As most of y’all know, I love to read – and I read a lot. Thanks to a real vacation this year, I read more books than usual; excluding books that I worked on, more than 100 books. Made me feel a lot less guilty about my "to-be-read" bookcases (yes, that’s plural), as I finally put a real dent in them this year!
I don’t want to do a "Best of" list. For one thing, most of the books I read weren’t published in 2010 (only 18 were). I read some Jane Austen; other than that, and one book published in 1949 (Kon-Tiki), everything else was published in the last 50 years.
So rather than a best of list, I’m going to have a list of the books that had the greatest impact on me this year. These are the books that I couldn’t put down, yet put down deliberately so I could savor them and make them last just a little bit longer!
In no particular order:
Room, by Emma Donoghue. This author never fails to amaze me. People seem to either love or hate this book; I’m in the love camp.
Arctic Chill, by Arnaldur Indriðason. I’ve been reading a lot of Scandinavian mysteries / thrillers lately. This one is translated from the Icelandic and features the detective Erlendur Sveinsson. This is the fifth book in the series, and it’s fantastic. There’s a bleakness to the writing, which to me reflects the bleakness of the landscape. Erlendur is obsessed with missing persons cases, in particular people who disappear into the Icelandic interior never to be seen again. I just got Hypothermia, the most recent Erlendur novel to be translated into English, as a Christmas present, and I can’t wait to read it!
Fever of the Bone, by Val McDermid. I love me some Val McDermid, and I love me some Tony Hill. This was another great entry in the Wire in the Blood series.
The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins. I’ve always been drawn to postapocalyptic / dystopian settings (The Road, A Canticle for Leibowitz, The City of Ember are others I’ve read–or reread–in the last couple of years). This particular book drew me in and I can’t wait to finish the series.
The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak. This is the best book I’ve read in years. If you haven’t already, read it.
So there you have it 
Happy new year, everyone!
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