Mark's Book Blog: My Five Favorite Books Read in 2009

Thursday, December 31, 2009

My Five Favorite Books Read in 2009

In no particular order:

1. The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson (may he rest in peace). My favorite of the Millenium Trilogy probably because of the amount of action involving one of the truly unique and interesting characters in recent literature, Lizbeth Salander. My post on The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest will appear after the first of the year.

2. (Blogpost pending) A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. Beautifully written, funny, many thought-provoking themes, another unique character in Owen Meany. This one wins the 2009 prize for the book I'd most like to write about in a term paper.

3. (cheating) Shadow of the Wind and Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. Phenomenal translations from Spanish capture these stories taking place in Barcelona, Spain in the first half of the 1900s. I anxiously await additional Zafon works translated into English.

4. Game Six by Mark Frost. My favorite sports book read in 2009 in a photo finish, Game Six actually added to the lore of the so-called greatest World Series ever played. As a lifelong Reds fan, I actually found new "stuff" in this book. Other highly recommended sports books from 2009 are two relating to Magic and Bird, When the Game Was Ours and When March Went Mad.

5. Zeitoun by Dave Eggers. This work of non-fiction by the author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (post pending) (which has been named on a bunch of all decade lists) chronicles the experiences of one man and his family before, during and after Hurricane Katrina.

So that's my five. What are yours?

Live long, read and prosper.

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Mark's Book Blog

Welcome to Mark's Book Blog!

Why did I set this up? Several reasons.

1. I'm constantly asked for book recommendations. I often cannot remember what I've read recently and, consequently, struggle for a recommendation. This will keep me up to date.

2. We're all busy. Sometimes I forget what I liked and what I didn't like about a book I read a month or two ago. As a result, this blog commits me to memorialize a book shortly after reading the book.

3. I, too, want book recommendations from those I trust (so I may or may not read your recommendation). From this blog, you can see what I've liked--you may not like my taste, may never come back to the blog--that's ok. If, though, you like some or all of what I like, tell me. And, more importantly, tell me what else I'd like!

Here's my recommendation scale--I will rate all books I read (subject to my ability to rate a book that I stop reading for good reason). The recommendation scale has gone through many iterations since inception of the blog and is effective for all books recommended on or after December 29, 2009. For the recommendation scale applicable to books recommended prior to that time, go here.

This blog uses a "grading" system. In order to accomplish the blog's goal of "recommending" books, the grading scale works out like this:

A - Highly recommended

B - Recommended

C - OK, you might like it

D - A waste of time

F - A HUGE waste of time

If a book, let's say it's a sports-themed, non-fiction book, earns a recommendation in the "A" range, the blog post will note that the book is "Highly recommended for fans of [we'll just insert the sport of tonsil hockey here as a placeholder]." In other words, even an "A" recommendation may not be a book that I suggest you read. It depends on your tastes. Certainly some books in the "A" range will be recommended to all.

One other note. I am generally a stickler for grammar and punctuation (for using made-up words like "stickler," not so much). As I've stated in various posts, I am well aware that this blog does not utilize the well-established "underline book titles" convention. There are some places where book titles are in quotes. There are other places where book titles are merely capitalized. While I apologize in advance for being such a heathen as to ignore this convention, it bothers me. It really does. This is the kind of stuff that keeps me up nights. Seriously. I decided, however, about 50 posts in that I would make the lack of consistency in the identification of book titles the consistency for the site. Therefore and henceforth, I will utilize whatever convention I want in any willy nilly fashion I see fit.

Mark

Mark's Book Blog

Thursday, December 31, 2009

My Five Favorite Books Read in 2009

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