Best Blog Post for Book Addicts

Calling all book nerds: here's a mammoth list of Best Books of the Year lists. In fact, this blog attempts to find ALL best books lists and put them in one long list. Great for browsing, especially if you have a special interest (i.e. art books, inspirational fiction, or middle grade fiction).

Enjoy!

Winter Reading

A few of my librarian friends sent their "Seasons Readings" lists out last week, with great lists of books they have read in 2009. Since I don't keep year-long lists, I'll just give a shout to those books read and listened to over my Holiday holiday this year.

Books on CD that burned up the miles between Bigfork, Flesher Pass, Helena, Bozeman and Livingston included David Sedaris's When You are Engulfed in Flames (laugh out loud funny!) and Kaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns (heart wrenching). The novels I read included Dangerous Angels: the Weetzie Bat books (delightful!); Rennie Airth's The Dead of Winter (mystery set in WWII England); and Stieg Larsson's The Girl Who Played with Fire (nicely reviewed by Joan Smith here).

But the book that had the most profound effect on me these last two weeks was Jon Krakauer's Where Men Win Glory: the odyssey of Pat Tillman. Krakauer is an incredibly compelling writer, especially when the subject is difficult at best. Reading his account of the life and untimely death of Pat Tillman, I learned a lot about the causes of the wars in which we are currently engaged, and even more about the tribulations our soldiers face every day. It was interesting to listen to A Thousand Splendid Suns in conjuction with Where Men Win Glory; both portraits of Afghanistan and its people from wildly different perspectives.

I hope you were able to get some reading and listening in over the holidays. If not, pick up one of these; you won't be disappointed!

Book Recommendation: Identical Strangers

Ever wonder what it would be like to have a twin? Or what if you had a twin, but didn't know about it? That's what happened to twins Elise Shein and Paula Bernstein, who were separated as infants and reunited at age 35. They've co-written the book Identical Strangers: A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited. It's a fascinating account, full of information about the biology of twins, the nature vs. nurture debate, and adoption practices in the middle of the 20th century. The book also packs in a fair amount of suspense as the twins, once reunited, try to discover the identity and circumstances of their birth mother. Highly recommended; this is a totally engrossing read.