# Your top five reads from 2009 **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 14, 2009, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-top-five-reads-from-2009/521283 "2009-12-14T23:24:08Z")\ **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 14, 2009, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-top-five-reads-from-2009/521283/1 "2009-12-14T23:24:08Z")
I know some of you keep lists. 🙂 Top 5: _Echoes from the Dead_ – Johan Theorin, mystery _The Gone-Away World_ - Nick Harkaway, SF _The Little Stranger_ – Sarah Waters, psychological thriller _Three Day Road_ – Joseph Boyden, general fiction _Middlemarch_ – George Eliot, general fiction Bottom 1: _Under the Dome_ – Stephen King. By far the most disappointing book I’ve read in several years, from any author. ---
**Author:** ![LVBoPeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/858c86/32.png) [@LVBoPeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LVBoPeep)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-top-five-reads-from-2009/521283/2 "2009-12-15T01:33:27Z")
…will be back after consulting Goodreads :). ---
**Author:** ![LVBoPeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/858c86/32.png) [@LVBoPeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LVBoPeep)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-top-five-reads-from-2009/521283/3 "2009-12-15T01:45:24Z")
#1- _Mr. American_ by George McDonald Fraser- I got this accidentally at a used bookstore, I was looking for Flashman novels but they only had this. Just a great read- helped by the appearance of an elderly Flashman but the main character is just as interesting. #2 -Up to #4 in the _Flashman Papers_- will count those as one- all are equally great, probably enjoyed _Flash for Freedom!_ the best, so far. # 3 -\*Duma Key \*by Stephen King - I was very excited to see Mr. King back to (almost) old form, until I started reading Under The Dome, which I’m having a really hard time getting into. #4 _Duane’s Depressed_ by Larry McMurtry- I started this series backwards, very sad, real story. #5- _Gone With The Wind_ by Margaret Mitchell - this one is cheating but I read it recently after a 6 or 7 ? year hiatus and it was like reading a new book, my life experiences had me seeing things very differently and sympathizing with Scarlet more than I ever had before. Since this was the ONLY book I re-read this year, I feel it’s ok to count it- usually I only re-read books, until I discovered the (free) public library and goodreads. ---
**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:** [December 15, 2009, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-top-five-reads-from-2009/521283/4 "2009-12-15T02:06:59Z")
Top 5 Beloved, Toni Morrison The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Jean-Dominique Bauby Columbine, Dave Cullen The Quiet American, Graham Greene The Sparrow, Mary Doria Russell Bottom 3 Terminal Freeze, Lincoln Child Paths of Glory, Jeffrey Archer Will You Take Me As I Am: Joni Mitchell’s Blue Period, Michelle Mercer ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-top-five-reads-from-2009/521283/5 "2009-12-15T02:28:39Z")
Just went through the year’s "Whatcha Readin’ " threads, and it looks like this is the top five. In rough order: 1. Mary Stewart’s Arthurian Trilogy + sequel. Yup, I’m gonna call them one selection, not three (four) 2. _Brother Gardeners_ by Andrea Wulf. 18th-century gardeners and botanists, and the rise of the British empire. 3. _The Prodigal Tongue_ by Mark Abley. The current state and future directions of English as a global language. 4. _The Ancestor’s Tale_ by Richard Dawkins. Natural history from present back to primordial soup. 5. _Selected Works of T.S. Spivet_ by Reif Larsen. Novel, with an unusual format of extensive marginalia by the 12-year-old protagonist. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-top-five-reads-from-2009/521283/6 "2009-12-15T03:03:00Z")
I just now finished reading **Sharp Teeth** , by Toby Barlow. Picked it up on a lark at the library, almost put it down when I saw it was written entirely in free verse, and am **so glad** I didn’t. It was tremendously compelling, possibly the best book I’ve read all year. (Well, I read _Great Expectations_ this summer, so probably not the “best,” but the one I’ve enjoyed the most). Excellent modern-day fantasy! Other books I’ve read this year and really enjoyed: 2) I’ll put all the Jim Butcher _Dresden Novels_ in one pile. Great fun. 3) A War in Autumn, the third book in Daniel Abraham’s four-book-long series. Depressing, but really moves forward the plot of the series, and is beautifully written. 4) _Where the Wild Things Are_. Another modern fantasy in free verse, featuring terrifying monsters. I must have a soft spot for those things. 5) _Spin_. I think I read it this year–a very strong science fiction epic. I wish I had better things to say about Great Expectations. Generally I aim for one classic novel a year, and often I love 'em: _Treasure Island_, _The Count of Monte Cristo_, these were great. But I dislike Dickens’s characterization, and his free hand with coincidences got really tiring, and the book’s cultural allusions were dense enough to make it exhausting to read; I only finished it out of grim determination and a grudging respect for his complex tying up of all loose ends. ---
**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 15, 2009, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-top-five-reads-from-2009/521283/7 "2009-12-15T03:03:54Z")
I gave 8 books 5 stars on Goodreads this year, but I find that some of the books I find the most memorable (in a good way) are 4 star books. What can I say? I like flaws. My top five: 1. The Little Stranger, by Sarah Waters: This book just freaked me out, but it has stuck like taffy. It could be dismissed as just a ghost story, but I loved it. 2. Harry Sue, by Sue Stauffacher: YA but with a realistic bent. I think I sobbed through 3/4 of this book. 3. Long Live the Queen, by Ellen Emerson White: Third in a series about the daughter of the first female president. They shouldn’t be as incredibly good as they are, but they are. 4. Graceling/Fire: Two by Kristin Cashore. If you like fantasy, read them. 5. The Hunger Games/Catching Fire: Two by Suzanne Collins. If you like fantasy OR science-fiction, read them. ---
**Author:** ![justsayin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6a8cbe/32.png) [@justsayin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/justsayin)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-top-five-reads-from-2009/521283/8 "2009-12-15T03:16:08Z")
> [@AuntiePam](#): > > _Middlemarch_ – George Eliot, general fiction I’m not sure if we’re doing top 5 of this all time or just 2009, because _Middlemarch_ is victorian fiction, but aren’t you just glad you got through it? Longest 900 pages of my life. koeeoaddi, _Columbine_ is a great read. 12 publishing house is genius as usual. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Cleveland\_Steamer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@The\_Cleveland\_Steamer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Cleveland_Steamer)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-top-five-reads-from-2009/521283/9 "2009-12-15T03:17:14Z")
1. “Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi” by Geoff Dyer 2. Lydia Davis’s “Collected Stories” 3. “Let the Great World Spin” by Colum McCann 4. “Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City” by Greg Grandin 5. Ludmilla Petrushevskaya’s collection “There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor’s Baby” Limited to books published in 2009. ---
**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 15, 2009, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-top-five-reads-from-2009/521283/10 "2009-12-15T03:34:48Z")
> [@AuntiePam](#): > > _The Little Stranger_ – Sarah Waters, psychological thriller Goes to show that I didn’t read the thread before posting. I shoulda known she’d show up on your list, too. I still have chills! ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-top-five-reads-from-2009/521283/11 "2009-12-15T04:12:33Z")
> [@justsayin](#): > > I’m not sure if we’re doing top 5 of this all time or just 2009, because _Middlemarch_ is victorian fiction, but aren’t you just glad you got through it? Longest 900 pages of my life. I meant top five books read in 2009, regardless of when they were published. I really, really liked _Middlemarch_. I like Victorian fiction and I like big fat books – maybe that helped. I haven’t managed _War and Peace_ yet though – I get bogged down in the battle scenes. ETA: **jsgoddess** , _The Little Stranger_ was Stephen King’s favorite book this year as well. ---
**Author:** ![mkecane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9e8a1a/32.png) [@mkecane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mkecane)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-top-five-reads-from-2009/521283/12 "2009-12-15T04:18:35Z")
1. The Last Season by Eric Blehm 2. Zeitoun by Dave Eggers 3. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson 4. Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates by Tom Robbins 5. Where Men Win Glory by John Krakauer ---
**Author:** ![infinitii](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e8c25b/32.png) [@infinitii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/infinitii)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-top-five-reads-from-2009/521283/13 "2009-12-15T09:53:38Z")
Ahh, I thought this was going to be just books published in 2009 as well. That would have been quite different. I see we also don’t have to limit ourselves to fiction: 1. The Toilers of the Sea – Victor Hugo 2. The Next 100 Years – George Friedman 3. Death Note (12 vol. manga collection) – Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata 4. The Hidden – Tobias Hill 5. Little Brother – Cory Doctorow ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-top-five-reads-from-2009/521283/14 "2009-12-15T12:21:13Z")
Oh, I’m going to cheat and count books that go together as one space on the list. Top Five 1. _When You Reach Me_, by Rebecca Stead. AWESOME kid lit, if you know a kid who is an avid reader who hasn’t picked this up yet, put it on your holiday shopping list. 2. _The Knife of Never Letting Go_ and _The Ask and the Answer_\* by Patrick Ness, YA science fiction, bring Kleenex. 3. _Columbine_\* by Dave Cullen, non-fiction. Great writing but very sad. 4. _In the Woods_ and _The Likeness_\* by Tana French, mystery. 5. _Never Let Me Go_ by Kazuo Ishiguro, dystopian fiction, mesmerizing. Runners up: _Sag Harbor_\*, by Colson Whitehead and _The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet_\* by Reif Larson. Bottom Three: 1. _Vanished Smile: The Mysterious Theft of Mona Lisa_\*, by R.A. Scotti. Interesting topic, stupid writing style. 2. _They Did It with Love_ by Kate Morgenroth, mystery, almost creepy in how vapid it was. 3. _Ghostgirl,_ by Tonya Hurley. Awful YA fiction, so cringy because it tried too hard. - = published in 2009 ---
**Author:** ![yellowval](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/919ad9/32.png) [@yellowval](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yellowval)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-top-five-reads-from-2009/521283/15 "2009-12-15T14:01:30Z")
1. For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway 2. Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry 3. It Can’t Happen Here, Sinclair Lewis 4. The Road, Cormac McCarthy 5. Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates The first three were easy, but the last two were more difficult to choose. Honorable mention goes to Love is Eternal by Irving Stone, Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver, Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser, A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, and A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway, in no particular order. I also excluded audio books from my list. The best audio book I listened to this year was Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, followed by Jane Austen’s Lady Susan. I read a lot of really good books this year! ---
**Author:** ![StoutHearted](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2bfe46/32.png) [@StoutHearted](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StoutHearted)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-top-five-reads-from-2009/521283/16 "2009-12-15T15:55:26Z")
_The Prizewinner of Defiance, Ohio_ – I was surprised by this one; it was truly touching _The Book Thief_ – the book gives away the ending in the middle and I still bawled .But what can you expect from a book narrated by Death? _The Thirteenth Tale_ – modern gothic tale for those who pine for gothic tales _For Her Own Good_ – Anyone who thinks feminism is a crock needs to read this. What the medical profession has done to women in the past (and present) is positively revolting. (“Been giving your husband lip? Put two leeches on your cervix and call me in the morning!”) _The Road_ – Harrowing, desolate, haunting ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-top-five-reads-from-2009/521283/17 "2009-12-15T16:35:17Z")
2009 was a bad year for my reading habits. I think I put down more stuff than I finished. Three of the top five are vampire novels for cripes sake. Top 5 1. **Already Dead** by Charlie Huston A vampire PI in a neo-noir setting. Awesome! 2. **The Strain** by Guillermo Del Toro & Chuck Hogan Vampires are inhuman monsters that kill people while a CDC guy tries to stop the plague. Awesome! 3. **Contagious** by Scott Sigler Alien-infested humans are inhuman monsters that kill people while a CDC guy tries to stop the plague. Awesome! 4. \*\*The Guinea Pig Diaries \*\*by A.J. Jacobs AJ Jacobs is my hero for subjecting himself to all the weird experiments he does. 5. **No Dominion** by Charlie Huston A vampire PI in a neo-noir setting. Awesome! Bottom 5 5. **Darwin Awards: Next Evolution** by Wendy Northcutt They ran out of creative deaths. Jim Bob got drunk and hit a tree doesn’t make very compelling reading. 1. **One Second After** by William Forstchen An EMP pulse shuts down all electronics in the US and half the population turns into raping savages one second after. Only the conservative college professor can save them… :rolleyes: 2. **The Colorado Kid** by Stephen King Just boring 3. **Relentless** by Dean Koontz A killer critic is backed by the US government to kill writers who have a sense of humor. OK… :rolleyes: again 4. **Reading the OED** by Ammon Shea Reading a book about a guy reading the dictionary is boring. Or rather, a guy who’d read the dictionary for fun is a terrible storyteller, who knew? ---
**Author:** ![Chum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3ab097/32.png) [@Chum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chum)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-top-five-reads-from-2009/521283/18 "2009-12-15T16:56:47Z")
Great thread! I love finding new books to read. 1. _Housekeeping_ - Marilynne Robinson. Sometimes I feel like certain books were written for me but no one else would really appreciate them. With this book, I felt that it was written for me and that everyone who reads it must absolutely love it. 2. _The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle_ - Haruki Murakami. Super weird and super good. 3. _David Copperfield_ - Charles Dickens. I’ve owned this book forever, but it’s the thickest book on the shelf and I kept putting off reading it. I’m glad I finally did - it’s probably my favorite novel by Dickens (that I’ve read so far, anyway). 4. _The Other_ - David Guterson. Much better than _Snow Falling on Cedars_, which was also a great book. 5. _The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency_ - Alexander McCall Smith. Looking forward to reading the rest of these. Well written, and heartwarming without being sappy at all. Bottom: _Joe Hill_ - Wallace Stegner. Boring, and the worst book I’ve read of his. (_Angle of Repose_ was the best book I read last year.) _The Tenderness of Wolves_ - Stef Penney. My aunt loved it and gave it to me, but I couldn’t even get through it. I got a strong sense of the author trying too hard. The narrative voice jumps from character to character _and_ from first-person to third, which I found irritating. Heavy-handed and plot driven to the exclusion of character development (admittedly, I only got half way through). _Kafka’s Curse_ - Achmat Dangor. I don’t even remember what this was about. At all. _Drowning Ruth_ - Christina Schwarz. Another one of my aunt’s recommendations. I slogged through it, but it was pretty bad. If a book’s going to be centered around a secret, that secret had better be pretty darn good. Nope. ---
**Author:** ![jordanr2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/838e76/32.png) [@jordanr2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jordanr2)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-top-five-reads-from-2009/521283/19 "2009-12-15T17:30:25Z")
> [@koeeoaddi](#): > > Will You Take Me As I Am: Joni Mitchell’s Blue Period, Michelle Mercer wow, really? I thought there was a definite degree of self-absorption in this one, but still I liked the unabashedly personal angle of it. I was just disappointed that she more or less skipped over Joni’s entire body of jazz-infused music (though in view of the title, I guess that makes sense). ---
**Author:** ![jordanr2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/838e76/32.png) [@jordanr2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jordanr2)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-top-five-reads-from-2009/521283/20 "2009-12-15T17:33:17Z")
Slavoj Zizek - _In Defense of Lost Causes_ Richard Ford - _The Lay of the Land_ J.M. Coetzee - _Summertime_ (read this in a single evening - one of the most powerful reading experiences I’ve ever had) Eugene O’Neill - _Long Day’s Journey into Night_ (why does no one read him anymore? this one was just incredible) Richard Brody - _Everything Is Cinema: the Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard_ I also plunged into the works of William Bronk, Gabriel Josipovici, and George Steiner, but all their works are so excellent I’d have a hard time naming just one from each. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-top-five-reads-from-2009/521283.md?page=2)