2009 books
60) Clifford D. Simak, Spacebred Generations, 1953
This book gets my vote for the worst SF cover of 2009 (OK, it's a cheap stock image, but even so). The novella itself isn't fantastic either, about a generation starship that's been en route for a millenium and whose self-contained crew of thousands, who don't know the purpose of their existence, almost falls apart when they arrive at their destination. The biggest non sequitur, plot-wise, is that for generations the crew have been brought up believing that reading is an evil art and therefore banned, yet people seem to know how to write. An easy-going story that doesn't really hold up all that well, but might have if it had been explored in more detail.