Books 2008

Books I've enjoyed this year...

1. The Dressmaker - Elizabeth Birkelund Oberbeck
2. The Traveling Horn player - Barbara Trapido
3. Mosquito - Roma Tearne (loved it!)
4. Septembers of Shiraz - Dalia Sofer (wonderfully told)
5. Tall Grass - Sandra Dallas (I have enjoyed her other books too)
6. A Golden Age - Tahamima Anam (great read, first of trilogy; won Commonwealth First Novel award 2008)
7. People of the Book - Geraldine Brooks (interesting story)
8. The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen - Syrie James (ok for JA fans)
9. Gods behaving badly - Marie Phillips (very funny & very interesting concept!)
10. The house at Riverton - Kate Morton (really enjoyed this)
11. Mister Pip - Lloyd Jones
12. The Outlander - Gil Adamson (loved it; slow to start but what a surprise heroine! Also won prize for first novel)
13. In the Dark - Deborah Maggach
14. My Best Friend's Girl - Dorothy Koomson
15. Blood from Stone - Francis Fyfield (great British crime novelist)
16. The Host - Stephanie Meyer (never read her other books; surprised myself at liking this one a lot - interesting concept)
17. Garden Spells - Sarah Addison Allen (very sweet; sometimes we all want something simple & sweet to brighten the day)
18. April In Paris - Michael Wallner
19. The Reapers - John Connolly (First JC novel I've read; I was hooked; have now read a lot of his previous but 'this is probably my fav still - humour is dark & bittersweet)
20. Austenland - Shannon Hale (again for JA fan, it's just silly fun)
21. Death comes for the fat man - Reginald Hill (a Dalziel & Pascoe latest)
22. Absolution - Caro Ramsay (new Scottish crime novelist - will look forward to next in series)
23. The cellist of Sarajevo - Steven Galloway (written by a local 'boy' - actually university professor; very good)
24. East of the Sun - Julia Gregson (armchair travel to India in 1920's - lush, epic)
25. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows (FAVourite book of the year - loved it; wrote it in my blog Oct 13)
26. When will there be good news? - Kate Atkinson
27. The Good Thief - Hannah Tinti
28. The Opposite of Love - Julie Babaum
29. A Guide to the Birds of East Africa, a Novel - Nicholas Drayson
30. Alice's Tulips - Sandra Dallas
31. The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga

Books 2007 & earlier

In no particular order, books I've enjoyed...

1. The Memory Keeper's Daughter - Kim Edwards
2. The Girls - Lori Lansens
3. Year of Wonder - Geraldine Brooks
4. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen - Paul Torday
5. The Book Thief - Markus Zusak
6. The reluctant Fundamentalist - Mohsin Hamid
   
7. Eat, Pray, Love - Elizabeth Gilbert
8. Astrid & Veronika - Linda Olsson
   
9. The Con juror's Bird - Martin Davies
10. The Highest Tide - Jim Lynch
11. Case Histories - Kate Atkinson
12. One Good Turn - Kate Atkinson
13. The Attack - Yasmina Khadra
14. Sky Burial - Xinran
15. The Secret River - Kate Grenville
16. Three Day Road - Joseph Boyden
17. The Thirteenth Tale - Diane Setterfield
18. The Observations - Jane Harris
19. Tokyo - Mo Hayder
20. Charms for the easy Life - Kay Gibbons
21. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
22. Nectar from a Stone - Jane Guill
23. Devoted - Alice Borchardt
24. Beguiled - Alice Borchardt
25. Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman
26. The Historian - Elizabeth Kostova
27. Knitting, a novel - Anne Bartlett
28. Night - Elie Wiesel
29. Serving Crazy with Curry - Amulya Malladi
30. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
31. Vengeance - George Jonas
32. A long way down - Nick Hornby
33. Pomegranate Soup - Marsha Mehran
34. Beasts of No Nation - Uzaodinma Iweala
35. Above Suspicion - Lynda La Plante
36. The Grave Tattoo - Val McDermid
37. The Devils' Star - Jo Nesbo
38. Melted into Air - Sandi Toksvig
39. The return of the dancing master - Henning Mankell
40. The naming of the dead - Ian Rankin
41. The book of Lost things - John Connolly
42. The Red Dahlia - Lynda La Plante
43. Entwined - Lynda La Plante
44. Treading Water - Anne De Grace
45. Restless - William Boyd
46. Find Me - Carol O'Connell
47. The Book of Negroes - Lawrence Hill
48. Eve Green - Susan Fletcher
49. The whistling season - Ivan Doig
50. Stardust - Neil Gaiman
51. Three Bags Full - Leonie Swann
52. Exit Music - Ian Rankin
53. Peace begins with me - Ted Kuntz
54. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
55. The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver
56. Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt
57. Recipe for Bees - Sue Monk Kidd
58. The Enchanted April -
    
59. Like Water for Chocolate - Laura Esquivel
    
60. Chocolat - Joanne Harris
61. The Artist's Way - Julia Cameron
    

Series I enjoy:

• Inspector Rebus - Ian Rankin
• Mallory - Carol O'Connell
• anything by Lynda La Plante!
• Harry Potter!
  

The Classics

• Pride & Prejudice, Emma, Persuasion - Jane Austen
• The Lord of the Rings trilogy - JRR Tolkien
• Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
• David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
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