LJ Best Books 2010: Our Inaugural Top Ten
By Bette-Lee Fox, Josh Hadro, Margaret Heilbrun, Barbara Hoffert, Anna Katterjohn, Raya Kuzyk, Heather McCormack, Michael Rogers, and Wilda Williams Nov 18, 2010For the first time in Library Journal's history, the Book Review staff has compiled a top ten list. The goal was to glean the very best the great publishing tsunami has to offer with the input of librarians and our trusty reviewers; the result is a mix of both the usual suspects and dark horse contenders. We hope it sparks debate—and circs—in your library
Bakewell, Sarah. How To Live: Or a Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer. Other. ISBN 9781590514252. $25.
Bakewell is a rare book cataloger for Britain's National Trust. We at LJ trust that means she has cataloged this one, that rarest of books, both profound and light of touch. Thanks to her, today's readers can encounter this 16th-century Frenchman who, in essaying to write about himself, wrote about us all. (LJ 9/1/10)
Cronin, Justin. The Passage. Ballantine. ISBN 9780345504968. $27.
And a little child shall save the world—that simple premise belies the complexity of this ambitious vampire saga. Skillfully blending elements of classic horror, biotech thrillers, and post-apocalyptic fiction with appealing characters, suspenseful storytelling, and bloodcurdling action, Cronin has written an intelligent, imaginative, and genuinely scary thriller that will grip even the most jaded reader. (LJ 4/1/10)
Crump, James (text) & Walker Evans (photogs.). Walker Evans: Decade by Decade. Hatje Cantz, dist by D.A.P. ISBN 9783775724913. $75.
Although there were many wonderful contenders in photography this year, Crump's volume on Evans stood out from the coffee-table pack not only because of its plethora of stunning pics—many little seen in recent years—but also owing to its story of Evans's rise, fall, and eventual resurrection, as dramatic and compelling as his art. A winning combination. (LJ 8/10)
Cunningham, Michael. By Nightfall. Farrar. ISBN 9780374299088. $25.
"What do you do when you're no longer the hero of your own story?" Nobody defines that jolting realization better than Cunningham, and he does it here with special grace. Showing us how New York City gallery owner Peter and his accomplished wife contend with her much younger, deeply affectless brother, Cunningham unerringly nails our deepest and most secret passions and weaknesses and our talent for committing to precisely the wrong thing. The language is astonishing. (LJ 8/10)
Donoghue, Emma. Room. Little, Brown. ISBN 9780316098335. $24.99.
The torn-from-the-headlines story of a young woman kidnapped, imprisoned, and sexually abused for years could have been graphic and gruesome, but Donoghue does something utterly different—and original. She tells her story from the beautifully realized perspective of five-year-old Jack, born of this abuse, thereby pulling us back to another place: that realm of a child's deep wonderment and a mother's deep love. (LJ 8/10)
Franzen, Jonathan.Freedom. Farrar. ISBN 9780312600846. $28.
What makes Walter and Patty Berglund stay together, and what pulls them apart? By examining decades in this couple's fraught marriage, Franzen shows how we repeatedly enact who we are—the title is ironic—while also capturing exactly the America we know and sometimes dread. Yet another iconic work from Franzen, who's admirably tough on his characters without being mean, told in hyperreal prose that comes on like a huge, rolling wave. (LJ 8/10)
Jacobsen, Rowan. American Terroir: Savoring the Flavors of Our Woods, Waters, and Fields. Bloomsbury, dist. by Macmillan. ISBN 9781596916487. $25.
Jacobsen opens the door to celebrating the food of the American continent with a mélange of natural history, travel narrative, biology, and recipes. From scraggly Geisha coffee trees clinging to a remote Panamanian mountain valley to the salts, minerals, and algae of the Totten Inlet that birth perfect Puget Sound oysters, this exploration of place eschews dietary prescription and admonition in favor of eating with passion. Down-to-earth, for real. (LJ 7/10)
Skloot, Rebecca. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Crown. ISBN 9781400052172. $26.
In the 21st century, we take biotechnology for granted; Skloot reveals its dark and unsettling beginnings by painstakingly constructing a biography of one Henrietta Lacks, an African American tobacco farmer whose "immortal" cancer cells were used without her family's consent to develop breakthroughs like the polio vaccine. Less a tale of popular science than a passionate protest for honoring the humanity in all of us. (LJ 12/09)
Vaillant, John. The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival. Knopf. ISBN 9780307268938. $26.95.
This deft recounting of the hunt for a Siberian tiger with a vendetta requires no previous knowledge of its bizarre Far East Russian setting. Vaillant's skill as a journalist and a stylist renders everything—the complex backdrop of post-communism, the titular character's anomalous behavior—a cool, smooth drink befitting James Bond. Readers will knock it back, never mind their hearts in their mouths. (LJ 6/15/10)
Wilkerson, Isabel. The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration. Random.ISBN 9780679444329. $30.
Like the best epical storytellers, Wilkerson grounds her narrative in character, making it intimate. Yet the journeys of Ida Mae Gladney from 1930s Mississippi, George Starling from 1940s Florida, and Robert Pershing Foster from 1950s Louisiana are not fiction. Wilkerson's intricately researched book tells profound truths about 20th-century black migration out of the Jim Crow South as well as the ongoing human drama of hope, resilience, and loss. (LJ Xpress Reviews, 9/16/10)
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