nomadreader

2010 was a wonderful year of reading. I wanted to be a deliberate reader, and looking back on the books I read this year, I'm quite pleased with the quality of them. I stuck to literary fiction for the most part. I tried to read from the award lists, and I discovered many of these books on the award lists. Without further ado, here are my favorite books of 2010 (when I made my list, there happened to be ten!)  All the books I read in 2010 were eligible regardless of when the books were published. (Clicking on the links will take you to my full, original review. Clicking on the book cover will take you to it's page on Amazon.) 10. Trespass  by Rose Tremain (longlisted for the 2010 Booker Prize) I will remember 2010 as the year I finally read Rose Tremain. This hauntingly beautiful novel has stayed with me. Favorite passage: "Even here, where life went along more slowly than in England, she could sense the restless agitation people felt to make real and tangible to the...

There's been so much talk about reading deliberately this year. For me, the focus has been on the awards lists, but I've also tried to balance those with other new releases I think are award-worthy.  As a true list-lover, my first plans for 2011 reading are to read the Best of the Year lists. As a liberal, academic northeasterner, my go-to list is, of course, The New York Times . When their Top 10 Reads of 2010 were announced earlier this week, I was amazed. The Top 5 Fiction are: Freedom  by Jonathan Franzen The New Yorker Stories  by Ann Beattie Room  by Emma Donoghue Selected Stories  by William Trevor A Visit from the Goon Squad  by Jennifer Egan As someone who used to begin her goals with the New York Times  Top5 Fiction list, it feels amazing to have already read the three novels on the list. I'm rather ambivalent about short stories collections, so those may not even make it onto my list of books to read. As rewarding as it is ...

The backstory: I heard Jennifer Egan speak at Book Expo America in May, and I was fascinated to hear about her writing process. She writes fiction in longhand and non-fiction on the computer. ( A Visit from the Goon Squad  has gone on to win the  National Book Critics Circle Award , the Pulitzer Prize , and be longlisted for the Orange Prize .) The basics: A Visit from the Goon Squad is the story of Bennie Salazar, a record executive, and Sasha, his troubled young assistant. Truthfully, though, there is nothing basic about this novel, and no brief synopsis can begin to express its scope. My thoughts: This book pulled me out of my mediocre reading slump. It captivated me from the first sentence: "It began in the usual way, in the bathroom of the Lassimo Hotel." The first chapter introduces us to Sasha, and the humor and wit of Egan's writing is entrancing: "Coz liked the couch, he'd told her, because it relieved them both of the burden of eye contact. '...

  Jill at Breaking the Spine hosts Waiting on Wednesday each week to encourage book bloggers to spotlight an eagerly anticipated upcoming release.   My pick this week is A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, author of The Keep , Look At Me , The Invisible Circus , and Emerald City (short stories). Here's what the publisher has to say: Jennifer Egan’s spellbinding new work circles Bennie Salazar, an aging former punk rocker and record executive, and Sasha, the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Bennie and Sasha never discover each other’s pasts, but the reader does, in intimate detail, along with the secret lives of a host of other people whose paths intersect with theirs in the San Francisco 1970s music scene, the demimonde of Naples, New York at many points along the way from the pre-Internet nineties to a postwar future, and on a catastrophic safari into the heart of Africa. We meet Lou, Bennie’s charismatic, careless mentor; Scotty, the ...