I agree. The Abstinence Teacher had such potential and just never reached it....

Hey Robin-

I loved Black Swan Green, The Shadow of the Wind and Away and loved all three!

I hope the requirement is not books that were written this year, since I am still working on the American canon. The American canon changes, of course, depending on who you talk to which makes it more difficult. So here are books I enjoyed this year, even though I read more than those:

Adeline Yen Mah: Chinese Cinderella; Thousand Pieces of Gold
Gene Luen Yang: American Born Chinese
Kate Atkinson: Case Histories
Kamala Markandaya: Nectar in a Sieve
Sandra Dallas: The Diary of Mattie Spenser

My German favorites:
Volker Weidermann: Lichtjahre (history of German literature after 1945)
Rebecca Gable: Das zweite Königreich (historical fiction)
Arno Surminski: Jokehnen oder wie weit ist es von Ostpreußen nach Deutschland (memoir about the end of World War II)

Indeed! So nice to be validated by others!

Since I see others are posting books not written this year I'll get brave and put my favs out too.

Some of my favorites I took in this year include:

American Gods by Neil Gaiman
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
Honeymoon in Purdah by Alison Wearing

Definitely does not have to be books written this year -- just books you've read this year, though even that's not a hard and fast rule. We're casual around here :)

Well, in that case, my favorites that I've read thus far this year are:

Chemistry and Other Stories by Ron Rash
The Country Girls Trilogy by Edna O'Brien
The Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim
Blly Bathgate by E.L. Doctorow

And, my favorite audiobooks were:
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zoral Neal Hurston, read by Ruby Dee
Mr. Pip by Lloyd Jones, read by Susan Lyons
Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem, read by Frank Muller
Shakespeare: The World as Stage by Bill Bryson and read by Bryson

Barbara, Enchanted April is so very high on my TBR pile! I can't wait to read it.

I've never read Ron Rash, I don't think. Hmmm.

Thank you, too, for the audiobook list. I am far, far behind on my audio listening. The Zora Neale Hurston looks like something I should look for.

Ruby Dee is just incredible in Their Eyes Were Watching God, Ann. It is truly a performance, not just a reading. It was one of the first audiobooks I listened to and it hooked me forever. Recently, I went back and listened to it again wondering if it was really as good as I remembered and it definitely was.

Ron Rash is from the Appalachian area of N. Carolina and Misty from Constant Reader initially introduced me to his short stories. I love his writing.

Enchanted April is a treat you should not miss.

Hi, LYnnea (what a lovely name) - i really enjoyed The Curios Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime.

Thanks Robin! The Curious Incident... was such a wonderful book to me because the perspective was so unusual. I really enjoy books written like that.

Thanks to you all who reco'd Oscar Wao. Loved it, and not just because I was a comic book reader.

That book should have hyper-links.

I am reading Oscar Wao now,as an e-book on my iphone, and I have wished the same thing- especially since there is no copy/paste on the stupid iphone and I always paste words into google, wikipedia, dictionary.com, urban dictionary as I read, normally- and there are heaps of unfamiliar terms and argot in Oscar Wao! Hyperlinks would be so awesome.

I return after an absence of some weeks and am glad to be back. This has been an absolutely brutal summer for me what with this and that. However, I return unbowed. . . . . .okay, I return only a tiny bit bowed.

In no particular order:

I listened to The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao on disk front to rear during a marathon drive to and from North Carolina. I believe this may have served to heighten the impact of this book. It is quite an original in my opinion. Although liking an author personally is not necessary for an appreciation of his or her work obviously, I find myself warming more and more to Junot Díaz as I hear him interviewed repeatedly.

My fondness for Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris puts me in a distinct minority among my closer online reading acquaintances. This was one of The New York Times' five best fiction works of 2007. I know this first novel has some problems, but I found it roundly entertaining. It is about an ad agency in the winter of its discontent and is written in a kind of Catch-22 tone of voice with characters who have a Catch-22 outrageousness about them, too.

And Mr. Pip. Wow! A really wonderful book, Summer. I got my recommendation here from Michael and Jon, and a great recommendation it was.

In the non-fiction category I list one of the amazing works of history that I have read in a while. It is an older book by Barbara Tuchman (The Guns of August) called A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century. The 14th Century in Europe boasted the Hundred Year’s War, the Crusades, and the Black Death, just to name a few of the attractions. Incredible book. Great historian.

Count me as one of the admirers of On Chesil Beach. This was my 2008 Ian McEwan. I read Atonement way back sometime. I cannot imagine how McEwan conceived the idea for this book. But then to have pulled it off was an amazing performance. I think some of the criticism of McEwan has arisen from literary jealousies hither and yon, comparable to what Martin Amis faced a few years ago. As far as I am concerned, Ian McEwan has earned every cent of that vast fortune that is pouring in on him.

Lastly, I thoroughly enjoyed Fever Pitch, Nick Hornby's 1992 account of his own lifelong fascination with the Arsenal soccer team. This most certainly is not for everyone. It was a recommendation from my son, who is a soccer fanatic. I tried it and liked it.

Sorry about the length of this. I wanted to say a little bit about each of these rather than just throwing up the list.

Steve, wonderful to see you here! We've missed you.

Stunning list of books. And I appreciate your commentary very much, so please do not ever apologize for the length of a post.

Hope that things have calmed down for you, and that you stick around.

Ann

Steve, you probably have hit on the reason for the occasional negative reaction to McEwan. I'm always amazed at the intensity of it. God forbid you should be a literary genius and sell books. Personally, I'm a fan. If you get a chance, pick up the Recorded Books production of On Chesil Beach. It has an outstanding interview with McEwan on the last disc.

I also loved Mr. Pip. Would never have found it without the recommendation here.

Good Lord, I had to edit in order to get Junot Díaz' name spelled correctly!

I did wish to add that I have not liked everything that I have read or attempted to read this year. Far from it. But let's keep it all positive here in this topic.

There is a tweener that is mentioned above though. That is My Name is Red. I am in a death struggle with this book. It's either this book or me. That's how grim I am. By that I mean that I am dogged. . . . .dogged as in little lines in my forehead. . . . .in my quest to determine whether the shortcomings are in this book or in me. Nobel Prize or no, Orhan Pamuk has either created a modern masterpiece here or one of the great phoney faux fables of all time. I have not been keeping any numerical score, but I can say that both the book and I are currently bloodied.

[Note alliteration above]

Michael, in this podcast, you mentioned Away by Amy Bloom. I'm reading it now and I'm loving it thus far. Thank you!

It's such a great book Summer, I hope you love it all the way through!

Michael wrote: "It's such a great book Summer, I hope you love it all the way through!"

Indeed, I did. Unfortunately, my cooperative library system doesn't have A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You Stories. I think her style would shine even more in the short story format. Away felt episodic, like a bunch of short stories strung together.

It's funny, I always loved her short stories and wasn't a huge fan of her first novel, so I really approached Away with hesitation. I was so glad to be wrong!

Blind Man is still in print and I can say it's worth the purchase!

Blind Man is still in print and I can say it's worth the purchase!"

I found a copy on betterworldbooks.com. I'm trying to go the used route as often as possible. I figure it's a savings all around, though I guess it doesn't support the author very well. I suppose my conscience and I will have to figure that out.

If you love it, recommend it to a bunch of friends. I'm sure THAT will make the author happy!

One of the best things about reading Mr. Pip was that it compelled me to reread Great Expections. I can't believe that I had forgotten how wonderful it is. I also read Oscar Wao this year, and it was very good. Some of my other favorite books that I read (or reread) this year:

The Elegance of the Hedgehog -Muriel Barbery
Into the Wild - Jon Krakauer
The Killing Floor - Lee Child
Maps and Legends - Michael Chabon
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie - Alan Bradley
Beowulf on the Beach - Jack Murnighan
Beowulf - Seamus Heaney translation
Farenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
Jane Eyre- Charlotte Bronte
Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello - Shakespeare
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe
A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
Agent Zizag - Ben Macintyre
Into the Woods - Tana French

I am looking forward to reading A Fraction of the Whole, Shadow of the Wind, Tears in the Darkness, and Fragment.

Wow Melissa! I hope you haven't read all of those classics just since I announced the BotB reading challenge.... It makes the fact that I'm only 1/2 through Moby Dick!

You must be one of those annoying "fast readers." ;)

I wish! I'm a teacher, so reading and rereading classics is part of my job. I'm so glad I found your podcast to help me find new books and authors.

There are only two books that have made my "A-list" so far this year:


1) "1984" (by George Orwell; narrated by Simon Prebble) This first title, an audiobook, was an amazing experience. I've read the book before, but SP really shaped the text and there were moments that I had to remind myself that the novel was fiction. At one point, I even gasped aloud and my heart skipped a beat...


2) "Waiting for Columbus" (by Thomas Trofimuk)
As for this title, I don't know what it was about the title or the book description, but I became obsessed with acquiring an ARC, and I did. Nothing I write about it will seem adequate or not a cliche, but it (and ergo the author) is brilliant, stunning, smart, funny, dazzling and intense... I've re-read sections of it and still felt like I've been hit by a Mac truck. The title was listed a few weeks ago in a blog about upcoming summer releases (This will be released Aug 25, 2009) and; I understand Ann & Michael may be talking about it more closer to publication, so I won't spoil the fun, but, really, truly, an amazing book. Can't wait to really talk about it!

Oh, Tanya, you just made my day! Waiting for Columbus is one of the best books I've read this year, and I can't wait to talk about it (the rest of you will have to wait til August!).

I just joined this group and have to mention Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. What a delight.

Hi Susan!
Welcome -- you will find a lot of "Sweetness at the bottom of the Pie" love around here, no worries. Michael has the 2nd book in the series on his e-reader, I think, but I'm not sure he's read it yet.

Thanks for joining us!

I'm so jealous! I can't wait for the 2nd book!

Ooo! That's exciting news -- I can't wait to read the second Flavia book either. This is going to sound terrible, but when I read that the author planned to write more books in this series, I thought, "He better get crackin'. Otherwise, this won't be a very lengthy series (he's a more "mature" author)." Awful, I know. Any idea on when average-Joe reader will see the next book?

The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag will be out in March. It's true... I've got the manuscript on my e-reader, but haven't had a chance to read it yet!