31 December 2010

Best Books of 2010

Best Fiction
Joanna Smith Rakoff, A FORTUNATE AGE
Jonathan Franzen, FREEDOM
Bernhard Schlink, THE WEEKEND
Joshua Ferris, THE UNNAMED
Brady Udall, THE LONELY POLYGAMIST
David Mitchell, THE THOUSAND AUTUMNS OF JACOB DE ZOET
Philip Roth, THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL
Dinaw Mengestu, HOW TO READ THE AIR

Best Nonfiction
David Foster Wallace, A SUPPOSEDLY FUN THING I'LL NEVER DO AGAIN
Siddhartha Mukherjee, THE EMPEROR OF ALL MALADIES
Colson Whitehead, COLOSSUS OF NEW YORK
Nicholas Carr, THE SHADOWS

Best Memoirs
Julie Klausner, I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR BAND
Meghan Daum, LIFE WOULD BE PERFECT IF I LIVED IN THAT HOUSE
Patti Smith, JUST KIDS

Biggest Page-Turner: The Stieg Larsson "Failed To Finish GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET'S NEST" Memorial Category
Laura Hillenbrand, UNBROKEN

Best Fiction Based On Other Fiction
Zachary Mason, THE LOST BOOKS OF THE ODYSSEY

Modern Library of Awesome

Best Books With Not-The-Best Endings
Jen Baggett, Holly Corbett and Amanda Pressner, THE LOST GIRLS
Stephen Dobyns, THE WRESTLER’S CRUEL STUDY

Not-So-Great Book With a Great Ending
Douglas Coupland, MARSHALL MCLUHAN: YOU KNOW NOTHING OF MY WORK!

Most Disappointing
David Nicholls, ONE DAY
Tom McCarthy, C

Most Surprising
Jim Bouton, BALL FOUR
Jerry Della Femina, FROM THOSE WONDERFUL FOLKS WHO GAVE YOU PEARL HARBOR
Don DeLillo, MAO II
Scarlett Thomas, OUR TRAGIC UNIVERSE

Most Quoted
Haruki Murakami. Bad habit. 

(Don't like my picks? Check out the AV Club best books of the year post for opinions more closely aligned to your liking. Also see from this blog, my post from July of the best books so far.)

2 comments:

Wade Garrett said...

Quite a list! My lists are not quite as extensive, but Freedom, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, and Mao II are a few of my all-time favorites.

How many more Modern Library books do you have left to go on the list?

Also, I know you disliked The Girl Who Kicked The Horney's Nest, but what do you mean by the title of that category?

Ellen said...

The page-turner category is so named because I had access to a copy of HORNET'S NEST before it was published here (my mom bought a copy off Amazon.co.uk), but couldn't force myself to read the whole thing while I was home for Christmas despite my anticipation and suspense. Page-turners are such an individual thing, you know?

I have 48 Modern Library books left, but some of those are multi-volume (the Dos Passos trilogy, the ALEXANDRIA QUARTET, A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME)... and one is FINNEGANS WAKE. But there are no D.H. Lawrence books left. *nerdy victory dance*