About this time last year I read a fellow book lovers’ blog post about her struggle to pick a “best book” for 2009. Unable to pick just one, she narrowed her list down to a tried-and-tested top 10.
Scanning my brain for the books I’d read in the past year I realised I couldn’t remember most of the titles, let alone the content. In my defence I am a voracious reader, regularly reading two or three books a week and capable of devouring one in just a few hours so it’s entirely possible I’d read anywhere up to 150 books in 2009. A few stood out of course, but most, meh...
Light bulb moment: why not keep a list of all the books I read in 2010, so I’d be able to put together a top 10 in January 2011?
And so started my “Book Project 2010”, which has involved documenting all the books I read last year – for the record 136 (not counting work and cook books) of them! While some people probably think I need to get a life, I have had so much fun doing it! In fact, there’s a fair chance I’ll keep on doing it this year – why not?
Of course, the whole point was to find a top 10. The funny thing is that while choosing the list below was easy, choosing a number one is all but impossible – how can you compare a book about grammar with a Danish horror story? Twist my arm and I’d probably pick The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver but I’d recommend Justin Cronin’s creepy vampire tale The Passage as a fantastic holiday read.
Reading is such a personal thing, I’m sure many of you will disagree with my choices, but they’re my choices. So, here are my top 10 books for 2010, in the order I read them:
1. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
2. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
3. Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss
4. Grotesque by Natsuo Kirino
5. The Passage by Justin Cronin
6. The Luminous Life of Lily Aphrodite by Beatrice Colin
7. Let the right one in by John Ajvude Lindquist
8. The Good Mayor by Andrew Nicoll
9. The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver
10. Winter’s Bone by Daniel Woodrell
I’m also going to cheat a little and add Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides and The Handsmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, which are two old favourites I reread in the week between Christmas and New Year – I already knew they were good!
If you have any recommendations for 2011, let me know - there's always more reading to be done...
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Happy New Year! I loved Middlesex from the moment I read it. I loved it so much that when I lent it to someone and it mysteriously never came back, I had to go and buy myself another copy =p
ReplyDeleteHappy New Year to you too! I've just had to buy myself another copy of "We need to talk about Kevin" for the same reason!
ReplyDeleteThanks for listing The Good Mayor. My new book, The Love and Death of Caterina is out next month in Australia. It's very different from TGM, but I hope you'll like it.
ReplyDeleteasnicoll at yahoo dot co dot uk