Sunday, April 25, 2010

Best of 2010, Update 16

I'm still finding it difficult to snatch even a few minutes a day of any kind of internet time, much less enough time to post something here on Book Chase. It's times like these I wish I had a blog partner to take up some of the slack. I've been so busy lately trying to get my father situated in his new home and shutting down things at his house that my reading time was almost zero several days last week - there were days I read less than 20 pages...can't remember the last time that happened.

I have managed, though, to read three novels and the book on Jane Austen since my last update of the Top 10 lists. There will be only one change to the fiction list, however, since neither Still Midnight nor Roadside Crosses can beat out any of the books already on the list. Drood enters the fiction list near the top and Jane's Fame fits nicely into the nonfiction list at number three.

So this is what the fiction list looks like after 31 fiction books read:

1. Cutting for Stone - Abraham Verghese (novel)
2. Matterhorn - Karl Marlantes (Vietnam War novel)
3. The Calligrapher's Daughter - Eugenia Kim (novel)
4. Remarkable Creatures - Tracy Chevalier (historical fiction)

5. Drood - Dan Simmons (historical fiction)
6. A Fair Maiden - Joyce Carol Oates (novel)
7. The Samaritan's Secret - Matt Beynon Rees (detective fiction)
8. Homer & Langley - E.L. Doctorow (novel)
9. The Man from Saigon - Marti Leimbach (Vietnam War novel)
10. Lay Down My Sword and Shield - James Lee Burke (1971 novel)


And the nonfiction list is finally a Top 10:
1. Lies My Mother Never Told Me - Kaylie Jones (memoir)
2. Man of Constant Sorrow - Ralph Stanley & Eddie Dean (biography)
3. Jane's Fame - Claire Harman (on the evolution of Jane Austen's reputation)
4. The Opposite Field - Jesse Katz - (memoir)
5. The Tennis Partner - Abraham Verghese (1998 memoir)
6. Game Change - John Heilemann & Mark Halperin (political nonfiction)
7. Top of the Order - Sean Manning, Ed. (baseball essays)
8. Goosetown: Reconstructing an Akron Neighborhood - Joyce Dyer (memoir)
9. Never Tell Our Business to Strangers - Jennifer Mascia (memoir)
10. Highest Duty - Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger (memoir)

2 comments:

  1. Everything will settle down soon. You're doing what you need to do...and your loyal readers understand -- even if we miss you!

    p.s. I found a bio of Hank Williams. Yes, I bought it. Looks great!

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  2. Thanks for the encouragement and kind words. I'm in a brief lull right now waiting on paperwork to show up and the estate sale we have tentatively schedule for Saturday after next.

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