Best 10 Books of 2009

2009 produced many fine books. As every year there are a number of lists with people's expostulations about what they feel are the best reads of the past year. While my knowledge is by no means comprehensive; here, in no particular order, is my list of the top 10 books from 2009.

The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science by Richard Holmes (Publication Date: 7/16/09 - Publisher: Pantheon). Historical texts are always fascinating because they take the reader to an entire other time and try to place you in the same mind frame. Richard Holmes, with his The Age of Wonder takes us back to Britain and the revelations about the beauty which new information influx brings as well as the terror which was elicited.

The Cry of the Sloth by Sam Savage (10/31/09 -- Coffee House) Writers are an increasingly introverted set of folks. Of course everyone's heard the saying "write what you know" - so the stage is set in Cry of the Sloth. Sam Savage tells the story of a writer consumed by dread and the writings in this novel are of a very particular sort; it's a writer (Savage) writing a novel about an editor of a lit magazine who writes letters responding to the bad writing he gets. Whimsical, fantastic, ridiculous.

Stitches by David Small (9/8/09 - Norton) Stitches is sort of a genre specific work but one which resonated with this former comic book collector. An autobiographical account of Small's own childhood, Stitches attempts to give voice to the voiceless in painstaking detail.

Ravens by George Dawes Green (7/15/09 -- Grand Central) From the author of The Juror comes this wrenching depiction of two con men holding a family hostage in rural Georgia. Ravens is the story of ordinary people in extreme circumstances. Of course money is the object and the stakes are big; in the hundreds of millions. The bumbling of these thieves and the exploits altogether will tickle the funny bone while giving you the willies.