So many books, so little time. My year in reading 2009. Some pleasant surprises, some surprising disappointments. Among a number of good reads, a few that stand out after the fact: Atonement (no surprise there really), 2666 (still puzzle over this one), and Before I Die, which was really fabulous. If you're interested in perusing my pithy (usually) thoughts on individual books, you can check out goodreads. In reverse chronological order:
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
In the Woods by Tana French
Atonement by Ian McEwan
The Forever War by Dexter Filkins
Man in the Dark by Paul Auster
Twilight of the Superheroes: Stories by Deborah Eisenberg
Blood's a Rover by James Ellroy
Hairstyles of the Damned by Joe Meno
How Fiction Works by James Wood
That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo
Lush Life by Richard Price
Bangkok 8 by John Burdett
The Drunkard's Walk by Leonard Mlodinow
The Brothers K by David James Duncan
Hunter's Moon by Randy Wayne White
Knights of the Cornerstone by James P. Blaylock
The Anatomy of Deception by Lawrence Goldstone
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler
The Steel Wave by Jeff Shaara
The Turnaround by George Pelecanos
Darkness Take My Hand by Dennis Lehane
Ten Thousand Islands by Randy Wayne White
A Prayer for the Dying by Stewart O'nan
The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy
2666 by Roberto Bolano
Towing Jehovah by James Morrow
Code of the Street: Decency, Violence and the Moral Life of the Inner City by Elijah Anderson
Radical Evolution by Joel Garreau
Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen
Before I Die by Jenny Downham
Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliver Sacks
The Possibility of an Island by Michel Houellebecq
The Battle of New Orleans by Robert V. Remini
The Night Gardener by George Pelecanos
The Man Who Watched Trains Go By by Georges Simenon
This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust
The Somnambulist by Jonathan Barnes
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Cop in the Hood by Peter Moskos
Christine Falls by John Banville nee Benjamin Black
The World Without Us by Alan Weisman
The Moon is Down by Steinbeck
The Pearl by Steinbeck
Spirit of 69: A Skinhead Bible by George Marshall
The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley
God's Pocket by Pete Dexter
Nobody's Fool by Richard Russo
A Mercy by Toni Morrison
