2009: The Year In Reading

Best Fiction
Glen David Gold, SUNNYSIDE
Arthur Phillips, THE SONG IS YOU
Steve Hely, HOW I BECAME A FAMOUS NOVELIST
Jane Gardam, THE MAN IN THE WOODEN HAT
David Foster Wallace, INFINITE JEST
Nick Hornby, JULIET, NAKED
W. Somerset Maugham, OF HUMAN BONDAGE

Best Nonfiction
Leslie T. Chang, FACTORY GIRLS
David Grann, THE LOST CITY OF Z
Dave Eggers, ZEITOUN
Haruki Murakami, WHAT I TALK ABOUT WHEN I TALK ABOUT RUNNING
Patrick Radden Keefe, THE SNAKEHEAD
Cristina Nehring, A VINDICATION OF LOVE

Best Memoir
Tad Friend, CHEERFUL MONEY

Biggest Page-Turners: The Stieg Larsson "Failed To Finish GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET'S NEST" Memorial Category
Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, WATCHMEN
James Ellroy, L.A. CONFIDENTIAL
Emily Perkins, NOVEL ABOUT MY WIFE

Best Discoveries of 2009
Bit silly to claim "discovery" for a writer who has been widely celebrated and another who has been publishing novels for 30 years, but it's a tie between DFW and Jane Gardam. I expect they will have a run-off in '10.

Modern Library of Awesome
E.M. Forster, HOWARDS END
Edith Wharton, ETHAN FROME
John O'Hara, APPOINTMENT IN SAMARRA
W. Somerset Maugham, OF HUMAN BONDAGE

Best Book With A Perfect Ending
Walter Kirn, UP IN THE AIR

Best Books With Not-The-Best Endings
Peter Straub, GHOST STORY
Ulrich Boser, THE GARDNER HEIST (though, since it's nonfiction, I can't pin this one on the author in fairness)

Most Quoted
From Michael Chabon's THE FINAL SOLUTION: "Mr. Panicker was not so hopeful or so foolish as to imagine that finding a refugee boy's lost parrot would restore the meaning and purpose to his life. But he had been willing to settle for so very much less."

A Few Random Stats
Best months for reading: Travel-heavy March and May.
Worst: August, which makes perfect sense given that I was working on INFINITE JEST at the same time.
Percentage of books read that were library books: 22.2. I love the NYPL!
Percentage of books read that are actually being published next year: 2. (Not counting half of ...HORNET'S NEST. Gah.)
Average number of books per month that I reviewed for the A.V. Club, the place where most of my reviews ran: 3.25. On pace, could be improved.

As of November, number of years I have been keeping a running list of books I've read: 9
First book on the list: THIS SIDE OF PARADISE. It was the first time I read it, and I remember very clearly that I was sitting in Logan Airport in Boston with my mom.