# Your favorite reads this year **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 25, 2007, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-reads-this-year/431184 "2007-12-25T05:08:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2007, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-reads-this-year/431184/1 "2007-12-25T05:08:19Z")
Separated by genre, if you read genre, with links or comments if you feel up to it. I only managed about 50 books this year, but I liked most of them, and some were standouts. General fiction: _Someone Knows My Name_ by Lawrence Hill _Out Stealing Horses_ by Per Petterson _New Grub Street_ by George Gissing _Black Swan Green_ by David Mitchell _Flanders_ by Patricia Anthony Fantasy/SF: _Eifelheim_ by Michael Flynn. Seriously folks, check this one out. _The Book of Joby_ by Mark Ferrari _Cloud Atlas_ by David Mitchell _The Anubis Gates_ by Tim Powers _The Book of Lost Things_ by John Connolly Horror: _The Woman in Black_ by Susan Hill _Throne of Bones_ by Brian McNaughton _Atrocity Archives_ by Charles Stross _The Terror_ by Dan Simmons [/QUOTE] Non-fiction: _Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets_ by David Simon ---
**Author:** ![GrandWino](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grandwino/32/67_2.png) [@GrandWino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrandWino)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2007, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-reads-this-year/431184/2 "2007-12-25T05:21:15Z")
I’m sure there are others that I’ll think of after I click submit, but here are my favorites for the year: Fiction: _I Know This Much is True_ - Wally Lamb \*She’s Come Undone \* - Wally Lamb Memoir: \*Foreskin’s Lament \* - Shalom Auslander \*The Bill from My Father \* - Bernard Cooper ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2007, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-reads-this-year/431184/3 "2007-12-25T06:28:47Z")
19th century adventure novels: _Eric Brighteyes_, by H. Rider Haggard. His version of an Icelandic saga; it is a kickass story. Historical nonfiction: _Founding Myths_, by Ray Raphael. Makes a compelling case that the popular story of the American Revolution conceals the real story. _The Crusades_ by Terry Jones (formerly of Monty Python). Jones is, seriously, a medieval scholar, and gives a good overview of the bloody, sometimes insane history of the various Crusades. More that I’ll think of when I’m sober. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2007, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-reads-this-year/431184/4 "2007-12-25T06:55:20Z")
**Fiction:** _I Capture the Castle_, by Dodie Smith _The First Four Years_, by Laura Ingalls Wilder \*\* Fantasy:\*\* _The Wee Free Men_, by Terry Pratchett _The 13 Clocks_, by James Thurber And my favorites for the year: **Mystery:** The Catherine LeVendeur books, by Sharan Newman ---
**Author:** ![lorene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/65b543/32.png) [@lorene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lorene)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2007, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-reads-this-year/431184/5 "2007-12-25T11:41:44Z")
**Non-fiction** : _Eat, Pray, Love_ I’ve read a ton of books this year, but their titles are not reaching my not-yet-caffeinated brain. ETA: **Fiction** : _Three Junes_ by Julia Glass _The Center of Everything_ by Laura Moriarty ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Purl\_McKnittington](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9a140/32.png) [@Miss\_Purl\_McKnittington](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Purl_McKnittington)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2007, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-reads-this-year/431184/6 "2007-12-26T05:32:03Z")
**Fiction** _The Eyre Affaire_ and _Lost in a Good Book_ by Jasper Fforde – I recently read the first two novels about Thursday Next and enjoyed them tremendously. I think they might be my favorite novels of 2007. The first two are all the library had, but I’m really looking forward to reading the next three. **Young Adult Fiction** _Howl’s Moving Castle_ by Dianna Wynne Jones [Bloody Jack: Being an Account of the Curious Adventures of Mary “Jacky” Faber, Ship’s Boy](http://www.amazon.com/Bloody-Jack-Account-Curious-Adventures/dp/015205085X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1198646711&sr=1-1) and [by Louis A. Meyer – These books are absolutely wonderful! Very swashbuckling. Great reading for girls or boys, really. **Sewing, Handcrafts, etc.** [url=[http://www.amazon.com/Knitting-Vintage-Socks-Classic-Patterns/dp/1931499659/ref=pd\_bbs\_sr\_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1198645944&sr=1-1](http://www.amazon.com/Knitting-Vintage-Socks-Classic-Patterns/dp/1931499659/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1198645944&sr=1-1)]Knitting Vintage Socks](]The Curse of the Blue Tattoo: Being an Account of the Misadventures of Jacky Faber, Midshipman and Fine Lady[/url) by Nancy Bush – It’s full of great research about turn of the 19th century sock knitting, offers some good information about substituting modern materials, and the sock patterns in it are really beautiful. Unfortunately, none of the socks are photographed on feet, but that’s the lone drawback. [Period Costume for Stage & Screen: Women’s Dress 1800-1909](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/088734609X?ie=UTF8&tag=httpwwwgoodco-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=088734609X&SubscriptionId=1MGPYB6YW3HWK55XCGG2) by Jean Hunnisett – I was finally able to read the sections on bodice fitting and have them make sense. Yay! A tremendous resource, full of good advice, tips, and million other things to improve your sewing. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2007, 10:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-reads-this-year/431184/7 "2007-12-26T10:16:46Z")
_The Kite Runner_, by Khaled Hosseini. A very good friend gave it to me on my birthday, and it’s not the sort of thing that I’d pick up. However, I found it totally captivating. I went through a phase in which I reread a lot of Barbara Hambly’s fantasies. I don’t like her Benjamin January series, so I didn’t reread those. I reread _Howl’s Moving Castle_ this year, after seeing the movie. As is usually the case, I vastly preferred the book to the movie. ---
**Author:** ![Skylark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Skylark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skylark)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2007, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-reads-this-year/431184/8 "2007-12-26T10:33:21Z")
I thought _The World Without Us_ was a real mind-blower. Depression at parts too. _The Savage Wars of Peace_, about our almost unknown long record of military adventurism, was pretty fascinating and had a lot of good stories and truly colorful characters like any good book on American history. _Lincoln on Leadership_ read like it was written by a kid in a high school AP English class who couldn’t write essays for shit, but it still had good information on Lincoln that made it worth the read. Fiction, dug _Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey_ by Pahlunuik, which was a trip. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2007, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-reads-this-year/431184/9 "2007-12-26T15:24:52Z")
I read a good bit this year, but it’s like the Oscars - not sure I can tell you what I read for the first half! Recently my absolute favorite “you have to read this!” book has been **World War Z**. I’ve handed it off to two people so far. I also really enjoyed **Pride and Prejudice** , **Don’t Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight** , **Operating Instructions** , **Have His Carcase** , and, uh, about a zillion other books that don’t come to mind now that you ask and seem interested. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2007, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-reads-this-year/431184/10 "2007-12-26T16:50:53Z")
I keep my library notices, so I have a record of a lot of stuff I read this year; unfortunately not all of it. The ones I most enjoyed: The Woman in Black, by Susan Hill The Observations: a novel by Jane Harris The Bartimaeus Trilogy, by Jonathan Stroud Ratman’s Notebooks, by Stephen Gilbert She, by H. Rider Haggard Gig : Americans talk about their jobs at the turn of the millennium. Edited by John Bowe, Marisa Bowe & Sabin Streeter. One Red Paperclip : or how an ordinary man achieved his dreams with the help of a simple office supply, by Kyle MacDonald The Thunderbolt Kid, by Bill Bryson Dark Harvest, by Norman Partridge King Solomon’s Mines by H. Rider Haggard (Currently reading, but I expect it to belong here) Honorable mention: The End, by Lemony Snicket Tamsin, by Peter S. Beagle How I Live Now, by Meg Rosoff Heart-shaped Box, by Joe Hill Round Ireland with a Fridge, by Tony Hawks The Ghost Writer, by John Harwood The Day of the Triffids, by John Wyndham Oryx and Crake : a novel by Margaret Atwood Peter & the secret of Rundoon, by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2007, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-reads-this-year/431184/11 "2007-12-26T17:17:45Z")
[QUOTE=Dung Beetle] Heart-shaped Box, by Joe Hill [/QUOTE] Have you read his short story collection, _20th Century Ghosts_? Amazing work. ---
**Author:** ![pbbth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f9ae1b/32.png) [@pbbth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pbbth)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2007, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-reads-this-year/431184/12 "2007-12-26T18:01:24Z")
Wow, I read about a million books this year and now that you ask I can’t think of any to recommend. How about: In Lucia’s Eyes by Arthur Japin Midwives by Chris Bohjalian A Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier My Boring Ass Life by Kevin Smith Harry Potter and The Deathly Hollows by JK Rowling Relic, Reliquary, Cabinet of Curiosities, Still Life With Crows, and Book of the Dead by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child - all part of a series of books that I just discovered and quite liked this year. There are many others in this series that I haven’t read yet including Thunderhead, Brimstone, Dance of Death and Wheel of Darkness, but so far the ones I have read have been very interesting and enjoyable to read. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2007, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-reads-this-year/431184/13 "2007-12-26T18:18:21Z")
**Fiction** The Stolen Child (Keith Donohue) Men and Cartoons: Stories (Jonathan Lethem) **Popular Psychology** The Psychology of Harry Potter: An Unauthorized Examination of the Boy Who Lived (Editor: Neil Mulholland) **Biography/History** Banvard’s Folly: Tales of Thirteen People Who Didn’t Change the World (Paul Collins) **Autobiography** Strange Piece of Paradise (Terri Jentz) The Glass Castle (Jeannette Walls) A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier (Ishmael Beah) **Public Policy/Service Delivery** War in the Blood: Sex, Politics and AIDS in Southeast Asia (Chris Beyrer) Cambridge Studies in Medical Anthropology 1: Social Lives of Medicines (Susan Reynolds Whyte, Sjaak van der Geest, & Anita Hardon) Mountains beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World (Tracy Kidder) ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2007, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-reads-this-year/431184/14 "2007-12-26T18:25:16Z")
[QUOTE=AuntiePam] Have you read his short story collection, _20th Century Ghosts_? Amazing work. [/QUOTE] :smack: Yes, I should have listed it. ---
**Author:** ![Lamar\_Mundane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lamar\_Mundane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamar_Mundane)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2007, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-reads-this-year/431184/15 "2007-12-26T18:33:54Z")
Fiction: _Boomsday_, Christopher Buckley _A Thousand Splendid Suns_, Khalid Hossein - This was much better than _The Kite Runner_ _Five Skies,_ Ron Carlson Non Fiction: _Imperial Life in the Emerald City_, Rajiv Chandrasekaran These are the ones that stuck with me the most. ---
**Author:** ![koeeoaddi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/koeeoaddi/32/408_2.png) [@koeeoaddi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/koeeoaddi)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2008, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-reads-this-year/431184/16 "2008-01-03T04:39:50Z")
Mine in no order: Winter’s Tale, Mark Helprin Memoir from Antproof Case, Mark Helprin Fifth Business, Robertson Davies, Flanders, Patricia Anthony A Very Long Engagement, Sébastien Japrisot e: A Novel, Matt Beaumont The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfield Up Country, Nelson DeMille Word of Honor, Nelson DeMille The Good Husband of Zebra Drive, Alexander Mccall Smith Slammerkin, Emma Donoghue Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen Maus I & II, Art Spiegelman The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, Janet Malcolm The Woman in Black: A Ghost Story, Susan Hill Note: a bunch’ve’em were recommended by the OP. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2008, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-reads-this-year/431184/17 "2008-01-03T05:23:46Z")
[QUOTE=koeeoaddi] Note: a bunch’ve’em were recommended by the OP. [/QUOTE] I’ll take credit for _The Woman in Black_ and maybe _Slammerkin_. But _Flanders_? Beautiful book, but someone would have to be almost sadistic to recommend it. I think we can credit another Doper for that one, but I don’t remember who. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2008, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-reads-this-year/431184/18 "2008-01-03T05:38:36Z")
Would you say a little more about _The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes_? ---
**Author:** ![koeeoaddi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/koeeoaddi/32/408_2.png) [@koeeoaddi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/koeeoaddi)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2008, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-reads-this-year/431184/19 "2008-01-03T06:44:25Z")
[QUOTE=Shoshana] Would you say a little more about _The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes_? [/QUOTE] I came into the book cold. I know their poetry, but I didn’t know much about the Sylvia /Ted soap opera, other than a little from the rather grim movie, _Sylvia_. The book assumes you’ve read the other big biographies, so I was at a bit of a disadvantage. That said, it was fascinating dish, in what seems to me as a pretty even handed look at two such sad, talented and fairly peculiar people. (Speaking of peculiar, I also couldn’t get enough of Ted Hughes’s very frightening sister. Yowser.) I was interested in the way Janet Malcom talked about how memory transforms the dead and how that transformation effects the living. She quotes a letter from Ted Hughes where he complains about how easily people assume they know all about him and Sylvia, based on impressions of their work, stranger’s opinions and such small fragments of what is known about their lives. It was hard not to sympathize. She also showed how he edited what he said about her, shaping and refining his position over the years. Really interesting stuff. The book made me want to go read all the other biographies, reread _Ariel_ and _The Birthday Letters_ and compare stories. I’m not a total Sylvia/Ted geek yet, but give me a year or two. ---
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2008, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-reads-this-year/431184/20 "2008-01-03T15:51:40Z")
In no particular order. \*\*The Children’s Hospital What They Carried With Them The Secret Life of Lobsters Fast Food Nation The Road Water for Elephants The Glass Castle The Memory Keeper’s Daughter\*\* [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-reads-this-year/431184.md?page=2)