End of Decade Top 5 or 10!

[Miranda]

Okay ladies (I hope I've done this right!) Since 2010 is now officially over, I thought it might be fun to review our last decade of reading (a lengthy job for some!!) and list our favorites of the decade!

[Liz]

Ok, I tried going through my book lists from 2005 to 2010 to narrow it down. So far, I've gone through 2007 & got it down to about 5 per year (8 for 2007 - obviously a good year). LOL! So I think I may have to pass on this one.

[Tina]

I can't even attempt this lol. I didn't really start keeping a list until this year.

[Gretchen]

Got my list figured already!! No particular order

1. Coal Run/Tawni O'Dell
2. Light On Snow/Anita Shreve
3. The Dogs of Babel/Carolyn Parkhurst
4. The Memory of Running/Ron Mclarty
5. The Book of Dead Birds/Gayle Bradies
6. I'm Not Scared/Nicolo Ammaniti
7. So B. It/Sarah Weeks
8. The Book of Joe/Jonathan Tropper
9. Towelhead/Alicia Erian
10. How to be Good/Nick Hornby

Non-fiction
Eat, Pray, Love/Elizabeth Gilbert (Prolly only one)
Lucky/Alice Sebold
Magical Thinking Augusten Burroughs

[Melissa]

Fiction:
1.) Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
2.) To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
3.) A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
4.) We were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates
5.) The Falls by Joyce Carol Oates
6.) True Believers: A Novel by Linda Dorrell
7.) The Day the Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan
8.) Mystic River by Dennis Lehane
9.) The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd
10.) The Paris Wife by Paula McLain

Non-Fiction:

1. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
2. Too Close to the Falls by Catherine Gildiner
3. After the Falls by Catherine Gildiner
4. The Girl who Walked Home Alone: Bette Davis-A Personal Biography by Charlotte Chandler
5. Growing up Laughing: My Story and the Story of Funny by Marlo Thomas
6. The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom
7. Dead Man Walking by Helen Prejean
8. All but my Life: A Memoir by Gerda Weissman Klein
9. The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan
10. An Unquiet Mind: A memoir of Mood and Madness by Kay Redfield Jamison

[Julie]

This was hard! The ones that come to mind:

1. The Book Thief - Markus Zusak
2. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
3. These is My Words - Nancy Turner
4. Full Dark, No Stars - Stephen King
5. Plainsong - Kent Haruf

The Book Thief is my most memorable and most recommended.

[Mary]

This WAS hard! I ended up with a dozen and made myself pare down to 10. In no particular order because I really loved them all:

FICTION:
1. EVERY LAST ONE - Anna Quindlen
2. STILL ALICE - Lisa Genova
3. THE HELP - Kathryn Stockett
4. WATER FOR ELEPHANTS - Sara Gruen
5. BELONG TO ME - Marisa de los Santos
6. THE SUMMER GUEST - Justin Cronin
7. SKELETONS AT THE FEAST - Chris Bohjalian
8. HOTEL ON THE CORNER OF BITTER AND SWEET - Jamie Ford
9. THE DIVE FROM CLAUSEN'S PIER - Ann Packer
10. YOU'RE NOT YOU - Michelle Wildgen
(Honorable Mention: THE SENATOR'S WIFE and WHILE I WAS GONE - Both by Sue Miller (a long-time favorite of mine)

NONFICTION:
1. MAKING TOAST - Roger Rosenblatt
2. THE MIDDLE PLACE - Kelly Corrigan

[Lisa S]

I can't do this either. I didn't start keeping track of my reads til the middle of 2009.

[Elise]

I think it's beyond me, too. There is no way I could whittle it down to 10! Enjoyed everyone else's lists, though!

[Liz]

Melissa - I had to laugh reading your lists....do I see a bit of a "Falls" theme in your reading?

[Beth]

1. The Kitchen House
2. City of Thieves
3. The Hour I First Believed
4. A Reliable Wife
5. Sarah's Key
6. Those Who Save Us
7. Little Bee
8. The Book Thief
9. People of the Book
10 Three Junes

Non Fiction:
Devil in the White City
The Glass Castle
The Kids are All Right

[Melissa]

Liz wrote: "Melissa - I had to laugh reading your lists....do I see a bit of a "Falls" theme in your reading?"

Haha, I guess I'm a bit obsessed.

[Sara]

ok, I only started keeping track in 07 but I will compe up with some!! in no particular order of course!!

FICTION
1. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
2. Twilight by Stephanie Meyer
3. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
4. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurty
5. The Color Purple
6. The Book Theif
7. East of Eden
8. Sunflower and the Secret Fan
9. The DaVinci Code
10. The Help


NON-FICTION
1. Flags of our fathers by James Bradley
2. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
3. Glass Castle
4. THe Lost Girls
5. Kabul Beauty School by Deborah Rodriguez

There ya have it...

[Jennifer]

I'm going to have to think about this for awhile - I still haven't added my entire library to goodreads and I know there are some in that pile that will make my list.

This is going to be hard! lol

[Heather]

This will require a lot of thought (and more coffee than I have had this morning).

[Miranda]

Okay, I think I've got a top list. Now I know that the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is one I actually read as a child, but I'm including it becuase I rediscovered it as an adult and remembered how much I adored it.

{Edited} replaced Lion the Witch ... with Memory of Running by Ron McLarty

Fiction


1) Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore
2) A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
3) The Memory of Running by Ron McLarty
4) We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
5) The Agony and the Ecstasy: A Biographical Novel of Michelangelo by Irving Stone
6) The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
7) A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
8) The Help by Kathryn Stockett
9)The Samurai's Garden by Gail Tsuykiyama
10)House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III

Non-Fiction

1) Night by Elie Wiesel
2) Food Rules: An Eater's Manual by Michael Pollan
3) Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes
4) Stupid White Men by Michael Moore
5) Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen by Julie Powell
6) Fifteen Days: Stories of Bravery, Friendship, Life and Death from Inside the New Canadian Army by Christie Blatchford
7) Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
8) The Fix: Soccer and Organized Crime by Declan Hill
9) In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan
10)Where is the Mango Princess? by Cathy Crimmons

[Liz]

Ok, after our other thread about remembering the books we read, I decided to post something here after all. Without doing any research, these are the books that come to my mind when thinking about favorite books of the decade, some light, some deeper. They may not have been the best books I read, but they're the ones that stuck with me for one reason or another:

FICTION:
These is My Words - Nancy Turner
Love Walked in - Maria de los Santos
Beneath a Marble Sky - John Shors
Must Love Dogs - Claire Cook
Water for Elephants - Sara Gruen
Eat Cake - Jeanne Ray
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson
My Sisters Keeper - Jodi Picoult
Zorro - Isabel Allende
Pope Joan - Dona Cross

NON-FICTION:
The Prizewinner of Defiance, OH - Terry Ryan
Spy: the Inside Story of How the FBI's Robert Hanssen Betrayed America - David Wise
Devil in the White City - Erik Larson
Julie & Julia - Julie Powell
Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell & Carly Simon - Sheila Weller

[Miranda]

I agree Liz - the books on my list weren't necessarily the best books I've read, but they are my favorites - ones that keep popping into my mind even years after I've read them. Or books that I find myself referring to in conversations!

[Gretchen]

Liz wrote: "Ok, after our other thread about remembering the books we read, I decided to post something here after all. Without doing any research, these are the books that come to my mind when thinking about..."

Must Love Dogs I really enjoyed and understand why it made your list!

[Jennifer]

Here is my list...not necessarily all 5-stars, but the ones that stuck with me. There are so many that it was tough really narrowing it down. I could have come up with a list of 20...or 30... lol

Not in any particular order -

1. Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood
2. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkein
3. The Millenium Trilogy by Steig Larsson
4. The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
5. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
6. Hawaii by James Michener
7. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
8. The Age of Innocence by Edith Warton
9. Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore
10. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Non-Fiction -
1. Apollo 13 by Jeffery Kluger and Jim Lovell
2. Bitter is the New Black : Confessions of a Condescending, Egomaniacal, Self-Centered Smartass, Or, Why You Should Never Carry A Prada Bag to the Unemployment Office by Jen Lancaster (and all her books since!)
3. Dropped Threads ed. Carol Shields
4. Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883 by Simon Winchester
5. Night by Elie Wiesel
6. The Planets by Dava Sobel
7. Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss
8. A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar
9. Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea by Charles Seife
10. Napoleon's Buttons: How 17 Molecules Changed History by Penny LeCouteur

[Toni]

OK, this is fun. I've never published a list before. Again, like many of you, not all of them are 5 star ( though most are) but I loved them all.
1. The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Moshin Hamid
2. Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann
3. Cutting for Stone by Abrahim Verghese
4.City of Thieves by David Benioff
5.The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbury
6. Room by Emma Donahue
7. A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
8. Await your reply by Dan Chaon
9. The Help by Kathryn Stockett
10. Open by Andre Agassi

[Mary]

I'm LOVING all of these favorites of the decade!! It's making me want to read 12 hours a day! ;-)

[Stacey]

I'm going to get busy on my list. I'm reading the lists and saying to myself, "oh yea, oh I forgot about that one, ooo that's was such a good one...." I have to find my other jounal, I ran out of pages a few years ago and started another. It's sacred to me.

[Dannielle]

Okay....I am pulling the titles of my bookshelves because those titles are the ones I can't bear to part with...in alphabetical order by author...

1. Garden Spells/Sugar Queen-Sarah Addison Allen
2. Case Histories/One Good Turn/When Will There Be Good News-Kate Atkinson
3. Alice I Have Been-Melanie Benjamin
4. Ella Minnow Pea-Mark Dunn
5. Neverwhere/American Gods-Neil Gaiman
6. Loving Frank-Nancy Horan
7. The Stieg Larson triology
8. The Memory of Running-Ron McLarty
9. The Twilight Saga-Stephanie Meyers
10. Shadow of the Wind

I left out my favorite authors: Stewart O'Nan, Pete Hamill, and Alice Hoffman.

[Miranda]

Okay I'll try to post the overall list maybe towards mid-end January. Any books that are part of a series (like the Stieg Larsson, Harry Potter, Twilight) I will post as part of the series (as some of you have done). This looks like such a good list!!

[Mary]

As I read through everyone's lists and remember the struggle I had with my own, I'm realizing all over again how agonizing it is to pare down all the wonderful books we've read during the past 10 years to a Top 10. It's sure fun to try, though! So glad you suggested this, Miranda!

[Theresa]

I'm going to try and do this, though I didn't start keeping track until 2002 (I think).

[Miranda]

Theresa, I didn't start tracking until 2003 - so there are probably a few books I'm missing out on!

[Carol]

As I read everyone's list, I realized how many books I have read. I try to keep a mental list of the books I read.

[Miranda]

Dannielle wrote: "Okay....I am pulling the titles of my bookshelves because those titles are the ones I can't bear to part with...in alphabetical order by author...

1. Garden Spells/Sugar Queen-Sarah Addison All..."

Dani - I had to go back and edit my list - I can't believe I missed Memory of Running! I adored that book!

[Dannielle]

Miranda....Memory of Running is probably my favorite of the decade!

[Kate]

I finished "Lit" the other day; visceral, gut wrenching story.
Now I'm reading "Carving for Stone". It is an education for me, as I know nothing of that part of our planet. The language is wonderful and vivid.

[Theresa]

Okay, this has just about killed me, but here are my top ten of 2002 (when I started keeping track) through 2010. The lone exception is the first book, which came out in 2000, and I know that I read it and loved it. So it's only fitting that it launches this mostly chronological list:

1. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
2. Servants of the Map by Andrea Barrett
3. The Siege by Helen Dunmore
4. Atonement by Ian McEwan
5. Sleep Toward Heaven by Amanda Eyre Ward
6. Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum
7. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
8. The Widow's War by Sally Gunning
9. Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels
10. People of the Whale by Linda Hogan

Officially, there are 49 books on my list of favorites for the decade.

[Miranda]

Dannielle wrote: "Miranda....Memory of Running is probably my favorite of the decade!"

Do you know I've been searching all over for an audio version of this book since I first read it for my gram, but have never found one!

[Dannielle]

I'm on it!

[Dannielle]

Amazon has it...used. Where should I have it mailed to? So does audio bookmart....I don't suppose Gram has a kindle? They have cd, mp3 and cassette.,

[Miranda]

Dani - you are so wonderful! I think I can order it and have it sent here - I'll admit, after a while I just stopped looking for it because I could never find it! But I just know that my gram would love Smithy as much as I did! Thank you!! She is not a Kindle person - her eyes are too bad to see anymore, but loves listening to audio books!