Notes in the Margin Weblog

Books | Great historical fiction Part II — international titles suggested by readers | Seattle Times Newspaper:

In a follow-up to an earlier list, here’s the lists of historical fiction suggested by readers of The Seattle Times.

Books | Lit Life: Historical novels — reader faves, Part I | Seattle Times Newspaper:

Seattle Times book editor Mary Ann Gwinn asked readers in her Lit Life column to recommend historical novels and received so many responses she’s reporting the results in installments. This week: historical fiction based in the U.S. Next week: historical fiction with an international setting.

Top book picks for 2010 / The Christian Science Monitor – CSMonitor.com:
“The experts tell us what they are excited about reading in 2010″

Oh, good grief. A “best books of the year” list for 2010 already, and it’s only January 4.

At any rate, here are recommendations from some book store owners about books set to be published in the next couple of months. Note that the page linked here is the first of two.

Now that 2009 is officially over, I can decide which of the 50 books (exclusive of textbooks) I read this year were my favorites. All the published lists of best books of the year refer only to books published during that year, but my list is of the books I read this year, regardless of when they were published.

Here they are, listed alphabetically by author:

• Corrigan, Kelly. The Middle Place
• Didion, Joan. Slouching Towards Bethlehem
• Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique
• Genova, Lisa. Still Alice
• Hoffman, Alice. The Story Sisters
• Larsson, Stieg. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
• O’Connell, Carol. Bone by Bone
• Sarton, May. Journal of a Solitude
• Stockett, Kathryn. The Help
• Zaslow, Jeffrey. The Girls from Ames

Honorable Mention

• Shaffer, Mary Ann & Annie Barrows. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
• Strout, Elizabeth. Olive Kitteridge
• Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One’s Own

Best wishes to everyone for a Happy New Year and a productive year of reading good books!

I really hate it when people put up their Christmas decorations right after Halloween. In the same way, it rankles me when “Best Books of the Year” lists begin appearing well before the year is over. Now that 2009 is officially approaching its end, here’s a round-up of some of the more prominent “Best Books of 2009″ lists:

Favorite books of 2009: What’s yours?
Book reviewer Jane Henderson of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch asked readers to post their favorite books of the year. Check the comments to see what books ordinary readers liked best this year. Here’s Henderson’s take on the subject of these lists:

The New York Times’ top fiction named four women and one man while Publishers Weekly’s top 10 books included no women (and none of the fiction the Times named). Obviously there is a great deal of subjectivity in these lists of favorite or best books. How can there not be when upwards of 200,000 books are published each year in the United States?

The tastiest coffee-table books of 2009
Mary Ann Gwinn of the Seattle Times lists her picks of the biggest, lushest books of the year.

10 best thrillers of 2009
Harry Levins of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch presents his favorites among spy and crime thrillers.

The Best Five Books To Share With Your Friends
On the NPR Web site, Glen Weldon says,

Below, a short list of books I’ve pressed into other people’s hands over the past year. On the surface, they’ve got little in common. Obsession figures largely in several — and meteors, too, weirdly enough. But the thing that truly unites these books is the urge they spark to send them out into the world so that they might sink their hooks into someone else.

Best Books of 2009
NPR (National Public Radio) has an extensive list of lists, including more unusual topics such as best airplane reads, best gardening books, best book club reads, and the year’s most mesmerizing mysteries.

All hail the printed word: Best books of 2009
Reviews from the Seattle Times offer their choices in the categories of fiction and nonfiction.

Best children’s books of 2009
Best books of 2009: nonfiction
Best books of 2009: fiction
Three lists from the Christian Science Monitor.

The 10 Best Books of 2009
100 Notable Books of 2009
The New York Times weighs in with its own collection of lists. On each of these pages you’ll find links to several other categorized lists.

Best of 2009
Of course no story about books would be complete without reference to giant online bookseller Amazon. Here you’ll find lists of choices in every category by both the company’s editors and its customers.

Best Illustrated Children’s Books of 2009 – The New York Times:

Every year since 1952, the Book Review has asked a panel of judges to select 10 books from among the several thousand children’s books published that year. The judges this time around were Adam Gopnik, who writes regularly for The New Yorker and is the author of two novels for children, ‘The King in the Window’ and the forthcoming ‘Steps Across the Water’; Jillian Tamaki, a teacher at the School of Visual Arts and the recipient of a Society of Illustrators gold medal; and Lisa Von Drasek, the children’s librarian of the Bank Street College of Education.

100 books that defined the noughties – Telegraph:

Never mind “best books of the year” lists. Here’s a list of one critic’s 100 best books of the decade. It’s from the United Kingdom, so you’ll see a definite slant in the choices.

Amazon.com: Best of 2009: Books: Books:

Yes, the frenzy has officially started with Amazon’s various lists of Best Books of 2009. On this page you’ll find links to several lists, including standard ones such as Editors’ Top 100 and Customers’ Top 100 and top books by category (e.g., mystery & thriller, biography, children’s books) as well as some not-so-standard such as Best Book Videos and Best Books on Kindle.

For me, the reading year isn’t over yet. So you won’t see my own list until the end of December. In the meantime, how many of these “top books” have you read?