Here is a list of the top ten editorial picks, each accompanied by a quote from Amazon’s editorial review:
- Let the Great World Spin, Colum McCann: “All their lives are ordinary and unforgettable, overlapping at the edges, occasionally converging. And when they coalesce in the final pages, the moment hums with such grace that its memory might tighten your throat weeks later.”
- Strength in What Remains, Tracy Kidder: “Deo’s terrible journey makes his story a hard one to tell; his tirelessly hopeful but clear-eyed efforts make it a gripping and inspiring one to read.”
- Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel: “Mantel plots with a sleight of hand, making full use of her masterful grasp on the facts without weighing down her prose…. [T]he witty, whip-smart lines volleying the action forward may convince you a short stay in the Tower of London might not be so bad… provided you could bring a copy of Wolf Hall along.”
- Brooklyn, Colm Tóibin: “Colm Tóibín’s spare portrayal of this contemplative girl is achingly lovely, and every sentence rings with truth…. Tóibín’s haunted heroine glows on the page, unforgettably and lovingly rendered, and her story reflects the lives of so many others exiled from home.”
- Beautiful Creatures, Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl (coming out in December): “Beautiful Creatures is a delicious southern Gothic that charms you from the first page, drawing you into a dark world of magic and mystery until you emerge gasping and blinking, wondering what happened to the last few hours.”
- Crazy for the Storm, Norman Ollestad: “The story itself could take your breath away … but Ollestad is wise and talented enough to focus his story on the essentials, cutting elegantly back and forth between a moment-by-moment account of the crash and his memories of the difficult but often idyllic year leading up to it.”
- The Girl Who Played with Fire, Stieg Larsson: “Fans of Larsson’s prior work will find even more to love here, and readers who do not find their hearts racing within the first five pages may want to confirm they still have a pulse.”
- The City & the City, China Mieville: “What the two cities share, and what they don’t, is the deliciously evocative conundrum at the heart of China Mieville’s The City & The City…. Mieville creates a world both fantastic and unsettlingly familiar, whose mysteries don’t end with the solution of a murder.”
- Stitches, David Small (the one on our list we share with PW‘s top 10): “Early memories (and difficult ones, too) often seem less like words than pictures we play back to ourselves…. In every drawing, David Small shows us moments both real and imagined—some that are guileless and funny and wonderfully sweet, many others that are dark and fearful—that unveil a very talented artist, stitches and all.”
- The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, William Kamkwamba: “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind is an inspiring story of an indomitable will that refused to bend to doubt or circumstance. When the world seemed to be against him, William Kamkwamba set out to change it.”
So, I’ve not read a single title on this list… and I read a LOT!! So, a couple of questions… I’m planning to read the first on the list (because it is first), but was disappointed in last year’s number one choice The Northern Clemency. What other titles on this list should I be sure to read? Also, anyone want to guess what the top “Readers’ Choices” were?
I’ve not read any of these books either but am on the waiting list for the Man Booker winner, Mantel’s Wolf Hall. I read a lot, too, but more mainstream titles, I guess!
Thank you for weighing in, Virginia! I’m waiting for Wolf Hall too — loooong list at my library!