Tis the season of the list. Here's ours for the top ten books of the year!
1. 'A Thousand Splendid Suns' by Khaled Hosseini
The story of the unconquerable spirit of a people seen through the eyes of two indomitable women.
2. 'Body Surfing' by Anita Shreve
At the age of 29, Sydney has already been once divorced and once widowed. Now she has answered an ad to tutor the teenage daughter of a well-to-do couple as they spend a sultry summer in their oceanfront New Hampshire cottage.
3. 'Heart-Shaped Box' by Joe Hill
Readers who enjoy frightening themselves will enjoy Joe Hill's debut novel, 'Heart-Shaped Box.'
4. 'Marco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu' by Laurence Bergreen
An authoritative biography of one of the most enchanting figures in world history.
5. 'On Chesil Beach' by Ian McEwan
A slim novel poignantly describing the uncomfortable wedding night of a couple in 1963.
6. 'Psychogeography' by Will Self
55 essays culled from British author Will Self's eponymous "Independent" column and themed around an intimate acquaintance between Self and his environs.
7. 'The World Without Us' by Alan Weisman
Science writer Alan Weisman asks us to consider what it would look like if, by plague or divine rapture, the entire human race disappeared from the planet in his exhaustively researched 'The World Without Us.'
8. 'The Tin Roof Blowdown' by James Lee Burke
A mystery set amidst the anarchy that is New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.
9. 'The Yiddish Policemens' Union' by Michael Chabon
A murder-mystery speculative-history Jewish-identity noir chess thriller.
10. 'Then We Came to the End' by Joshua Ferris
What 'The Office' brought to television, what 'Office Space' brought to the movies, and what 'Dilbert' brought to comics, 'Then We Came to the End' brings to literature.
