring's Edge: A Ranch Wife's Chronicles by Laurie Wagner Buyer / Laurie Wagner Buyer's memoir about one key spring when her life and marriage were on a precipice and yet the calves kept being born and the snow kept falling, is beautiful and affecting. Her powerful feel for the legacy of the past, her keen observation about the color of the sky or the dimension of the stars, and even her desire to create art by keeping notebooks full of the details of days that seem never to change, yet must; all this adds up to a book you won't want to put down. This would be a perfect book club selection--plenty of material to discuss, cry over, and rejoice in.
The Magician's Book: A Skeptic's Adventures in Narnia by Laura Miller / I just finished this book and loved it. It's literary criticism about CS Lewis and his Chronicles series. Made me think a lot about my own reading evolution. Miller's analysis is reader-response, though she doesn't mention it.
TIP:
Enter the amount, and click "Tip" to submit!
curious volunteer
..... .....
Foolish Monkey
Joan H.
Ralph Tingey
vanessa seijo
Salon.com
Comments
1. The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie: his best in a while.
2. Diary of a Bad Year by J.M. Coetzee : very complex, post-structural structure (!), very dour and depressing. Loved it!
3. Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri: still think shorter form works better for her.
Have been laying on hints for 2666 for Christmas. Bolaño's By Night in Chile and Amulet are two of the best works I've read in a long time. Just got Netherland. Hadn't heard of Lost in Uttar Pradesh -- one of the NPR picks -- might give that a try.
Boy, this is a lot of fun -- bookmarked your post, because all the different selections are in one place.
Btw, you must have some real clout at OS! After your second comment on my post, I looked and lo and behold! I was an EP!!! Thank you.
Biblio, it won't hurt my feelings if you talk about fiction. The more people that have access to good titles, the better. Maybe a cross link? When you are done, I'll link your post.
MzEll, have fun and please comment with your own top five for the year.
Thanks ;0)
and really saw how afraid CS Lewis is of adult women. Does the
Magician's Book explore that?
The best books I've read lately are non-fiction. I look forward to a list from Biblio.
2 favorites this year (non-fiction) have been "The Wordy Shipmates" by Sarah Vowell and “The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher” by Kate Summerscale.
i've been writing too much to read a single book published this year, though i'm about to dive in.
i heard a review of 2666 on Fresh Air that was so good last week that i stopped by my bookstore on the way home from the gym to check it out.
i tried the first page and discovered that i can no longer squeeze by without my reading glasses, though--not without a fight. combining that with being ravenously hungry was too much and i couldn't get involved. i set it down and promised to return, with glasses and a full stomach and try again. maybe tonight. it sure is on a lot of lists.
i've heard good things and was thinking of giving it a spin.
I can't wait for retirement.
In order to surprise my wife with books, I have to do real research. She reads them like she breathes air.
The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti. A young boy is adopted out of a boys' home in 19th century New England in this Dickensian plot told in lyrical language.
Fanon by John Edgar Wideman. I blogged about this book earlier this year; Wideman's evocation of the life of Fanon as seen through the eyes of a man very much like Wideman himself.
A Mercy by Toni Morrison. A confession: I have not always been a fan of Morrison, but this short book (170 pages) is exquisitely beautiful prose, and the plot reminds me of none other than The Wilderness by our very own Karen Novak.
The All-True Story of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. Arnold Spirit lives on the Spokane reservation, but attends high school off the rez, in this 'young adult' novel, funny as hell, that reads suspiciously like Alexie's memoir of his boyhood.
The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. For all the reasons already stated, but how can you not love a book that compares Trujillo to Mordor?
In 48 more hours, I'll be done with grading. I have a dozen books awaiting me; I write book reviews for FrameLines magazine in Australia. I think I am starting with John Berger's latest: From A to X. Halfway through it, and I'm loving it.
I am a huge reader of memoir. If anyone wants recommendations for memoir reading, drop me a line.
Fall of Frost by Brian Hall. A meticulously researched, gloriously and poignantly told life of Robert Frost. Of Frost's six children, only one made it through childhood/adulthood unscathed.
1. Wild Seed by Octavia Butler
2. Farming of the Bones by Edwidge Danticat
3. In Search of Satisfaction by California Cooper
4. Solomon's Song by Toni Morrison
5. The Stand by Stephen King (original manuscript)
It must be the fault of the people who make these lists. It can't be me.
I go at glacial speed. I usually takes me months to consume a book. (Though I underline all through it and bask in every sentence.)
I couldn't ever do a ten-best list for a year, because I'll never come close to reading ten new books in a year.
I do like to try some new stuff, but I spend most of my time mining the old stuff.
That's kind of odd, as I gobble up tons of films, and I'm much more comfortable with newer ones, which speak much more clearly to where I'm at now. But with books, I like being spoken to from all different ages. I'm not sure why.