Best of 2007
I'm joining the list-posting crowds and offering my fourth annual compendium of the best stuff I read during the past year. As usual, re-reads are ineligible, as are things that I failed to read in their entirety.
Books marked with an "R" are re-reads.
1. To Hate Like This Is to Be Happy Forever by Will Blythe
2. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
3. Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon
4. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
5. Gifts by Ursula K. LeGuin
6. Strong Motion by Jonathan Franzen
7. Ghostwritten by David Mitchell
8. April Fool’s Day by Josip Novakovich
9. Stillness by Courtney Brkic
10. Waiting for an Angel by Helon Habila
11. Go Tell It On the Mountain by James Baldwin
12. The Swimming-Pool Library by Alan Hollinghurst
13. Gifts by Charlotte Holmes
14. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
15. The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean
16. Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban
17. Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
18. The Light Possessed by Alan Cheuse
19. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon
20. On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan
21. Arcadia by Tom Stoppard
22. Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald
23. The Guide by R.K. Narayan
24. Angels and Insects by A.S. Byatt
25. If on a winter’s night a traveler… by Italo Calvino
26. Baumgartner’s Bombay by Anita Desai
27. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
28. Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie (R)
29. The Dress Lodger by Sherri Holman
30. Jasmine by Bharati Mukherjee
31. After the Quake by Haruki Murakami
32. The Master by Colm Toibin (R)
33. Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri (R)
34. The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
35. The Colour by Rose Tremain
36. Arthur and George by Julian Barnes
37. One Hundred Demons by Lynda Barry
38. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
Best short story collection: This is not a particularly strong category this year. I guess the award will go to Stillness by Courtney Brkic, which was uneven, but had a couple of real gems.
Best short story: It's always so hard to choose just one story (partially because I don't do a good job of keeping track of the short fiction I read in magazines, etc). Anyway, I won't choose one, but will give you three stories to run out and read right now: "Thailand" by Haruki Murakami, "The First Sense" by Nadine Gordimer, and "Stillness" by Courtney Brkic.
Best nonfiction: Oh man, I only read one nonfiction book this year. I read a lot of fragments of interesting nonfiction this year (most notably A.C. Haddon's Head-hunters Black, White, and Brown) but only one book in it's entirety. That's a new low, even for me! I guess that means that Will Blythe's To Hate Like This Is to Be Happy Forever is the winner.
Best young adult novel: This is another category where I have only one entry. And it's not even a very good entry. I grudgingly give the award to the disappointing Gifts by Ursula K. LeGuin.
Best graphic novel: I read two graphic novels in a row right at the end of the year, and haven't even had a chance to properly post about them yet. Both were excellent, but Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis wins by a very narrow margin--if you want to know why, you simply must wait until my next post! Ah, the suspense!
Best novella: "Morpho Eugenia" by A.S. Byatt. Wow, really good!
Best novel: I have two nominees this year, and they couldn't be more different: The Road, and The Remains of the Day. Shall it be Cormac McCarthy's desperately grim post-apocalyptic vision that enthralled and terrified me, or the beautifully restrained novel of British repression that broke my heart? Impossible to choose. They both win. (And honourable mentions go to Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach and Sarah Waters's Fingersmith--both were just a hair away from making it a four-way tie.)
Books marked with an "R" are re-reads.
1. To Hate Like This Is to Be Happy Forever by Will Blythe
2. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
3. Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon
4. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
5. Gifts by Ursula K. LeGuin
6. Strong Motion by Jonathan Franzen
7. Ghostwritten by David Mitchell
8. April Fool’s Day by Josip Novakovich
9. Stillness by Courtney Brkic
10. Waiting for an Angel by Helon Habila
11. Go Tell It On the Mountain by James Baldwin
12. The Swimming-Pool Library by Alan Hollinghurst
13. Gifts by Charlotte Holmes
14. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
15. The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean
16. Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban
17. Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
18. The Light Possessed by Alan Cheuse
19. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon
20. On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan
21. Arcadia by Tom Stoppard
22. Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald
23. The Guide by R.K. Narayan
24. Angels and Insects by A.S. Byatt
25. If on a winter’s night a traveler… by Italo Calvino
26. Baumgartner’s Bombay by Anita Desai
27. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
28. Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie (R)
29. The Dress Lodger by Sherri Holman
30. Jasmine by Bharati Mukherjee
31. After the Quake by Haruki Murakami
32. The Master by Colm Toibin (R)
33. Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri (R)
34. The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
35. The Colour by Rose Tremain
36. Arthur and George by Julian Barnes
37. One Hundred Demons by Lynda Barry
38. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
Best short story collection: This is not a particularly strong category this year. I guess the award will go to Stillness by Courtney Brkic, which was uneven, but had a couple of real gems.
Best short story: It's always so hard to choose just one story (partially because I don't do a good job of keeping track of the short fiction I read in magazines, etc). Anyway, I won't choose one, but will give you three stories to run out and read right now: "Thailand" by Haruki Murakami, "The First Sense" by Nadine Gordimer, and "Stillness" by Courtney Brkic.
Best nonfiction: Oh man, I only read one nonfiction book this year. I read a lot of fragments of interesting nonfiction this year (most notably A.C. Haddon's Head-hunters Black, White, and Brown) but only one book in it's entirety. That's a new low, even for me! I guess that means that Will Blythe's To Hate Like This Is to Be Happy Forever is the winner.
Best young adult novel: This is another category where I have only one entry. And it's not even a very good entry. I grudgingly give the award to the disappointing Gifts by Ursula K. LeGuin.
Best graphic novel: I read two graphic novels in a row right at the end of the year, and haven't even had a chance to properly post about them yet. Both were excellent, but Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis wins by a very narrow margin--if you want to know why, you simply must wait until my next post! Ah, the suspense!
Best novella: "Morpho Eugenia" by A.S. Byatt. Wow, really good!
Best novel: I have two nominees this year, and they couldn't be more different: The Road, and The Remains of the Day. Shall it be Cormac McCarthy's desperately grim post-apocalyptic vision that enthralled and terrified me, or the beautifully restrained novel of British repression that broke my heart? Impossible to choose. They both win. (And honourable mentions go to Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach and Sarah Waters's Fingersmith--both were just a hair away from making it a four-way tie.)