Traditions.  We all have them – but is there really any tradition as fine as the end of the year list?  As we get ready to move on into the next year, it is customary to wrap up the waning year in tidy, easy to digest packages.  The human drive to compartmentalize kicks into high gear right around Thanksgiving and continues on through the end of the year, leaving us with a warm fuzzy feeling about the year.  On the other hand, maybe it's the hot buttered rum causing that fuzzy feeling…either way, I've collected a few interesting book lists for your viewing pleasure.

 

Quills Book Awards

 

The Quill Award is a new literary award offered for the first time in 2005.  As stated on the Quills Literacy Foundation website, The Quill Award is

 

A new book award program that pairs a populist sensibility with Hollywood-style glitz to bestow the first literary prizes reflecting the tastes of the people who matter most--readers. The Quills celebrates the best books of the year in nineteen popular categories, ranging from romance to biography to graphic novels and beyond.

 

Not surprisingly, the book of the year winner was the latest Harry Potter offering (I expect it will top many end of the year lists for 2005, whether it was really the best book or not).  Some of the other winners include The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents America: A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction (Humor and Audio Book), The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror by Christopher Moore (Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror), and Peace is the Way: Bringing War and Violence to an End by Deepak Chopra (Religion/Spirituality).

 

Amazon Top 50 Books of 2005

 

Amazon.com has become one of the world's largest booksellers.  Whether you like them or not, if you're interested in book lists then it's worth visiting their website.  Not only can you see their top 50 books of 2005 (see below), you can also access thousands of lists created by customers on every topic imaginable.  Beware – if you start looking through those lists, you may lose hours of your time without realizing it!  For now, we'll stick with the top books of 2005 lists; I'll share the top ten in each list with you.  I always like to compare the "literary" lists against the sales lists, though it might be noted that books released late in the year might not top the customer's list.  Do you really think the just released The Complete Calvin and Hobbes won't be a huge seller?  Not I.  I predict it will top the charts for 2006.  I also note that the only book in either list that I've read is Harry Potter.  I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not.

 

Editor's Picks

• The Year of Magical Thinking – Joan Didion
• Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close – Jonathan Safran Foer
• Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything – Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner
• Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life – Amy Krouse Rosenthal
• My Friend Leonard – James Frey
• Oh the Glory of It All – Sean Wilsey
• Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro
• The History of Love: a Novel – Nicole Krauss
• The Complete Calvin and Hobbes – Bill Watterson
• The World is Flat: a Brief History of the Twenty-First Century – Thomas L. Friedman

 

Customer's Picks

• Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (Book Six) – J. K. Rowling
• YOU: the Owner's Manual : an Insider's Guide to the Body That Will Make You Healthier and Young – Michael F. Roizen, Mehmet Oz
• The World is Flat: a Brief History of the Twenty-First Century – Thomas L. Friedman
• Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything – Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner
• Blink: the Power of Thinking Without Thinking – Malcom Gladwell
• 1776 – David McCulluogh
• Eldest (Inheritance, Book 2) – Christopher Paolini
• French Women Don't Get Fat: the Secret of Eating for Pleasure – Mireille Guiliano
• Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed – Jared Diamond
• On Bullshit – Harry G. Frankfurt

 

 

There's more to a book than what's written inside.  And let's be honest – we all judge books by their covers.  Do not deny it.  It seems that several people have taken book cover criticism to a new level, and their collections on the web provide many laughs and even a little insight. 

 

Bad Book Covers

 

An internet entity known only as Punk Rock Penguin has put together her (his?) collection of 70 hideous book covers – and some mighty scary titles, too.  PRP provides some snarky commentary for each title.  Just a sample:

• The Licking Valley Coon Hunter's Club
• Touch of Fancy
• Beyond the Time Barrier

 

Worst romance Novel Cover Contest

2002, 2003, 2004

 

What is it about romance novels that make them so easy to poke fun at?  Could it be the ridiculous cover art that seems to adorn the majority of them?  Each year All About Romance makes their selections for the best romance cover art and the worst.  Again, this site is full of snarky commentary to go along with the year's winners.  I can't wait for the 2005 results!

 

Longmire Does Romance Novels

 

The internet is a wonderful place for finding obscure creative and humorous talent that would have previously gone unknown to the world.  Mr. Longmire is just one of those people – and his talent for mocking romance novel covers will keep you coming back for more when you need a good laugh.  Though this isn't really a list of books you might want to read, I couldn't help but to add it here.  My favorite titles have to be The Legend of the Totally Lost Mountie and Lord of the Hissy-fit.

 

The 12 Dumbest Covers of American Comic Books

 

The 25 All Time Greatest Covers of American Comic Books

 

Atlas Comics of Norridge, Illinois, has compiled their selection of the best and worst comic book covers of all time.  From their introduction to the collection:

 

The comic book cover--along with her stylistic antecedent, the Pulp cover--is one of America's most instantly satisfying pictorial entertainments. Precisely because of their need to appeal to an unsophisticated audience, they are often shocking, lurid, exciting, powerful, grotesque or titillating. As a result they elicit an immediate response from the reader, one which eschews the intellectual reaction so often required of other visual arts.

 

Compiling these lists must have been quite a feat!  Most of the covers are older, from the 40's and 50's.  Publishers relied much more on the cover art to sell their comic books than they do today, and thus focused more on producing exciting artwork.  Of course, as you can see with the worst covers, they weren't always successful!

 

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For the last ten months, I've been sharing with you many books that I've enjoyed reading, either recently or even when I was young.  Rather than rehash the same information, I decided to get some input from my family, friends, and coworkers about the best books they read in 2005.  I asked for dislikes, too, but the consensus is most people don't finish books they don't like.  No surprise there – time is valuable!  Each of our guest reviewers provided me with their thoughts, and aside from minor editing I've left them as is.  Enjoy!

 

Carter, Library Public Services Associate

Memory of Running by Ron McLarty – Friendless alcoholic Smithy Ide considers himself a loser until a tragic family event prompts him to set off on an epic cross-country bicycle journey that may change his life.  You will laugh, cry, and maybe even cheer as Smithy journeys toward possible redemption.

 

Charlie, Currently free from the fetters of employment

 

Breakup by Dana Stabenow - Kate Shugak is an Alaskan Aleut.  She is the former agent of the state's District Attorney's office, but has resigned to lve in the bush near her extended family.  When spring comes to Alaska and the ice starts to break up, madness sets in.  Grizzlies, moose, neighbors and murderers all run amok and star in a rioutous romp with distinctively black overtones.

Chris, Small Business Owner

Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin – when I read it, and it took me three times to get through it, I felt like I'd been hit in the face with a tree branch that nobody had managed to scrape the bark off of.  I felt something raw and visceral, believable and obscene, and for whatever reason I found that place to be home.

 

Lisa, Library Public Services Associate Substitute

White Trilogy by Ken Bruen – I discovered this author through a recommendation of a co-worker.  What a find this was.  Set in Galway, Ireland, Jack White is a Private Investigator who uses his unique insights and experiences to solve crimes.  The pure Irishness of the conversation in these titles is a treat, though one doesn't need a special dictionary to get through it.  The chapters are short and snappy while totally riveting.  With many twists and turns, Bruen shows why he is beloved of his fellow mystery writers such as Ian Rankin and their peers.

 

Marie, Library Public Services Associate

Portuguese Irregular Verbs by Alexander McCall Smith – follows the exploits of a German Philology professor – need I say more?  Hilarious.

 

The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo – the story of a smaller than average mouse with extraordinary skills:  he's brave, enjoys music, and he can read!  When the princess (whom Despereaux loves) is kidnapped, Despereaux must save her.  This is a wonderful story about love, perfidy, forgiveness, and soup.

 

Hated:  The Pilot's Wife by Anita Shreve – let's just put society as it relates to women back 100 years.  There is a big difference between forgiveness and being a doormat to your man.  Drudgery.

 

Nolan, Middle School Student

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury – This book shows our future if we don't so something about technology soon.  It's a creepy book, yet quite realistic.  The lesson is don't watch TV too much, and that books are a good thing.  I loved it!

 

Sydney, Web Writer

Promiscuities by Naomi Wolf - Naomi Wolf has taken an anecdotal approach to evaluating the secret history of female desire with her book, Promiscuities. Through conversation with her friends and by telling her own coming of age story Wolf reveals the winding history of female sexuality through time. The bulk of anecdotal experience is centered in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, circa 1969. However, she does cover many historical references to female sexuality and the prevailing social standards regarding women and sex. There is a lingering fear that surrounds the word "sexuality" and even more so around the world "promiscuity." I found, though I grew up more than 20 years later, most of her experiences were comparable to my own experience growing up in America. Feminism. AIDS. Media. All these things have impacted they way we look at sex. And in effect, have left huge gaps of confusion when it comes to morality and spirituality in a society where women are both lauded and debased for expressing sexuality.

 

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Newsweek billed it as "A love story of astonishing power and delicious comedy," from the back cover of the book. It is a love story, but not in the conventional sense. It is an unrequited love story, as the theme of love unreturned surfaces time and time again through out the story. It is the story of a woman pursued from the first buds of puberty to the sour smell of old age by one man. For fifty-three years, seven months and eleven days and nights he does nothing but obsess over the woman. Marquez writes with so much detail that, while the story does move forward, it seems to trudge along. Also, the primary characters were weak, failing and somewhat despicable. However, their faults were familiar, and in seeing myself in their foibles I fell in love with them. This book was thick, descriptive, and full of nooks and crannies. It leave you feeling pushed over by the wonder and sorrow of love. "With her Florentino Ariza learned what he had already experience many times without realizing it: that one can be in love with several people at the same time, feel the same sorrow with each, and not betray any of them. Alone in the midst of the crowd on the pier, he said to himself in a flash of anger: 'My heart has more rooms than a whorehouse.'"–pg. 270

 

Toni Kay, Library Public Services Associate and Page Supervisor

Specimen Days by Michael Cunningham – This book is actually collection of three novellas, all tied together by the poetry of Walt Whitman.  They take place in the past, the "sort-of" present, and the future, yet each has the same set of characters.  Very different than anything I've read, and as good as The Hours, also by Cunningham.

 

For my part, I'd have to say the best books I read this year were Magyk, Septimus Heap Book One by Angie Sage (children's fiction), Dies the Fire by S. M. Stirling (fiction), and Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer (nonfiction); each reviewed in previous month's columns.  I'm looking forward to a new year of good books and can't wait to share my finds with you.

 

Peace, blessings, and good wishes for a happy holiday season and a wonderful year ahead.