Books we liked in 2010
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Jonathan Franzen, shown during a Nov. 19 interview on "The Oprah Winfrey Show," leads many critics 2010 best lists with his novel, "Freedom." Ms. Winfrey picked it as her 64th book club selection.
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The "best books of the year" lists were getting too predictable this year -- all "Freedom," all the time -- so I'm trying something different to sum up 2010 in books.
I've polled a cross section of the reading public, a selection of Post-Gazette book reviewers as well as dedicated readers, seeking their favorite books of the year.
Of course, "Freedom" was on several lists, but that's understandable. It's on mine as well.
The question was simple: What did you enjoy reading this year? That's it and here are the responses:
It was a very good year for fine books. I've narrowed my selections to these:
"The Publisher: Henry Luce and His American Century" by Alan Brinkley. Knopf ($35).
"Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print and Power" by James McGrath Morris. Harper ($29.99).
"Murder City: Ciudad Juarez and the Global Economy's New Killing Fields" by Charles Bowden. Nation Books ($27.50).
"Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family's Feuds" by Lyndall Gordon. Viking ($32.95).
"Merchants of Doubt" by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway. Bloomsbury Press. ($27)
"Cultures of War" by John W. Dower. Norton/New Press ($29.95).
"The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America's Childhood" by Jane Leavy. Harper ($27.99).
"A Secret Gift: How One Man's Kindness -- And a Trove of Letters -- Revealed the Hidden History of the Great Depression" by Ted Gup. Penguin Press ($25.95).
"The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration" by Isabel Wilkerson. Random House ($30).
"The Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR's Great Supreme Court Justices" by Noah Feldman. Twelve ($30).
"The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer" by Siddhartha Mukherjee. Scribner ($30).
"Freedom" by Jonathan Franzen. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ($28).
"Union Atlantic" by Adam Haslett. Nan Talese/Doubleday ($26).
"Fragile Beasts" by Tawni O'Dell. Shaye Areheart Books ($25).
"A Visit From the Goon Squad" by Jennifer Egan. Knopf ($25.95).
"My Hollywood" by Mona Simpson. Knopf ($26.95).
"Great House" by Nicole Krauss. Norton ($24.95).
"By Nightfall" by Michael Cunningham. Farrar, Straus and Giroux ($25).
Jay Dantry, retired owner of Jay's Bookstall in Oakland:
"Losing Mum and Pup: A Memoir" by Christopher Buckley. The only child of William F. and Pat Buckley Jr. wrote a remembrance of his unusual parents after their deaths.
"Talk Show" by Dick Cavett. Host of the best TV talk show on American airwaves collects his commentary from the New York Times website.
"Grant Wood: A Life" by R. Tripp Evans. Painter of "American Gothic" had his own gothic life.
"Finishing the Hat" by Stephen Sondheim. Broadway's major composer-lyricist shows how he did it.
"I Remember Nothing" by Nora Ephron. Humorist faces old age.
Leonard Barcousky, Post-Gazette staff writer and book reviewer:
Novelist Alan Furst tells mostly unhappy stories about Eastern and Central Europe just before and during World War II. The innocent and not-so-innocent usually find themselves trapped between Nazis and Communists, often with tragic results. That makes his "Spies of the Balkans" unusual in that his major characters on the side of the angels survive. It is my favorite thriller of 2010.
My favorite nonfiction book is "FDR's Funeral Train" by first-time author Robert Klara. It is a day-by-day account of critical events and personal crises between Franklin Roosevelt's death from a stroke April 12, 1945, and his funeral three days later.
While "Washington: A Life" is the size of a doorstop, the biography by Ron Chernow is an easy read. I loved the details about Washington's early life and his relations with his domineering mother.
In "Travels in Siberia," Ian Frazier writes a cranky love letter to an isolated, gigantic landmass made up of equal parts of ice, mosquitoes, trash and unlikely but true stories.
First Published December 22, 2010 12:00 am
