Best book you first read in 2008

Cafe Society
1

It doesn’t matter when it was written, only that you read it for the first time in 2008.

Name one or break them down by genre if you like.

I looked at my Goodreads list and I gave 11 books 5 stars, but I had already read 4 of them. Of those that are new to me for 2008:

Best YA: Book of a Thousand Days, by Shannon Hale
Best fantasy: White Night, by Jim Butcher (the Shannon Hale is a better book and also a fantasy, but I’m spreading the love here)
Best mystery/thriller: We Have Always Lived in the Castle, by Shirley Jackson
Best classic: My Antonia, by Willa Cather

And best book: I, Claudius, by Robert Graves. Just a wonderful book, no matter what liberties he took. It’s immediate, compelling, hilarious, upsetting, horrifying, and rollicking.

2

All of these got five stars from me on Goodreads this year:

The Dirt on Clean: an unsanitized history, by Katherine Ashenburg
Mindless Eating: why we eat more than we think by Brian Wansink
Truthfully, I don’t recall much about either of these, but hey, it was early on and I was feeling generous. I think my book grading criteria have changed. There’s no doubt that I enjoyed them at the time, and if you like non-fiction you probably would too.

Wasteland: stories of the Apocalypse edited by John Joseph Adams. Another “did I read this”? It must have been good.

Virtual Unrealities: the short fiction of Alfred Bester. I’d have given this book five stars for the short story “Fondly Fahrenheit” alone. As soon as I finished reading it, I turned back and read it again. It knocked me on my ass. The other stories were good too.

The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers. The first Tim Powers I’d read; it was a little confusing but I liked it enough to go find more of his stuff. Apparently confusing is his trademark. :slight_smile:

Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach. Good (and mentions Cecil!) but Stiff was better.

And the best of them all: Who Hates Whom: Well-armed fanatics, intractable conflicts, and various things blowing up; a woefully incomplete guide, by Bob Harris. The world situation, explained in little words, and the history of it all. If you read this carefully, you may understand what goes on in the Middle East and elsewhere. I should buy this one.

I can’t resist putting in some honorable mentions that got four stars. These were just as good as some of my five-stars:
*Knockemstiff, Donald Ray Pollock. * Be prepared. Read about it first.
Duma Key, Stephen King. Oh, he’s done a lot better. But it was a comeback of sorts for him, and we were all so glad.
The Once and Future King, T.H. White. I enjoyed this almost every step of the way but wanted a different ending.
Replay, Ken Grimwood. Great story, I was riveted. Knocked off a star for gratuitous sex (but you can handle it).

3

I can’t pick just one either. These stood out:

Hunter’s Run – SF by George R. R. Martin – aliens, adventure, redemption, and a cool twist

Snow Angels – Stewart O’Nan – heartbreaking and depressing, but worth reading. It’s about a murder-suicide. O’Nan really got in the murderer’s head – I didn’t agree with what he did but I understood it.

Knockemstiff – Donald Ray Pollock – raw and gritty with heart, people you wouldn’t want to know, living in a small Ohio town

A Thread of Grace – Mary Doria Russell – another heartbreaker, but uplifting (without being smarmy or sentimental)

Evelyn Keyes’ biography – I’ve forgotten the title. Best Hollywood bio I’ve ever read.

Serena – Ron Rash – think Rhoda from The Bad Seed, all grown up and wreaking havoc in a logging camp in the 1920’s

The Black Tower – Louis Bayard – reading this now – it’s probably going to be my favorite for the whole year

4

Oh, I have plenty of people I wouldn’t want to know, since I live in a small Ohio town, too. :smiley:

5

I finally got around to reading To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee this year- that was definitely the best. Close second was Great Expectations- I muddled through the first half, reading it more because I thought I should but then just was hit WOW! by how good it was towards the middle and end, re-read the first half with more attention and now I am feeling bad for neglecting Dickens.

Noteworthy mentions were:
The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham- Beautiful, although I was disappointed in the ending, but after much consideration, decided that it was realistic portrayal of Kitty’s character.

Children Of Men by P.D James- Almost a different story than the movie, but both thought provoking and well done.

When We Were Romans by Matthew Kneale- great book, although end was a bit choppy but I will give the author of English Passengers a free pass on that :).

6

English Passengers by Matthew Kneale (yes, late to the party as always).

(And thanks, smokinjbc for reminding me how astounding I found the book. Now I have to try When We Were Romans, choppy ending notwithstanding. I’d be willing to give him a pass on that, given the quality of English Passengers.)

7

Goodreads is really handy for a thread like this. It’s also interesting to look back over the books you read in the year, and see how you feel about them now with some of them having been read months ago.

So in my read 2008 folder, I gave five stars to seven books which are as follows:

*Tribes of Britain *by David Miles historical perspective from first arrival of modern humans to the current day.

Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinction by David Quammen. Probably my favourite book of the year. I read it in January, 2008, and looking back still feel the same way about it: This book is fantastic. Written with quirky humor it covers tremendous ground, including the history of who first advanced the theory of evolution. Written in the mid-90s,for anyone who has read anything by Jared Diamond it also gives a different perspective on Diamond as the academic. Beyond that, Quammen writes with an underlying passion on the future of species biodiversity and the implications of island biogeography for mainland species being confined to smaller and smaller spaces, but doing so in a very accessible way. I’d highly recommend it

Mysteries of the Middle Ages: The Rise of Feminism, Science, and Art from the Cults of Catholic Europe by Thomas Cahill. One of his hinges of history series; the title is pretty much explanatory of the contents, but the book is also beautifully illustrated.

*Terry Jones’ Barbarians *by you guessed it Terry Jones. Excellent book from Terry Jones,also of Monty Python fame. The book presents the interaction between the Roman Empire and those who had the misfortune to be in the same vicinity, with ensuing death and destruction, and from the perspective of the “barbarians”.

Ireland: A Novel by Frank Delaney. The only fiction that I gave 5 stars to; it was an absolutely page turner for me; once I started reading I didn’t stop until I was done. Set in the 1950s in Ireland, the book is about a young boy named Ronan O’Mara who becomes fascinated with a travelling storyteller and the stories that are told.

The last two on my list with five stars are two collections of poems by WB Yeats, my favourite poet. One of them is a selection of poems as chosen by Seamus Heaney.

8

The only book I gave five stars to this year was “The Great Gatsby.” The best of my four-star books were “Ann Vickers” by Sinclair Lewis, “Spoon River Anthology” by Edgar Lee Masters, and Orwell’s “1984.”

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Best fiction: a tie between Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry and Going After Cacciato, by Tim O’Brien

Best non-fiction: another tie between Into Thin Air, by Jon Krakauer and Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War, by Terry Wallace

Best Poetry: New and Selected Poems: Volume One, by Mary Oliver

Best Cookbook: White Trash Cooking, by Ernest Matthew Mickler (I may never make anything from this, but I loved it with all my heart. It’s worth buying just for the photographs.)

Best Junk: Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon–And the Journey of a Generation, by Sheila Weller

Biggest disappointment: Blood Trail, by C.J. Box

10

The World Without Us by Alan Weisman was a very readable account of how the planet might react if people just suddenly disappeared.

11

It is a great book, and I have to thank SDMB for that recommendation- I wonder if it wins for favorite Straight Dope book- everyone seems to love it!

I recently loaned my copy to my boss, had to apologize for the condition of it since I am not the most careful person and have re-read it 3 times in a row.

12

I just placed the audiobook on hold. I’ve seen the movie, but everytime someone raves about the book, I think, “Oh yeah, I’ll read that sometime…”

13

I’m not usually good at picking a single favorite of anything, but this year I have a standout book: Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson. Loved every page of it.

Other favorites for the year:
Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series
Steven Saylor’s Roma Sub Rosa series (the early books, anyway)
Sharon Kay Penman’s Devil’s Brood
Michael Flynn’s *Firestar *and The Wreck of the River of Stars
Charlie Huston’s Joe Pitt series and Henry Thompson series

And I discovered Georgette Heyer this year! Regency romance, and they’re wonderful. My favorites so far are The Uknown Ajax and Venetia.

14

Cool. I usually like what you like and I’ve been thinking about this series.

I mentioned it in the December thread but I’ll say it again here. koeeoaddi kindly replaced my copy of English Passengers when I thought mine was lost, but mine came back, so I have an extra if anyone wants to read it. Just PM me.

15

My reading ground to a screeching halt in the middle of last year, so I didn’t read many books this year. But I really enjoyed Bill Bryson’s The Lost Continent. I also read his book on Shakespeare, and last week I read Sarah Vowell’s The Wordy Shipmates. Basically every other word I read in a book this year was written by me, so that doesn’t count.

To broaden the category a little, the best thing I read this year was Caroline Alexander’s story “Tigerland,” an article in the New Yorker about the tigers in the mangrove forests of the Sundarbans region in Bangladesh. I’ve been reading the New Yorker for about ten years and I’d say it’s the best piece I’ve ever read in there.

16

This is funny–I’ve read several books listed here for the first time this year, despite several of them being ones I’m sure I’ve been credited with reading before–both 1984 and My Antonia were in a field I’d been examined in closely but I had never read either classic before, and I loved both.

The best one though was Russell Banks’ CLOUDSPLITTER, a fictionalized memoir about John Brown.

17

I picked up a couple of Cormac McCarthy’s books in 2008 - The Road and No Country for Old Men. The former is a masterpiece, didn’t care quite so much for the latter, but I like the sparsity/focus of his prose and I’ll read everything else he’s done in 2009 if I can find it.

In any case McCarthy’s The Road, Neal Stephenson’s Anathem or another recent-ish one, David Mitchell’s Ghostwritten (Cloud Atlas strikes me as an inferior rewrite) were the best books I read in 2008. Hopefully, I’ll have a bit more time to spend reading next year.

18

To Kill A Mockingbird - Ive been wanting to read it it for 30 years. It was worth the wait. Much better than the movie, which I also love.

19

This would certainly top my fiction list this year: I read it in October and since then have recommended it to about, oh, ten people, I think.

For non-fiction, I would nominate Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics, which is without doubt the most brillant piece of literary criticism I’ve ever read. And it’s a comic, too!

20

Best fiction:
*The Monsters of Templeton *by Lauren Groff

Best science fiction/fantasy:
Eifelheim by Michael Flynn

Best YA novel:
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

Best non-fiction:
Paul Revere’s Ride by David Hackett Fischer.