For the very first time, Library Journal announces its top ten best books list reflecting fiction and nonfiction titles that stood out as the very best in 2010. The list—compiled with the input of librarians and LJ's stable of book reviewers—represents an assortment of books appropriate for a broad reading audience. Several of LJ's Book Review editors chronicled their deliberations on Twitter under the hash tag #bestbooks10.
"We can guarantee that each of these books offers a tremendous reading experience. Librarians—and booksellers—should feel confident in recommending them to their readers, suggesting them to book groups, and promoting them through a variety of venues. These are the books Americans will enjoy reading-and discussing," says Brian Kenney, Editorial Director, Library Journal and School Library Journal.
The following titles make up the inaugural top ten list:
American Terroir by Rowan Jacobsen (Bloomsbury)
By Nightfall by Michael Cunningham (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Freedom by Jonathan Franzen (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
How To Live, Or, a Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer by Sarah Bakewell (Other Press)
Room by Emma Donoghue (Little, Brown)
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (Crown)
The Passage by Justin Cronin (Ballantine)
The Tiger by John Vaillant (Knopf)
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson (Random)
Walker Evans Decade by Decade text by James Crump (Hatje Cantz)
"My colleagues and I aimed to identify the very best books. But I'm pleased that our final list offers a mix of both the usual suspects and dark horse contenders. Our top ten serves the dual purpose of recognizing deservedly celebrated marquee names as well as showcasing rising talents who may have gone unnoticed because of the sheer volume of books published," says Heather McCormack, LJ's Book Review Editor.
The full list, accompanied by approximately 20 notable titles and bests in genre fiction, how-to, and other genres (e.g., poetry, graphic novels, and memoir), will be published in the Nov. 18, 2010, installment of BookSmack!, LJ's twice-monthly e-newsletter, and in the December print issue.
Reader Comments (6)
Blah...parochial, middlebrow blandness all around.
Most glaring omissions from your "Top Ten" of 2010:
1. Mathias Enard - Zone (Officially not published until December 14, according to Open Letter's own site, but Amazon is already shipping it. Kudos to translator Charlotte Mandell for her work with such a demanding text. This novel makes the likes of Franzen look like tame small-fry fiction, i.e. the sleep-inducing "Writer's Workshop" prose that dominates American fiction these days.
2. Robert Walser - Microscripts (Beautiful facsimile edition of stuff mostly unavailable before in English translation)
3. Zbigniew Herbert - Collected Prose (Much appreciated coming on the heels of his Collected Poetry in English a few years ago. Much of the stuff here previously unavailable in English)
4. Gert Jonke - The Distant Sound (Dalkey Archive brings out the first ever English translation, though this great novel was first published in German over 30 years ago!)
5. Vasily Grossman - The Road and Everything Flows (The first a collection of short stories, journalism, and essays, most of which were previously unavailable in English; the later a much needed new translation of his great novel "for the drawer" that never saw the light of day while Grossman was alive. Everything Flows is even better, I think, and certainly more formally inventive, than Life & Fate; technically published in 2009, but actual release was delayed until several months into 2010, so I'm including it here too. Kudos to Robert Chandler for his great translation work and to NYRB Classics for getting so much great Grossman stuff back into print in beautiful editions.)
Posted by Dennis on November 5, 2010 01:16:02AM
New translations and compilations aren't usually the point of a list of a year's best books, and I doubt many financially strapped libraries will be carrying those.
Of the books I've read from Amazon's top 100 list, The Tiger is the only one I've read that I actually enjoyed so I'm glad to see it here. On the other hand, I thought The Passage was terrible. Hadn't heard of American Terroir before and will be checking that out--thanks for the tip.
Posted by jd103 on November 5, 2010 07:55:50AM
A bit of a description or excerpt from an LJ review would have been useful.
Posted by Tammi on November 11, 2010 01:48:49PM
I'm interesting in finding some information on Literacy for my assignment...Can you help Me?
Posted by Ida Bradley on November 18, 2010 12:35:18AM
I would add one more important book of 2010...
Check out: NONE OF US WERE LIKE THIS BEFORE
It earned a lot of critical acclaim in Europe - which is how I learned about it -
but hasn't earned a lot of attention here. But it is absolutely, positively one of
the most gripping, thoughtful, moving books I have read in a very long time.
Posted by Jonah on December 12, 2010 02:08:30PM
NONE OF US WERE LIKE THIS BEFORE - a truly great book.
WALKER EVANS - is also quite good
