I would love to know what everyone here at Constant Reader would choose as their top reads for 2008. I don't think I can narrow mine down to one but my top three are:

The Wasted Vigil

Hunting and Gathering

The Remains of the Day

Lee

Lee, I'm glad you said top reads. So, they don't have to be books that were published in 2008, just read during that time. This is always fun. I love to ponder it a bit and then will be back.

The Name of the Wind
Mistborn: The Final Empire
Tigana: 10th Anniversary Edition
Lifeblood
The Legend of the Firefish

Barb, I read quite a few older books this year so I wanted to be able to include them too. I wish I knew how to make a link to the books like Jon did. That would be helpful.

Lee, above the comment box is a link that says "add book/author" - if you click on that you can search for the exact title you want and be able to link it in your comment.

Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is my top read by far. And for poems I am still in love with the Kate Daniels poem "Homage to Calvin Spotswood", which I mentioned in the poetry section.

In spite of my admiration of Henry James, this was a good year for life on the streets. I might have considered Richard Price's Lush Life if I hadn't kept thinking how much better Ed McBain did the same thing.

Thanks El, I can't believe I've never noticed that before.
Jim, I'm reading Brief Wondrous life of Oscar Wao right now. I may have to revise my list before the year is out.

I will have to think about my fave read for 2008. I've only read 11 books this year, so it should not take me long. Lee, I have added The Wasted Vigil and Hunting and Gathering to my "to read" list, they both sound great. I loved Remains of the Day when I read it years ago, so we must have similar taste.

One of the reviews I saw of Wasted Vigil talked about looking for a quality in an author of generosity towards the antagonist. I had not thought before of "generosity" as a quality of a good author, but I think the reviewer has a good point. But I don't know that it is necessarily a necessary quality - there are some wonderful writers who are downright miserly with their empathy. And now I'm wondering if empathy and generosity mean the same or different things in this context.

I realize that last was off topic, but it struck me when I read the review, and if I didn't note it down right now it would get away from me.

Theresa

There a few books I liked this year but the one that stands head and shoulders above the rest is a short non-fiction work: A Time to Keep Silence by Patrick Leigh Fermor. He writes about the time he spent in two monasteries and the healing quality of silence. He's a beautiful writer dealing with a beautiful subject.

I had a marvelous year for reading (there were a lot of duds, but also several gems, as well). There are books here I'll never forget.

My favorites:

Innocent Traitor: A Novel of Lady Jane Grey

The Uncommon Reader: A Novella

A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail

Norma Shearer: A Biography

The House at Riverton

A Woman of Independent Means

Gilead: A Novel

The Forgotten Garden

Marley & Me: Love and Life with the World's Worst Dog

I had the good fortune of reading both Housekeeping: A Novel and Gilead: A Novel this year. I loved them both. I also enjoyed In a Sunburned Country and The Enchanted April. On a heavier note, I thought No Country for Old Men was excellent. But I think my favorite book that I read this year was Plays Well with Others. It was heartbreaking and hilarious. Sad and happy. All the best things a book should be.

Egad. I can't even remember which books I read which year, let alone which were best. But I can say with Sherry that I loved Plays Well with Others, which I read some years ago. And I agree with Graceann that A Walk in the Woods was a winner, too.

(Sherry, how do we put a book link in our posts like you do?)

Ruth, see the comment box? See that little link above the comment box that says "add book/author"? Hit that and type in the book's name, and click on the correct book that pops up.

My favorite read of 2008 was The Assist: Hoops, Hope, and the Game of Their Lives. Excellently written non-fiction by Neil Swidey about a high school inner city basketball coach and the kids that he never seems to be able to give up on. Oh - and that little add book/author link is something I never noticed before! Here I was copying and pasting. Very cool.

Easy.

2666 by Roberto Bolano.

(Thanks Sherry. There it was right in front of my nose. I'll see if it works here.)

On second thought, The Dead Fish Museum: Stories, which I read recently was a real winner.

I agree with Candy. 2666 was an incredible read.

Candy, my boyfriend bought me The Savage Detectives: A Novel by the same author for Christmas. Have you read it yet? I'm looking forward to it.

I plan on reading anything I can find by Bolano...he is my new fave next to William Burroughs and Dickens and Conrad!

2008 was a year of great books for me. I read 50 book, and gave five stars to 10, which is a great average I think. In no specific order, they were:

Gilead: A Novel

No Country for Old Men

Suttree

Moral Disorder: and Other Stories

Seven Gothic Tales

Invisible Cities

War of the End of the World

Heart of Darkness

All Aunt Hagar's Children: Stories

The Piano Tuner: A Novel

Here are my favorite reads of 2008:


Half of a Yellow Sun

The Road

Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder


Brother, I'm Dying


What Is the What


The Gathering


The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. 1: The Pox Party


The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves


American Pastoral


Howards End

My favorite overall was the classic suspense novel re-released by NYRB, Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household, but my favorite book introduced by CR was The Country Girls Trilogy and Epilogue. It was a great year overall because of CR, definitely.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy and The Reader, by Bernard Schlink. I got crazy search results when I tried to add The Reader, so sorry, no link.

My favorites for 2008 are:

Out: A Novel (on our 2009 reading list); and

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

My two favorite books read or re-read in 2008 are:

The Wind-up Bird Chronicle and American Pastoral.

My favorite reads/re-reads this year were:

Agent Zigzag: A True Story of Nazi Espionage, Love, and Betrayal

A Streetcar Named Desire

Oops - I posted too soon

more favorites from this year:

The Age of Innocence

The Story of a Marriage: A Novel

Breakfast at Tiffany's

It is great having Goodreads as a resource, which I discovered this year and more specifically Constant Reader. I never would have read The Age of Innocence on my own. And even with books that I didn't love, I enjoyed our discussions.

De Niro's Game
Tree of Smoke: A Novel
My White Planet
Nobody's Angel, which actually wasn't new to me, but I re-read it twice this year.

... and although I haven't finished it yet, Out Stealing Horses: A Novel.

Oh yeah...I forgot...Tree of Smoke. I loved it!

I like the name of the book DeNiro's Game.

I really must start writing blurbs about what books I've read. The good thing about a thread like this...thanks Lee! is that it helps me organize my memory of what I've read, hah hah!

I just finished The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao last night and thought it was incredible. I'm curious to hear from those of you who read it and don't speak Spanish if you enjoyed the experience fully.

I haven't read Oscar Wao yet, Lee, but it was on the Reading List here a short time ago. Here is a link to the discussion:
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/9735...

These were my favorites, but I also had a bunch in the second tier:

The Gathering

American Pastoral

The Age of Innocence

Unstrange Minds: Remapping the World of Autism

Howards End

In Search of Lost Time, Volume VI: Time Regained

The Country Girls Trilogy and Epilogue

I guess I'm not supposed to post today -- just lost a detailed review of my reading this year -- I seem to be jinxed today when it comes to posting!

Here's a simple LIST of the titles I mentioned. Maybe I'll add some commentary later.


The Picture of Dorian Gray - Wilde (5)RGBC

Fahrenheit 451 - Bradbury (5)RGBC

The Enchanted April (4) CC

On Chesil Beach - Mc Ewan (4+) CR

Bridge of Sighs - Russo (4+) CR

The Whistling Season - Doig (4+) CR

The Golden Notebook - Lessing (5) CC

Surfacing - Atwood (4+) CR

The Blood of Flowers - Amirrezvani (4+) (Thanks, Sandy!)

Ella Minnow Pea - Dunn (5) RGBC

Water for Elephants - Gruen (4+) ?

Counselor Ayres Memorial - Machado de Asis (4) GR

Esau and Jacob - Machado de Asis (4) GR

The Hand and the Glove - Machado de Assis (3) GR

Vida - Piercy (5)

Empires of Sand - Ball (Thanks here must go to Bob M.! Without his reco of Ball's book Ironfire some years back, I would never have picked up this one which I also loved.)

The Country Girls Trilogy and Epilogue - O'Brien CC

Dracula - Stoker RGBC

Frankenstein - Shelley RGBC

The Catcher in the Rye - Sallinger (5) RGBC

Okay -- the numerals are the stars I gave -- the letters are the groups responsible for my reading these particular books during this year -- thanks to Classics Corner for O'Brien and Lessing as well as my revisit to Enchanted April, to Rory Gilmore Book Club "girls" (and the "boys" who show up from time to time as well) for my return visits with old long-time favs like Bradbury, Wilde in concert with a new fav Dunn's Ella Minnow Pea and for getting me to read classics long unread -- Dracula, Frankenstein and another book which goes onto the all-time fav list -- The Catcher in the Rye, GR (Goodreads) gets a big thank you for my intro to Brazillian author Machado de Assis and as always the constant in my online book life, CR, gets credit not only for those listed but for others as well. I can tell I've been under good influences all around here because I've pulled twice the titles out of the hat as I normally would have been able to do in years past.

Aaaargh! My TBR list has gone up to 10,547 books now! Okay, I exaggerate (but just a little - LOL!) Thanks for the recommendations. I checked out some of them and can't wait to hear what you have to say about them. :-)

A few of my favorites from this past year:

Regeneration
The Eye in the Door
The Ghost Road
Pride and Prejudice[

Water for Elephants
Fidelity: Five Stories
The Member of the Wedding
Bel Canto
Sixpence House: Lost in A Town Of Books
Stumbling on Happiness
The Stolen Child: A Novel
Housekeeping: A Novel

Bel Canto
Enchanted April
Olive Kitteridge
Domestic Work
Not Just the Levees Broke
The Invisible Wall

Unaccustomed Earth blew me away.

These are all just a stunning list of books everyone has read. It's so exciting to read the faves. Whitaker, I laughed so much after my jaw dropped...what! 10000 books TBR? And then laughed...I was like give it up...you'll never make that tbr pile!

The best book of the year was an older book, Edith Pargeter's The Heaven Tree Trilogy" a story that takes place in the middle ages.

Othes include Empire Falls
The remains of the day
The story of Lucy Gault
City of refuge

My wife and I keep a reading journal...My favorite books of 2008
1) Revelation
2) Forever Odd
3) The Mayor of Casterbridge
4) Odds Against
5) The Book Thief
6) Atonement: A Novel
7) Under the Jolly Roger: Being an Account of the Further Nautical Adventures of Jacky Faber
8) Pride and Prejudice
9) Crisscross: A Repairman Jack Novel
10) The Ranger's Apprentice Collection
11) Kept in the Dark: A Novel
12) Acceleration

Oh, Marian, you've picked out two of my very favorite books, Empire Falls and The Remains of the Day. And I have City of Refuge on my Kindle. I nominated it for the list this year, but it didn't win.

Kevin wrote: "My wife and I keep a reading journal...

Hi Kevin...I'm interested in hearing more about the reading journal you keep. What exactly does it consist of?

I enjoyed the following books during 2008:

Sex Wars by
Marley and Me
The Other Boylen Girl
Atonement
Dracula
The Hour I First Believed
Pillars of the Earth

This is a small list of what I enjoyed. I read at least one book a week. Sometimes it is two books a week but that is seldom.

I would probably say...

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Kafka on the Shore

and

The Road

This year I read 47 books and these are my top picks:

The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz – most original

Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo – best story I could sink into

The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig – not great literature, but a fun read

Pure Drivel by Steve Martin – maybe I was just in the mood, but I found it laugh-out-loud funny

In a Dry Season by Peter Robinson – best mystery

Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks – best historical novel, much better than her Pulitzer prize winning March

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson – best popular science book for science dummies like me

Samuel Pepys: The Unequaled Self by Claire Tomlin – one of the best biographies I have every read, written by a master

Three Cups of Tea – Mortenson and Relin – most inspiring

The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World by Eric Weiner – This one made me laugh a lot. I’m not sure if his conclusions had any validity.

Ann, I like your awards system. It puts each book in its context well.

Ann, I listened to Eric Weiner read The Geography of Bliss on an audiobook. Since he does pieces on NPR, he did a great job. Like you, I don't know about his conclusions, but I loved the traveling.

I also loved Bill Bryson's book for the same reason as you. He seems like a natural teacher to me. His book on Shakespeare is also very good.

One of my favorite books from last year was a collection of Claire Tomalin's writings called Several Strangers. I think you'd like it.

Ooh, that sounds interesting, Bryson on Shakespeare. I'll have to check that out.

I read 68 books, but it seems like many of them were in the 400 - 500 page category. Here are my top ten in the order that I read them during the year.

THE GLASS CASTLE by Jeannette Walls
THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS by Richard Russo
THE WHISTLING SEASON by Ivan Doig
CARELESS IN RED by Elizabeth George
RED LIGHT by T. Jefferson Parker
CHASING DARKNESS by Robert Crais
WHEN MADELINE WAS YOUNG by Jane Hamilton
THE LAST WITCHFINDER by James Morrow
AMERICAN PASTORAL by Philip Roth
THE STORY OF EDGAR SAWTELLE by David Wroblewski

I am sure that you notice that I have three mysteries on the list. I do love my mysteries.

Jane

Barb,
Thanks for the heads up on Claire Tomalin's SEVERAL STANGERS. I liked her biography of Jane Austin very much. After reading the Pepys book, I tried her biography of Thomas Hardy as well, but ended up just skimming parts of it. I'm afraid I found Hardy much less engaging than the irrepressible Samuel Pepys.

I always enjoy Bill Bryson's books. I'll have to check out his book on Shakespeare.

Jane, I've gotten into mysteries more in the last year. After I've read a little too much literary fiction, I appreciate a good mystery for the clean cut prose, clear plot lines, and definitive endings. I do get impatient sometimes with all the ambiguity in some modern fiction. I'm adding your selections to my TBR list.

Ann

Great lists everyone. So many books I don't know. I'd posted my read list on my return to CR post but my best read of the year was undoubtedly Haruki Murikami's Kafka on the Shore I just could not put it down. A new author to me and I'm hooked. Already reading more of his, have just started Dance, Dance, Dance on audiobook