Best of Lists: New Favorites

The ReadingGroupGuides.com list of New Favorites is my favorite list yet. Over the last week I’ve browsed the Enduring Favorites and Ongoing Favorites and had read a number of books on both lists and had at least heard feedback from friends and readers about most of the others. But the New Favorites List is really wonderful; so many new titles to contemplate.
As it stands, I’ve only actually read three of the titles on the New Favorites list, and though it may sound trite – two of the three are actually on my own personal list of new favorites. They are:

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
And Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford

People of the Book is a sweeping, visual and personal tour through history via a rare book that has been saved and preserved and hidden and found again throughout time. It combines a modern day personal story with the many stories of the people who cared for and saved the book along its journey.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is also a modern story intertwined with a historical one, but in this case the history is of the Japanese interment in the US during WWII. The characters and scenery are so beautifully crafted. This is one of those books where you care so much about the characters that you cannot put it down.

The third book on the list that I have read is The Art of Racing in the Rain which I also really enjoyed. It was a quick read and should make for a good discussion. The story is told through the mind of the dog – which didn’t bother me at all, but I have heard from some readers that they didn’t like that.

Of the titles I haven’t read, I'm most curious about:

American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld, The Rest of Her Life by Laura Moriarty and Oxygen by Carol Cassella and I will definitely read The Help by Kathryn Stockett (I was kinda trying to wait for the paperback to come out – but I may have to give in!)

So – now that I have reviewed all the lists, I am overwhelmed with the amounting of reading I really want to do. But that’s a beautiful thing, right? I hope 2010 is a great year of reading for you and I look forward to being able to contribute to the lists next year!

-- Dana