The Best Books I Read in 2008
It’s roundup time! It’s still January, right?
And here we have the best (and worst) titles of my 2008. More information can be found, of course, on the BookList 2008.
5 BookMarks
“The Time Traveler’s Wife” by Audrey Niffenegger. Two lovers are separated by memory and time. And yet not. I almost needed a flow chart to make it through the time traveling, but it was worth it. All about character, the meaning of love, fate, destiny and our influence on one another. It’s not as cheesy as I’m making it sound here. Promise.
“The Secret History” by Donna Tartt. (Why doesn’t Tartt have more novels? Donna Tartt, are you at this moment writing another? Please say yes.) This story of young elitist insular scholar-intellectuals is smart, smart, smart. Relatable yet alien. Appearance, reality, relationship. At college!
“Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” by Jonathan Safran Foer. This is a story about grief. Not great for mental health but a delicious piece of fiction. So here we have childhood, 9/11, German immigrants, Manhattan, parenthood, identity, love and death.
Kindling Award Winner
“You’ve Been Warned” by James Patterson and writing sidekick Howard Roughan. James Patterson and his co-author earned the somewhat glorious indignity of winning this year’s Kindling Award for worst book of my 2008. The novel bested 49 other rated titles on my BookList 2008 to earn the lowest score of 1 BookMark. Can’t say I remember anything about this book, but it must’ve been really bad to earn only 1 BookMark. Right?
hmmm, i didn’t like “the secret history” very much. what intrigued you about this book? i loved tartt’s “the little friend” though. one of my favorites.
love the award name for the worst book!
Oh, I LOVED “The Time Traveler’s Wife”! Loved it. LOVED IT!! Was at the top of my round-up list, too!
I thought “The Secret History” was very powerful, and got into my head a little too much. The energy, the way it made me feel – I almost couldn’t get it back to the library fast enough.
If you couldn’t remember anything about the book, it definitely deserves the kindling award.
I enjoyed the subject matter — smart kids at college, being an outsider. I also liked how Tartt wrote about the relationships — the hidden agendas, the unspoken, the unknown, the known, the guessed at. Kind of mysterious, introspective. Plus the intrigue of an unreliable narrator.