Top 5 from Goodreads:
Not in any particular order:
Top
1.Middlsex Jeffrey Eugenides
Fiction about an ambiguously gendered teen in a Greek family set in Detroit.
2.Year of Wonders Geraldine Brooks
Historical fiction inspired by the true story of a town in England that quarantined itself against the plague for a year in the 1600s.
3.Seven Types of Ambiguity William Empson
A stalker story with a happy ending.
4.Robinson Crusoe Daniel Defoe
Finally read this classic, wish I’d done it sooner.
5.The Courts of Love: The Story of Eleanor of Aquitaine Jean Plaidy
Reading this right now. I love historical fiction, and this book holds my interest because I recently learned that my family is related to her (as are millions I know but still) and the first line of the book closely resembles my life- “When I look back over my long and tempestuous life, I can see that much of what happened to me- my triumphs and most of my misfortunes- was due to my passionate relationships with men.”
Those are not all of the books I thoroughly enjoyed this year but I’ll limit my list.
Bottom
1.Happiness Sold Separately Lolly Winston
Piece of insufferable dreck- pissed at myself for sticking with it to the end.
2.Santa Steps Out Robert Devereaux
A friend gave me this at Easter as a gag gift referencing my atheism. It’s probably cheating to list it seeing as how I only read a few pages, but the horror that is the book made me want to scrub myself raw in the corner of the shower while sobbing. shudder
3.Gift of Fear Gavin De Becker
I’ve heard this book recommended so many times on this board so I got it. I do agree with his ideas and principles for sure- he is definitely on the money. But the book itself and how it’s written is boring and tedious- dude, stick to your classes and seminars and quit writing.
Fortunately, those are all the bad books I read (or tried to) this year. I think.
OK, are you the one who recommended *Middlemarch *to me, in a thread a while back asking for great big (out of copyright) novels to read?
I came into this thread to say that I have been reading this so long that I can’t remember anything else that I read this year. And you had time to read all those other books too?
Mostly I only read on the commute to and from work, and while doing cardio at the gym, so it does take me a while to get through something this size. I have to say, though, that I am nearly to the end and I can’t really figure out how all the character arcs are going to wind up. In other words, it is managing to (finally) maintain my interest until the bitter end. I guess that means it’s a good (but loooooong) read.
Roddy
This is one of those books I read many years ago and still think of as one of the best ever. Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant is another in that category for me.
I’m working on Robinson’s Gilead and then have her** Home **lined up and I hope they are somewhere near as good as Housekeeping.
Top 5, most enjoyed this year:
The Given Day - Dennis Lehane
Cold Granite - Stuart Macbride
Get Real - Donald Westlake…the final Dortmunder novel 
Exit Music - Ian Rankin
The Amateurs - Marcus Sakey
Um, probably? 
When you’re finished with Middlemarch, take a break and then pick up Kristin Lavrandsdattar by Sigrid Undsett. I think it’s 1200+ pages, but it reads much faster than Middlemarch, maybe because (unlike Middlemarch), stuff happens. It was recommended by a Doper and was the best book I read that year.
I really like Charlie Huston. I’m looking forward to his newest Joe Pitt book, which is on my Christmas list.
I’ve had a great reading year, and it’s hard to narrow down my list of favorites, but here’s one attempt:
I read Gilead a couple years ago and didn’t particularly like it. But I might have to give it another try in light of the excellence of her first novel. Home’s on my list, too. I barely remember reading Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, but I see I gave it 2/5 on Goodreads. Goes to show that people with very different tastes can both love Housekeeping, I guess.
The best, in approximate order of enjoyment:
The Absolute Sandman (the entire series)
Dresden Files (the entire series–even though some of them clunked)
Idylls of the King (I thought I read this before, but didn’t)
Get Real
Unseen Academicals
Snow Crash
The worst:
Wide Sargasso Sea (man, did this suck)
Peace Like a River (man, did this suck)
Furies of Calderon (Jim Butcher makes the best and the worst list) (man, did this suck)
I only read seasoned stuff (or new installments in series)–it’s funny how something like the Dresden Files gets picked up in a given year–lots of repeats in the thread, but at least as many one-offs.
All Quiet on the Western Front - classic novel
Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors - nonfiction book about the time between when homo Sapiens left Africa and before writing was invented.
Power and the Darkness - biography of Josh Gibson, the Negro Leagues’ home run king who died at age 35.
Motherless Brooklyn - novel about a small-time crook’s flunkie with Tourette’s who has to solve a crime
Professor’s House - I love me some Willa Cather.
Worst:
Big Stone Gap - I’m still trying to get the puke smell out of my reading chair.
Lowboy by John Wray
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
The Adderall Diaries by Stephen Elliott
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (Pevear Translation)
The Lost City of Z by David Grann
Book I wished I never read: Wetlands by Charlotte Roche.
Biggest Disappointment: Vanilla Ride by Joe Landsdale and the Girl who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson.
Imperial Reckoning (Caroline Elkins)
Bonk (Mary Roach)
The Ethics (Barach Spinoza)
An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” (Chinua Achebe)
Man’s Search for Meaning (Victor Frankl)
Best five, in no particular order:
Like others, I’ll count as one the whole Dresden Files series.
The Crimson Petal and the White, by Michel Faber. Fascinating story, and every time I put it down, I thought about it until the next time I picked it up again.
The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins.
Tuf Voyaging and Fevre Dream, by George R. R. Martin. That’s right, I’m cheating! Two unrelated books by the same author.
Only one more? I have to give it to The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard.
I don’t have that many worsts because I won’t usually suffer all the way through a bad book, but:
The Travelling Vampire Show/Dreadful Tales, by Richard Laymon. I took this on vacation, so I was stuck with it. Soft porn, not horror.
House of Leaves, by Mark Danielewski. Gimmicky and a literal pain to read. There was a tiny shadow of a frightening idea here, but it was so not worth the work to mine it out.
Top 5:
Bottom 4:
Seconded- I read that earlier this year, what a waste of the paper it was printed on. That would qualify as my worst too, I think. A
I’ve been keeping a list of my reading at Goodreads, and somehow left this off entirely. It was one of the good ones, too!
Always looking for new reads. See some of the ones I enjoyed The Road, Evergreen, Exit Music. Sad to see Under the Dome got bad reviews. Just took it out today
My favorite mystery was Finding Nouf by Zoe Ferraris Set in Saudi Arabia it really gets into Saudi customs in a murder investigation.
All is forgiven. They’re two of my favorites, too (although I didn’t read them this year).
I keep a list of books I read (as suggested by my MIL, who’s also an avid reader, awhile back), and am up to 64 for 2009, much to my surprise. My top five reads this year, in no particular order:
Iron Tears by Stanley Weintraub - Very interesting history of the British political, military and social response to the American Revolution. It really was the British Empire’s Vietnam War in many ways.
Time for the Stars by Robert Heinlein - Re-read this childhood favorite of mine. A great story of adventure, telepathy and finding your own path in life.
The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien - Re-read this college favorite for I think the third (or is it fourth?) time. Each time I read it, I understand it better, and find more to appreciate in it.
Join Me! by Danny Wallace - Quirky, funny semi-true story of a British slacker who, on a whim, starts his own cult and then struggles to conceal it from his girlfriend.
True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey - Intriguing novel about Australia’s version of Jesse James, told as if it were a long-lost autobiographical account. A remarkable book.
Honorable mentions: A Separate War and Other Stories, Joe Haldeman’s fine sf short-story collection; The Last Colony by John Scalzi, a funny and clever military sf novel; and Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell, a very offbeat, darkly funny travelogue of presidential murder sites.
Aw, I liked that one! I expected an all-out gross-out, but it actually turned out to be kind of a sweet love/lust story, rendered entirely on the narrator’s own terms.
I’ve tried twice to read this one but it seems impenetrable. I’ve really liked the other three Rhys novels I’ve read, but this I just couldn’t get into - maybe it’s the fault of my relative unfamiliarity with Jane Eyre.