2009 books
So, 2009 books. Obviously quite late, but a) I am not the only one and b) I posted about 2008's books in mid-February last year, so really, this is early. Yes.
A.J. Jacobs
The Year of Living Biblically
A.S. Byatt
Babel Tower
Alice Hoffman
Practical Magic (reread)
Alice Randall
The Wind Done Gone
Anne McCaffrey
Crystal Singer (reread)
Killashandra (reread)
Audrey Niffenegger
The Time Traveler's Wife (reread)
Barbara Trapido
Frankie & Stankie
Benilde Little
The Itch
Charlaine Harris
Dead Until Dark
Charles de Lint
Little (Grrl) Lost
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Purple Hibiscus
Clifford D. Simak
Way Station
Connie Willis
All Seated on the Ground
Passage (reread)
Curtis Sittenfeld
American Wife
Dawn Powell
A Time to be Born
Eden Robinson
Monkey Beach
Elizabeth Bowen
The Little Girls
Eva Trout
Elizabeth Hand
Generation Loss
Evelyn Waugh
Scoop
Heather O'Neill
Lullabies for Little Criminals
Helene Hanff
84, Charing Cross Road (reread)
Jacqueline Carey
Kushiel's Dart
James McPherson
Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era
Jane Austen
Persuasion (reread)
Pride and Prejudice (reread)
Emma (reread)
Northanger Abbey (reread)
John D. MacDonald
The Dreadful Lemon Sky
The Empty Copper Sea
Julia Quinn
The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever
Karen Joy Fowler
Sarah Canary (reread)
Kate Akinson
Case Histories (reread)
One Good Turn (reread)
When Will There Be Good News?
Kate William
Second Chance (SVH #53) (reread)
Showdown (SVH #19) (reread)
Katharine Kerr
A Time of Exile (reread)
A Time of Omens (reread)
Days of Blood and Fire (reread)
Days of Air and Darkness (reread)
The Red Wyvern (reread)
The Black Raven (reread)
The Fire Dragon (reread)
The Gold Falcon
The Spirit Stone
The Shadow Isle
Kazou Ishiguro
The Remains of the Day
Kevin J. Anderson
Ground Zero
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Little House in the Big Woods (reread)
Laura Miller
The Magician's Book: A Skeptic's Adventures in Narnia
Laurie Colwin
Family Happiness
Happy All the Time (reread)
Laurie R. King
A Grave Talent
To Play the Fool
With Child
Lorrie Moore
A Gate at the Stairs
Malcolm Gladwell
Outliers: The Story of Success
Marcel Proust
Swann's Way
Within a Budding Grove
Marian Keyes
Rachel's Holiday (reread)
Mariko Tamaki & Jilliam Tamaki
Skim (x2)
Mary Wesley
The Vacillations of Poppy Carew
Maud Hart Lovelace
Winona's Pony Cart
Carney's Party
Emily of Deep Valley
Meg Wolitzer
The Ten-Year Nap
Michael Dirda
Classics for Pleasure
Michael Ondaatje
Divisadero
Nick Hornby
Housekeeping vs. the Dirt (reread)
Shakespeare Wrote for Money
Octavia E. Butler
Kindred
Orson Scott Card
Ender's Game (reread)
Speaker for the Dead (reread)
Otto Friedrich
City of Nets: A Portrait of Hollywood in the 1940's
Pamela Dean
The Dubious Hills
Patrice Hannon
101 Things You Didn't Know About Jane Austen
Patrick O'Brian
The Wine-Dark Sea
The Commodore
The Yellow Admiral
Philip Ziegler
Diana Cooper
Sarah Dessen
This Lullaby
Sarah Waters
Tipping the Velvet
The Little Stranger
Shannon Olson
Welcome to My Planet (reread)
Children of God Go Bowling (reread)
Stephen King (Editor)
The Best American Stories 2007
Stephenie Meyer
Twilight (reread)
New Moon (reread)
Steven Brust
Orca (reread)
Jhegaala (reread)
Athyra (reread)
Dragon (reread)
Susan Beth Pfeffer
Life As We Knew It
Susanna Kearsley
The Winter Sea
Sylvia Townsend Warner
Mr. Fortune's Maggot (reread)
Tana French
In the Woods
The Likeness
Tobias Woolf
Old School
Vera Brittain
Testament of Youth
Walter Mosley
The Long Fall
Right, so I was going to say more about these, but all I am coming up with is fluff like "gorgeous sentences! except for the clunkers!" (Lullabies for Little Criminals, probably my favourite of the favourites), and "a love letter to GRAMMAR. and also books and reading. and how is Frederica Potter so awesome, anyway?" (Babel Tower, which, like every A.S. Byatt novel I have ever read, contains a lot of stuff I could do without, too) and "the novel about adultery most like a warm, fuzzy blanket" (Family Happiness), and "plucky, literate, baby-sitting orphans FOREVER" (When Will There Be Good News?) for some books, while half the other books are putting on airs and pretending they're too IMPORTANT for this cavalier treatment, so I am just going to list all my very favourite first reads of 2009:
Babel Tower - A.S. Byatt
Purple Hibiscus - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Monkey Beach - Eden Robinson
Generation Loss - Elizabeth Hand
Lullabies for Little Criminals - Heather O'Neill
Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era - James McPherson
When Will There Be Good News? - Kate Atkinson
Family Happiness - Laurie Colwin
Skim - Mariko Tamaki & Jillian Tamaki
Kindred - Octavia E. Butler
The Dubious Hills - Pamela Dean
Tipping the Velvet - Sarah Waters
In the Woods - Tana French
The Likeness - Tana French
A.J. Jacobs
The Year of Living Biblically
A.S. Byatt
Babel Tower
Alice Hoffman
Practical Magic (reread)
Alice Randall
The Wind Done Gone
Anne McCaffrey
Crystal Singer (reread)
Killashandra (reread)
Audrey Niffenegger
The Time Traveler's Wife (reread)
Barbara Trapido
Frankie & Stankie
Benilde Little
The Itch
Charlaine Harris
Dead Until Dark
Charles de Lint
Little (Grrl) Lost
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Purple Hibiscus
Clifford D. Simak
Way Station
Connie Willis
All Seated on the Ground
Passage (reread)
Curtis Sittenfeld
American Wife
Dawn Powell
A Time to be Born
Eden Robinson
Monkey Beach
Elizabeth Bowen
The Little Girls
Eva Trout
Elizabeth Hand
Generation Loss
Evelyn Waugh
Scoop
Heather O'Neill
Lullabies for Little Criminals
Helene Hanff
84, Charing Cross Road (reread)
Jacqueline Carey
Kushiel's Dart
James McPherson
Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era
Jane Austen
Persuasion (reread)
Pride and Prejudice (reread)
Emma (reread)
Northanger Abbey (reread)
John D. MacDonald
The Dreadful Lemon Sky
The Empty Copper Sea
Julia Quinn
The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever
Karen Joy Fowler
Sarah Canary (reread)
Kate Akinson
Case Histories (reread)
One Good Turn (reread)
When Will There Be Good News?
Kate William
Second Chance (SVH #53) (reread)
Showdown (SVH #19) (reread)
Katharine Kerr
A Time of Exile (reread)
A Time of Omens (reread)
Days of Blood and Fire (reread)
Days of Air and Darkness (reread)
The Red Wyvern (reread)
The Black Raven (reread)
The Fire Dragon (reread)
The Gold Falcon
The Spirit Stone
The Shadow Isle
Kazou Ishiguro
The Remains of the Day
Kevin J. Anderson
Ground Zero
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Little House in the Big Woods (reread)
Laura Miller
The Magician's Book: A Skeptic's Adventures in Narnia
Laurie Colwin
Family Happiness
Happy All the Time (reread)
Laurie R. King
A Grave Talent
To Play the Fool
With Child
Lorrie Moore
A Gate at the Stairs
Malcolm Gladwell
Outliers: The Story of Success
Marcel Proust
Swann's Way
Within a Budding Grove
Marian Keyes
Rachel's Holiday (reread)
Mariko Tamaki & Jilliam Tamaki
Skim (x2)
Mary Wesley
The Vacillations of Poppy Carew
Maud Hart Lovelace
Winona's Pony Cart
Carney's Party
Emily of Deep Valley
Meg Wolitzer
The Ten-Year Nap
Michael Dirda
Classics for Pleasure
Michael Ondaatje
Divisadero
Nick Hornby
Housekeeping vs. the Dirt (reread)
Shakespeare Wrote for Money
Octavia E. Butler
Kindred
Orson Scott Card
Ender's Game (reread)
Speaker for the Dead (reread)
Otto Friedrich
City of Nets: A Portrait of Hollywood in the 1940's
Pamela Dean
The Dubious Hills
Patrice Hannon
101 Things You Didn't Know About Jane Austen
Patrick O'Brian
The Wine-Dark Sea
The Commodore
The Yellow Admiral
Philip Ziegler
Diana Cooper
Sarah Dessen
This Lullaby
Sarah Waters
Tipping the Velvet
The Little Stranger
Shannon Olson
Welcome to My Planet (reread)
Children of God Go Bowling (reread)
Stephen King (Editor)
The Best American Stories 2007
Stephenie Meyer
Twilight (reread)
New Moon (reread)
Steven Brust
Orca (reread)
Jhegaala (reread)
Athyra (reread)
Dragon (reread)
Susan Beth Pfeffer
Life As We Knew It
Susanna Kearsley
The Winter Sea
Sylvia Townsend Warner
Mr. Fortune's Maggot (reread)
Tana French
In the Woods
The Likeness
Tobias Woolf
Old School
Vera Brittain
Testament of Youth
Walter Mosley
The Long Fall
Right, so I was going to say more about these, but all I am coming up with is fluff like "gorgeous sentences! except for the clunkers!" (Lullabies for Little Criminals, probably my favourite of the favourites), and "a love letter to GRAMMAR. and also books and reading. and how is Frederica Potter so awesome, anyway?" (Babel Tower, which, like every A.S. Byatt novel I have ever read, contains a lot of stuff I could do without, too) and "the novel about adultery most like a warm, fuzzy blanket" (Family Happiness), and "plucky, literate, baby-sitting orphans FOREVER" (When Will There Be Good News?) for some books, while half the other books are putting on airs and pretending they're too IMPORTANT for this cavalier treatment, so I am just going to list all my very favourite first reads of 2009:
Babel Tower - A.S. Byatt
Purple Hibiscus - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Monkey Beach - Eden Robinson
Generation Loss - Elizabeth Hand
Lullabies for Little Criminals - Heather O'Neill
Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era - James McPherson
When Will There Be Good News? - Kate Atkinson
Family Happiness - Laurie Colwin
Skim - Mariko Tamaki & Jillian Tamaki
Kindred - Octavia E. Butler
The Dubious Hills - Pamela Dean
Tipping the Velvet - Sarah Waters
In the Woods - Tana French
The Likeness - Tana French