Best Books of 2008
Posted on January 1st, 2009 by --Deb
Okay, here are my favorite books of the year.
(Note: they are the favorites that I read for the first time this year, regardless of when they were actually published. And they are listed in the order in which I read them.)
Favorite Fiction:
- Once Upon a Day: A Novel by Lisa Tucker (342 p.)
- Dream When You’re Feeling Blue: A Novel by Elizabeth Berg (276 p.)
- Dragonhaven by Robin McKinley (342 p.)
- A Test of Wills by Charles Todd (305 p.)
- The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell (245 p.)
- It Itches: A Stash of Knitting Cartoons (111 p.)
- Fortune and Fate by Sharon Shinn (403 p.)
Favorite NonFiction:
- Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell (280 p.)
- Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think by Brian Wansink (249 p.)
- No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II by Doris Kearns Goodwin (636 p.)
- Charlie Wilson’s War: The Extraordinary Story of How the Wildest Man in Congress and a Rogue CIA Agent Changed the History of Our Times by George Crile (523 p.)
- The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch (246 p.)
- Photoshop for Digital Photographers by Scott Kelby (349 p.)
- The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge by David McCullough (562 p.)
- Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert (263 p.)
- The Fight for English: How Language Pundits Ate, Shot, and Left by David Crystal (222 p.) What a fascinating book.
- Can’t Buy Me Love: The Beatles, Britain, and America by Jonathan Gould (606 p.)
- An Ocean of Air: Why the Wind Blows and Other Mysteries of the Atmosphere by Gabrielle Walker (238 p.)
- The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast by Douglas Brinkley (624 p.)
- Well-Fed Writer by Peter Bowerman (282 p.)
- In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto by Michael Pollan (201 p.)
- Free-Range Knitter: The Yarn Harlot Writes Again by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (228 p.) (Funny, whether you knit or not–lovely essays.)
(Wow. Surprisingly difficult this year. Money’s been tight so I haven’t been buying as many books, so most of the fiction I’ve been reading has been re-reads … which makes for a short Fiction list for a change!)
The total for the year? 248 books, totalling … believe it or not … 94,894 pages. Ninety-four THOUSAND pages. Wow.
Here’s a recap of all the lists:
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Tannenbaum.
House Calls
It Itches was hysterical! My daughter and I laughed our butts off on Christmas night reading it!
You definitely got some knitting done this year!
donna’s last blog post..Happy New Year!!!
I like Malcom Gladwell, so I’ll check out this new book.
happy new year!!
Tanya’s last blog post..Wow!
Interesting list. I’ll have to check some of those out. Thanks!
Jennifer’s last blog post..450
No offense, but since me and you have some similar reading tastes, I actually liked it that you were hardly adding any ‘new’ books to them. lol It ends up costing me money and I still have series that I have stolen from you that I haven’t read (as I mentioned earlier!). I started ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’ and then it became a Christmas present. I reordered it, so hopefully I will have it either tomorrow or next week! Yay! Anyway, I hope you continue posting your reads each month, I look for them!
Kailana’s last blog post..Fairy Tail – Volume 1 by Hiro Mashima
you realize, you inspired me to keep track of what i read, right? nothing near your prodigiousness, but i did read 154 books this year. (we won’t even discuss either boy. they blow through YA fiction in a day (even 600 page YA books!))
i’ve already started my 2009 database, lol.
minnie’s last blog post..i miss him
It was a good year in reading!
Ack, I just checked my 2008 tag. Um, 388. Bless the library, or I’d be living on the street.
Great list and 2 or 3 went on my amazon wishlist to check out the author’s works. Thanks.
Robin
Robin of mytwoblessings’s last blog post..The Best?
Deb, your list and total for the year is absolutely amazing. You are so focused on reading every chance you get that you read more than many would ever be able to accomplish. I loved Tipping Point and want to read Outliers. Have a great book on Photoshop Essentials by Scott Kelby that I keep referring back to.
Do you buy all your books or do you order some through your library? What’s your secret for best places to purchase?
Robyn McMaster’s last blog post..Obama’s an Avid Reader – You?
WOW. And I thought I read a lot!!
LaraBoBara’s last blog post..Bookishness