Best Books of 2010: Share your favourites!

As this year comes to an end, share with us your favourite books of 2010. This does not refer to books that were published in 2010, but books that you read this year, regardless of when they were published. It could be fiction, non-fiction, anything. Start sharing :)

If you're a regular poster in these two threads, you can check Your Current Read (http://www.cosforums.com/showthread.php?t=122822) and Rate and Review the Last Book You Read (http://www.cosforums.com/showthread.php?t=119291) threads to see the books you've read this year. If you haven't kept track of the books you read in 2010, that's no problem, just share the unforgettable books that you loved reading!

Spread the love of books this holiday season :love: :)

In 2010, according to Goodreads, I read:

Les Belles Images by Simone de Beauvoir
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
Howards End by E. M. Forster
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
3 Moomin books (Commet in Moominland, Moominsummer Madness and Moomin and the Magic Hat) by Tove Jansson
Dubliners by James Joyce
A short story collection by the Bulgarian author Deyan Enev
Lieutenant Benz by the late Bulgarian author Dimitar Dimov (one of my favourite authors)
Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dahl
The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
Sorcerer's Apprentice: My Life with Carlos Castenada by Amy Wallace (and translated it into Bulgarian)
A Scandal in Bohemia by Arthur Conan Doyle
Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger
Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters by J. D. Salinger
Nine Stories by J. D. Salinger (reread)
Quidditch Through the Ages by J. K. Rowling
started but couldn't finish Lady Chatterly's Lover (horrible translation)
and I'm currently reading The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood, The Red Pavilion: A Judge Dee Mystery by Robert van Gulik, and another Moomin book (Moominpapa at Sea).

I was impressed by Kundera and am currently seriously impressed by Atwood, I enjoyed Nine Stories immensely but couldn't really understand the other two books by Salinger I read, because they were way too sophisticated and complex for me; I enjoyed the Agatha Christie mysteries and loved Joyce's short stories (short stories is my favourite genre). I enjoyed Howards End, too, but it was a tad too whimsical for my mood while reading it. Fantastic Mr. Fox was an utter disappointment, especially since The Witches and Mathilda are among my favourite books.

Best books of 2010, as far as I remember, in no particular order:
Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
Beloved, Toni Morrison
Ulysses, Joyce
The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand (though it was a bit long)
The Famished Road, Ben Okri
Some Shakespeare plays
If on a winter's night a traveler, Italo Calvino
The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne
The Waste Land, T.S Eliot
Easter Parade, Richard Yates
Timbuktu, Paul Auster
A room with a view, E.M. Forster
The Silver Chair, C.S. Lewis
These are the best, though I have read many more good books. These are just the ones that I personally enjoyed.
I was impressed by Kundera and am currently seriously impressed by Atwood
Atwood is really good. I'm a bit fed up with her right now since I've read many of her books and got another two for Christmas so I'm taking a break from her but will be back shortly. May I recommend Cat's Eye? I thought it was amazing and will reread it soon (which is something since I rarely reread books even HP).

The Harry Potter Series
Twilight Saga (yes, I really enjoyed reading it, although the writing is.. not that good, so to say)
Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater
I Heart New York by Lindsey Kelk

I also enjoyed reading The Vampire Diaries by L.J. Smith, although I wasn't able to finish Shadow Souls yet.. Will pick that up again in the new year. This year really brought me back to reading. I loved to do it when I was younger, until I had to because of school. Both Harry Potter and the immortal Nicholas Flamel (by Michael Scott, which I also enjoyed very much) gave me back my pleasure in reading. On to 2011! (I might add some more books later this week, since 2010 isn't over yet ;) ! )

The top books i read this year
I am number 4 (great great book! excited for the movie, hope they do it justice)
Hunger games (again great book)
The necromancer from the secrets of the immortal nicholas flamel (great series! I highly recommend it!)
Short second life of bree tanner
Clockwork angel
Burned from the house of night series. (another really good series)

This year I discovered Mary Renault and loved everything of hers which I read, The Mask of Apollo and the Alexander Trilogy would be my favourites from 2010. I also read Crime and Punishment for the first time which is fantastic plus I enjoyed lots of Orwell.

I'll go with what I rated the highest on Goodreads of what I read in 2010:
Seasons of Grace Trilogy (The Secret, The Missing, The Telling) by Beverly Lewis
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
The Protector by Dee Henderson
Invincible Lousia: The Story of Alcott, the Author of Little Women by Cornelia Meigs

I never would have read Speak if it not for the Top Ten Fav Fiction Books (http://www.cosforums.com/showthread.php?t=113787) thread where I decided to read the top ten books from the thread that I had not read before. I am truly glad I did!

ETA: I haven't read any of the other books on that list, but I plan on it someday.

My picks for 2010:
In the Woos by Tana French
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Flowes for Algernon by Daniel Keys

I just looked over the list of the books I read this year, and I'm really suprised that I didn't like half of them (13/26) :yuhup:. The rest, either I really loved, or didn't have a strong reaction to. Anyways these were my favourites:



The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien.

The LotR Trilogy - J.R.R. Tolkien.

Mansfield Park - Jane Austen.
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte.
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte.
Stargirl - Jerry Spinelly.

This isn't saying much, though, because most of them are great classics that most people like :whistle:.

My least favourites, or the ones that failed my expectations were:

The Professor - Charlotte Bronte. This one had a bunch of unrealistic characters and a very predictable plot. I read it after reading Jane Eyre and was extremely disappointed by the difference (I didn't know when I read it, that it was the first novel Charlotte had written..)

Three Ghost Stories - Charles Dickens. I don't know, this one felt really random. I kept expecting each story to get better than the one preceding it, but they didn't. Also after reading Dickens' A Christmas Carol, I thought his Ghost stories would be way better than that. Not to mention that the book started off with a very intriguing beginning, that didn't prepare me for the .. wierd stuff coming.

Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf: Maybe I went through this one faster than I should have, but I didn't really enjoy it, :shrug:. I kept waiting for a plot to be introduced or something, but until now I'm not really sure what the story was exactly about, :hmm:.

Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf: Maybe I went through this one faster than I should have, but I didn't really enjoy it, :shrug:. I kept waiting for a plot to be introduced or something, but until now I'm not really sure what the story was exactly about, :hmm:.[/list]

That's one of my favourite books. :) Not having a plot is intentional - when Virginia Woolf wrote it, she was in search of a new literary form that would better express the new sensitivity of the early twentieth century world she lived in. She wanted to write about the internal, and not the external world. Mrs. Dalloway is one of the best known examples of the "stream of consciousness" genre - writing as if reporting the free stream of thoughts going through one's head, the impressions the mind absorbs and then reproduces, the connections it forms between things - all of which amounts to how one sees the world and approaches it. In fact Mrs. Dalloway has a very neat structure underneath the seemingly random streams of thoughts in Clarissa's and Septimus's heads, like the binary of light side - dark side within a person. It also explores some topics that were emerging at the time and are frequently found in literature of that period - insanity, sexuality - esp. homosexuality, the internal life of a person.

Best book I read this year was A Storm of Swords.

other great books i read
Marley and Me
I Am Ozzy
A Clash Of Kings
A Game of Thrones
HP7

Good books
The Reckoning
Maximum Ride Series
Hunger Games
Princess Bride.
Worst Book
Couldn't get into Kings Dragon.

That's one of my favourite books. Not having a plot is intentional - when Virginia Woolf wrote it, she was in search of a new literary form that would better express the new sensitivity of the early twentieth century world she lived in.

I wish I'd known that before I read it, :sigh:. I might've actually liked it. Are all her books written in the same style?

Mrs. Dalloway is one of the best known examples of the "stream of consciousness" genre - writing as if reporting the free stream of thoughts going through one's head, the impressions the mind absorbs and then reproduces, the connections it forms between things - all of which amounts to how one sees the world and approaches it.

This is the best way to describe the book, :agree:. But still knowing that, I think I wouldn't have gone easily through some parts of the book, Septimus' POV, for instance. I liked Peter Walsh's POV best, though.

I wish I'd known that before I read it, :sigh:. I might've actually liked it. Are all her books written in the same style?

No, not exactly the same. I also read Mrs. Dalloway for the first time without knowing anything about the author or the specific style she was writing in, and then read it again years later in university when I'd already studied a bit about her and Modernism as a whole. I understood it much better the second time, and remember it better now because of that. But I think I enjoyed it well enough even when I had no clue what it was about. It's after all just a matter of taste - you may not have liked it either way.

This is the best way to describe the book, :agree:. But still knowing that, I think I wouldn't have gone easily through some parts of the book, Septimus' POV, for instance. I liked Peter Walsh's POV best, though.

I liked Septimus's best. I think Woolf created an excellently haunting and realistic portrait of insanity (she was suffering from a psychological disorder herself).

Now I add, Sanctuary by David and Beverly Lewis. Truly a great idea of them collaborating together (I finished it yesterday, which was part of 2010).

I'm going with:

Eat, Pray, Love
The Time Traveler's Wife
The Memory Keeper's Daughter
Handle with Care-Jodi Picoult
Nineteen Minutes- Jodi Picoult
My Sister's Keeper

Pretty much anything by Jodi Picoult. I discovered her this year and can't stop reading her work.

Based on those two threads and what I remember -- favorites are bolded.

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
Mansfield Park
Pride and Prejudice
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger
Alice's Adventures In Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
Change of Heart by Jodi Picoult
Dubliners by James Joyce
The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell by Tucker Max
Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver
Dashing Through The Snow by Mary Higgins Clark
Death On The Cape
A Stranger Is Watching
Moonlight Becomes You
Before I Say Goodbye
Ashes To Ashes by Tami Hoag
Prior Bad Acts
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
White Noise Don DeLillo
Looking For Alaska by John Green
Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea by Chelsea Handler
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Actually, I really liked almost all of the books I read in 2010. If you're really interested in what I read this year, searching the Current Read and Rate/Review the Last Book You Read threads for my posts is much more simple than me actually listing all of them. No, actually, when I think about it, taking a look at my Shelfari shelf (http://www.shelfari.com/morgenstjernen/shelf), clicking on "Read" and sorting after "date read" is probably the easiest.

But I can tell you some highlights: Reading through most of my Neil Gaiman books, and the Discworld books (Terry Pratchett) I bought in 2009, and reading some of the shorter books and stories Tolkien wrote (some examples off the top of my head: Farmer Giles of Ham and Roverandom and Leaf by Niggle). Also, I quite enjoyed my reread of the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan, and finally reading the two newest books in that series, finished by Brandon Sanderson.

I don't see how the book year 2011 can be better than 2010, but then I thought that at the end of 2009 too. I'm super-excited to see how the new year will turn out when it comes to books. :D

These are some of the books I've read this year that I really liked:

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon - this book was listed on the 50 books to read before you die thread. I really enjoyed it. The main character is autistic, and the author did a great job with the book.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Marianne Shaffer and Annie Barrows. - The setting is Guersney in the Channel Islands during World War II, It was probably the most enjoyable book I've read in a long time.

The Twentieth Wife By Indu Sundaresan - great period in history, interesting characters, interesting book based on a true story

Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri - a book of short stories, some of which I loved, some not so much

The Marriage Bureau for Rich People by Farahad Zama - such a sweet story. Read it if you need a feel good book.

The Awakening by Kate Chopin - a book that many people hate, but I really liked.

I've read books that were good, but not my favorites, and books that I didn't like, The Life of Pi being one of them, and books I started but returned to the library. I find myself having less patience to finish a book if I'm not enjoying it.

Best books I've read this year...

Juliet by Anne Fortier
Lost Hero by Rick Riordan
Hunger Games, Catching Fire, Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
Marta's Legacy Series - Her Mother's Hope & Her Daughter's Dream by Francine Rivers
Take Four by Karen Kingsbury
Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan

I think this year I'll make a list of the books I read in 2011.

You are all so well read, :clap: I feel humbled.

Anyway, best book I read this year, one of the best I ever read:

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

I also liked This Body of Death by Elizabeth George and
The Troubled Man by Henning Mankell (published in Germany last Summer. Will be out in the UK end of March 2011)

The worst I read hasn't been published in English either, but for the German and German-speaking co-posters who might like a warning: Unsichtbare Spuren by Andreas Franz. Very badly written.

House Rules by Jodi Picoult.
Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta