Dec
30
It’s time once again to reflect on the past year and overindulge in some end-of-year, best of 2009 book lists.
Each publication sets its own criteria for determining the best books. Some have a panel of editors making the choices, others go by what books sold the best and still others use a combination of methods.
For the most part, these lists are compiled from books published in 2009 aimed at adult audiences. Most publications release separate lists for children’s and YA literature.
- Amazon.com has its two annual lists, one from the editors and one from the customers. Amazon editors named Colum McCann’s National Book Award-winning novel, Let the Great World Spin as its best of the year, while the customers chose Dan Brown’s latest Robert Langdon, The Lost Symbol.
- Publisher’s Weekly came out with it’s list of the best 100 of the year in November and created controversy with a top 10 that didn’t include any women. Nevertheless, the top 10 did include National Book Award finalists Stitches (David Small) and In Other Rooms, Other Wonders (Daniyal Mueenuddin) as well as the best-selling Await Your Reply (Dan Chaon).
- Entertainment Weekly also came up with two lists – one from the editors and one from guest columnist Stephen King. For the editors, Mueenuddin’s In Other Rooms…was the top fiction of the year, while Dave Eggers’ Zeitoun claimed the nonfiction spot.
- The New York Times best of 2009 list included some now-familiar names: Await Your Reply, In Other Rooms…, Let the Great World Spin, Sag Harbor, Wolf Hall and John Updike’s final book, My Father’s Tears.
- Meanwhile, Time Magazine continued with its endless list of top 10 lists by offering up its take on the year’s best books. Among the top fiction choices were In Other Rooms…and Wolf Hall as well as Suzanne Collins’ Catching Fire, the only YA/children’s lit book to make a top 10 of the year list outside of lists specifically aimed at YA/children’s lit.
- Finally, it wouldn’t be a proper round-up of “best of…” lists without input from Oprah. She offered her list of the most terrific books of 2009, giving praise to Zeitoun and Say You’re One of Them.
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