Monday, December 07, 2009

2009 in review: books

2009 has been a good year for me, bookwise. One reason is that I've been part of a really fun book club, which has not only kept me reading but ensured I've encountered new titles and authors. A second reason is that Joel and I have unlimited access to our friend and landlord's personal library. Byron and Jess sure left a wonderful array of novels for us to choose from!

So anyway, here's a list of the books I read over this last year, in the order that I most enjoyed reading them:

1. An Imaginary Life - David Malouf

2. Gilead - Marilynne Robinson

3. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

4. Breath - Tim Winton

5. The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemmingway

6. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - Jonathan Safran Foer

7. The Spare Room - Helen Garner

8. The Road - Cormac McCathy

9. Eucalyptus - Murray Bail

10. Wanting - Richard Flanagan

11. Notes from the Underground - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

12. At the Waters Edge - Pradeep Jeganathan

13. I, Robot - Isaac Asimov

14. Rules of Attraction - Bret Easton Ellis

Any suggestions for what to read over 2010?

5 comments:

kristan said...

Hey Meredith,

I'm excited to see Asimov made it in there :) What was your impression?

In contrast, I think I've read about two books this whole year (that is, ones which were not on college reading lists or related to assignments).

I'm hoping to rectify that a little over the break. Halfway through my first target - Wheel of Time book 12.

Kristan

jm said...

i've read most of the same books this year too, and would put eucalyptus higher and wanting lower.

laura s said...

Hey Meredith! Long time no see... this is a weird point at which to make contact...

But none the less, I was interested in your post because I had some books in common with you for 2009, and was excited because I LOVED Gilead (just finished reading the sequel - also great, but different), and am soon to pick up the malouf, so feeling confident lol.

byron smith said...

Glad you've been enjoying your stay! Though from memory only three (maybe four?) of these could have been from our shelves so you've been doing plenty of supplementing. :-)

jm said...

Byron, i'm slowly making my way through your bookshelves. So far i've got through, in no particular order, The Old Man and the Sea (Hemmingway), High Fidelity (Hornby), The Handmaid's Tale (Atwood), An Imaginary Life (Malouf), one volume of George Orwell's collected writings, and one of the Scotland Street novels (McCall-Smith). very stimulating, thanks.