What are your top books of 2008?

[Wells83]

I know the year isn't over for two more weeks, but anyone care to list the top books you read this year? Mine are:

1. American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis
2. Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe
3. Blonde, Joyce Carol Oates
4. Tipping the Velvet, Sarah Waters
5. Love in a Cold Climate, Nancy Mitford
6. Life of Pi, Yann Martel
7. The American Way of Death Revisited, Jessica Mitford
8. Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
9. Loving Frank, Nancy Horan
10. The Plague, Albert Camus
11. Running with Scissors, Augusten Burroughs
12. Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt
13. I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell, Tucker Max--probably doesn't deserve to be on the list, but one of the funniest books I have ever read.

 

[beer good]

A preliminary top 10 - after only the first chapter I think Revolutionary Road might be looking at a top spot, but here's how it stands now. In alphabetical order.

Atonement - Ian McEwan
Hour of the Star - Clarice Lispector
Imperium - Ryszard Kapuscinski
I Served the King of England - Bohumil Hrabal
Jesus' Son - Denis Johnson
No Country For Old Men - Cormac McCarthy
Pale Fire - Vladimir Nabokov
The Motel Life - Willy Vlautin
The Story of Mister Han - Hwang Sok-yong
The Way of a Serpent - Torgny Lindgren

That list looks a bit out of date for the most part, so:

Top 5 new* books this year:
* New as in published in a comprehensible language no earlier than 2007

Foreskin's Lament - Shalom Auslander
We, The Drowned - Carsten Jensen
The Stone Gods - Jeanette Winterson
Raga - JMG Le Clézio
Is och vatten, vatten och is - Majgull Axelsson

 

[saliotthomas]

A stranger came to the farm-Mika Waltari
Metamorphosis of a wedding-Sandor Marai
Silk -Alessandro Baricco
Foucaults pendulum-Umberto Eco
Music of a life-Andrei makine
Requiem for the east-Andrei makine
Driss chraibi-mother of spring
Chinua Achebe-things fall apart
Luis Sepulveda-An old man who read love novels
Chinghiz Aitmatov-Djamilia
Antonio Tabucchi-Nocturne Indien

Not in order.

And top worst

Fieldwork -Mischa Berlinski Unchallenged Winner -Claude Levis strauss revisited by Alex Garland

Ghost-Alan Lightman
A partisans daughter-Bouis de Bernières
The Painter of Battles-Arturo Perez-Reverte

 

[Libra]

1)Eye of the Lion(Mata Hari Story)-Lael Tucker Wertenbaker
2)Tess D'Urberville-Thomas Hardy
3)Shylock's Daughter-Mirjam Pressler
4)Middlesex-Jeffrey Eugenides
5)Doctor Glas-Hjalmar Söderberg
6)A Woman in Berlin-Anonymous
7)Wuthering Heights-Emily Bronte
8)The Blood of Flowers-Anita Amirrezvani
9)Sons and Lovers-D.H. Lawrence
10)Gregorius-Benght Ohlsson
11)The Sailor who Fell From Grace with the Sea-Yukio Mishima
12)Uncle Tom's Cabin-Harriet Beecher Stowe
13)Speak, Memory-Vladimir Nabokov

 

[Sin]

I can’t say that I have read a lot of books this year, but the fact that I am reading again (after many years of abstinence) is a big step for me.
And it feels great - I have almost forgotten the pleasure of reading a good book.

The best books I have read this year are (in no particular order):
Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse Five
Kurt Vonnegut - Cat's Cradle
Noam Chomsky - Failed States
Aldous Huxley - Brave New World Revisited
Philip Roth - Everyman

The biggest disappointment for me was:
P.D. James - The Children of Men

I guess all these titles are nothing new for you. Since I had a long break, I am not it touch with the leading writers of today. But that’s why I am here – to steal ideas from you guys.
After spending several years learning English I am now at the level when I can pick up and read almost any English book. I only had to drop Nabokov’s book because his language was too difficult for me. Maybe next year…
Cheers

 

[pontalba]

Not necessarily in order of preference, but of reading order this year.

Light Years by James Salter
The Book of Evidence by John Banville
The Redbreast by Jo Nesbo
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
The Moviegoer by Walker Percy
Specimen Days by Michael Cunningham
The Untouchable by John Banville
Ghosts by John Banville
Athena by John Banville
Embers by Sandor Marai
Shroud by John Banville
A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
The Sea by John Banville
Moon Palace by Paul Auster
American Pastoral by Philip Roth

There weren't really any that I read and hated, but I do have to say I didn't care a bit for Orlando by Virginia Woolf, and I've loved other of her books, but that one just didn't register with me. A possible reread down the road.

 

[joderu95]

Freakonomics:A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything - Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies - Jared Diamond
The Road - Cormac McCarthy
The Yiddish Policmen's Union - Michael Chabon
A Feast of Snakes - Harry Crews
Body - "
The Moon is A Harsh Mistress - Robert A. Heinlein
Switch Bitch - Roald Dahl
Venus Plus X - Theodore Sturgeon
The Demolished Man - Alfred Bester
All Quiet On The Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque

 

[Landslide]

My top books of 2008 in reading order:
Murder in the Mews, by Agatha Christie
Into the wild, by Jon Krakauer
The poisoned chocolate case, by Anthony Berkeley
The Egiptian Cross Mystery, by Ellery Queen
A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens (still reading it)

Others I read but didn't particularly like:
Amorous Tales from the Decameron, by Giovanni Boccaccio
The Lover, by Marguerite Duras (no star, I was disapointed by this book)

 

[silverseason]

The best so far this year:

Mortenson and Relin, Three Cups of Tea
Chinhua Achebe, Things Fall Apart
Alexander McCall Smith, Portuguese Irregular Verbs
Emile Zola, Nana
Jonathan Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis
Jared Diamond, The Third Chimpanzee
Sandor Marai, Embers
Thomas Ricks, Fiasco
Muriel Spark, Memento Mori
Lion Feuchtwanger, The Oppermans

These were books experienced for the first time. I also did re-reading for my various book groups. Some books are definitely better the second time around.

 

[Fantasy Moon]

Not in a particular order, but...

The Year of the Angry Rabbit - Russell Braddon
Don't Stand Too Close to a Naked Man - Tim Allen
Uncle Tom's Cabin - Harriet Beecher Stowe
The Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux
The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien

 

[-Carlos-]

I can't remember all the book I've read in 2008 but I do remember the (few) good ones.

1. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
2. In Cold Blood (a re-read) by Truman Capote
3. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie*
4. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
5. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
6. Independent People by Halldor Laxness
7. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
8. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

There are more (I'm sure) but I can't recall. The biggest disappointment for me was Blindness by Jose Saramago. What a downer that book was....

*I am currently reading this one but I can surely say, from the section I have read so far, that this one is a pure gem of a read (novel).

 

[Libra]

Mortenson and Relin, Three Cups of Tea

Silverseason,I have been contemplating on this one.I was worried of the hype it was getting so I was waiting around.

 

[Leeny]

Airhead by Meg Cabot
The Squad (books one and two) by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Animal Farm by George Orwell
The Luxe by Anna Godbersen
The Sea of Trolls by Nancy Farmer

 

[RAC42]

Of all the books I read this year, these are my top 3

The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time - Mark Haddon

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - Alexander Solzhenitsyn

 

[Disenthral]

As long as it doesn't have to be books released in 2008.

Clive Barker - The Hellbound Heart
Jack London - The Star Rover
Philip K Dick - The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
Clive Barker - Mister B. Gone


uhhh that's all i can remember off the top of my head.

 

[silverseason]

Silverseason,I have been contemplating on this one.I was worried of the hype it was getting so I was waiting around.

I only read the book (Three Cups of Tea) because someone gave it to me. The first half is particularly good, not just Mortenson's quest to build schools, but also the account of his hiking in the Himalayas -- he almost died after failing to climb K2 -- and how he came to know the mountain people there. Because Mortenson grew up in Africa, the son of missionary teachers, he was open to a variety of cultures.

 

[angerball]

Special Topics in Calamity Physics - Marisha Pessl
The Book Thief - Markus Zusak
The Outsiders - SE Hinton
The Crimson Petal and the White - Michel Faber
The Life of Pi - Yann Martel

 

[paperapostle]

In order read:

The Boy Detective Fails - Joe Moen
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
Behind the Moon - Hsu-Ming Teo


Hmm, seems 2008 wasn't a big fiction year for me. The fiction to non-fiction ratio will be more balanced in 2009 I predict.

 

[Libra]

I only read the book (Three Cups of Tea) because someone gave it to me. The first half is particularly good, not just Mortenson's quest to build schools, but also the account of his hiking in the Himalayas -- he almost died after failing to climb K2 -- and how he came to know the mountain people there. Because Mortenson grew up in Africa, the son of missionary teachers, he was open to a variety of cultures.

Thanks silverseason.

 

[purple95]

The most interesting and/or enjoyable books of 2008 from the 117 I've read so far this year:

The Road by Cormac McCarthy
iWoz by Steve Wozniak (autobiography)
Defending Baltimore Against Enemy Attack by Charles Osgood
To Hell and Back by Audie Murphy
Just After Sunset by Stephen King
The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham

And the Winner is:
The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Merry Christmas,
dan