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Best books of 2009
Is it already time for end-of-the-year “best of” lists?
Movies, music, books – they all become grist for the mill in our attempt to reflect on what the last twelve months has meant.
The New York Times posted their “100 Notable Books of 2009″ list this afternoon. I am familiar with the majority of the non-fiction books, but am without a clue in the fiction category. I think the editors have done a good job picking out great books that deserve to be read. Three notable ones from the list:
Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work by Matthew Crawford
Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend by Larry Tye
Losing Mum and Pup: A Memoir by Christopher Buckley
I would love to know which books of 2009 made your “best of” list. They may not be on the NYT’s list, but what book(s) impacted, taught, or entertained you this year?
back to top21 Comments to “Best books of 2009”
Goodness, I rarely read a book in the year it’s published. I just finished reading (editing) one of the best books of 2010 (Mary Kassian, Girls Gone Wise in a World Gone Wild), but I doubt that counts. Unless I’ve edited it myself, early in the year, I’m unlikely to read a book in the year it comes out, and I can’t even think of any I’ve read this year. I did hear Tim Keller speak on his new book, and found it convicting, but haven’t read the book yet.
As to books from past years that I’ve read this year, I’ve been edified and convicted by John Piper’s Future Grace, which I’m reading slowly, one or two chapters at a time, and entertained by rereading some of my favorite children’s books (including Rascal). Also in the edification category, I had to search God of All Comfort to find page numbers for some quotes an author gave, and skimming the book told me I need to reread it. Of the other 100 or so books I’ve read this year, I can’t offhand list my favorites.
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#1 Bible (as always)
#2 Two Nations Under God by Tom Doyle: Why You Should Care about Israel (Revised & Updated, 2008) – interesting historical information about the US, Israel and Muslims and Islam (checked out of city library)
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#1 – The Bible (great read every year and always new it seems like).
#2 – Liberty & Tyranny by Mark Levin
#3 – ???, ??????? ??????? ???. ??? ?????? ?????? by Colin Dyritz (that is Russian for Year That Changed the World; Year of Christ’s Death)……a great read in Russian but I have no idea how it translates into English). I just ordered a new book called The Blood of Stalin; According to Stalin’s Personal Pages (that is a very rough translation and I haven’t received it so don’t know if that is correct.
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Looks like a great list – thanks for the heads up!
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I forgot that I an’t put in here Cyrillic letters…roughly latinized it is Goad Kotoroi Izmenil Mir; Goad Smerti Xrista in Russian.
Quite the perspective on the death of Christ and the impact that this has had for generations on the world as a whole and written from a Russian Orthodox perspective.
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Spinoza – I haven’t quite figured you out yet. You’re an enigma.
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Well I was referring to the NY Times book list – that shouldn’t be too surprising, eh?
I just put the following on my Amazon.com wishlist:
The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science
Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits
Cowboys Full: The Story of Poker
Cold: Adventures in the World’s Frozen Places
The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America
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No time to look at the list, but I always go through it each year with my computer open to the library request page.
Cold sounds good to me, and I love Teddy Roosevelt.
I couldn’t tell you a best book of the year, either. I’ll have to think a while!
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Books, impacted, taught or entertained.
I read several books this year, My comments on the above criterion. Not everybook is mentioned. The Bible, of course, is a given, constantly.
My granddaughter gave me Traitor to His Class”, by H.W. Brands, for Christmas. It’s a good biography of FDR. 824 p. A good book, but it takes a lot of effort.
I am presently reading An Inconvenient Book by Glenn Beck. An easy read. Written with Beck’s “wise guy” attitude. Almost finished. It’s easy in that each chapter is a different subject and you don’t miss anything by putting it down for a week and coming back to it.
I also read, Liberty and Tyranny by Mark Levin. An interesting book, but I can’t say I learned anything new. School kids should read it.
I recently read, and reported on here, The Man Who Moved A Mountain, by Richard C. Davids. An excellent book about a Presbyterian preacher who grew up, and returned to Buffalo Mountain in Virginia. An easy, and interesting read. I highly recommend it.
I’m not sure it was this year, but I recently read 90 Minutes in Heaven by Don Piper. A preacher was killed in an auto accident, but was revived. He recounts his experience. Very interesting.
Same for Safely Home by Randy Alcorn. I reported on that here also.
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Not this year, but if I were a professor, I would require reading certain books that I have read recently enough to add to my list.
Safely Home is about the underground church in China. We also get insight into how Chinese can make some products so cheaply. Political prisoners.
Terrorist Hunter, by Anonymous. I’ve mentioned this several times here. It’s about an Iraqui woman (Rita Katz) who escaped Sadam and eventually came here. She went underground to visit Muslim mosques with a recorder. Valuable insight and an interesting story. Her “Max” is Steve Emerson who shows up in other books, and is an author about terrorism.
The Koran by Mohammed. I hear enough stuff by peoplw who don’t know what they’re talking about. Go to the source. Having said that, I need to order a copy of the Hadith for myself.
Unrestricted Warfare by Qaio and Wang. The Chinese are not our friends, and they have plans for us. No point in talking about it.
Stealth Jihad by Robert Spencer tells how and why the Fort Hood incident occurs. And why there will be more. Lynn Vincent wrote an excellent article on that in Dec. 6 World BTW.
Enough for now. I don’t know what course I would be teaching to have such a diverse reading list.
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Like Cheryl D., I rarely read books in the year they come out, so I was surprised to go back through the list of books I read this year (I review them on my blog, which makes it easy to figure out what I’ve been reading) and discover that three of them had been released in 2009.
I read Why Evolution Is True by Jerry Coyne, Liberty and Tyranny by Mark Levin, and Paths of Glory by Jeffrey Archer. They were all good books in my opinion, though I certainly learned more from Coyne’s book and Archer’s book. Levin said much that I agree with but little that I did not already know.
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I am presently reading An Inconvenient Book by Glenn Beck. An easy read. Written with Beck’s “wise guy” attitude. Almost finished. It’s easy in that each chapter is a different subject and you don’t miss anything by putting it down for a week and coming back to it.
I’ll wager you miss even less by putting it down and never coming back to Beck’s Mormonic drivel.
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Sigh. I was wondering when it was going to start turning nasty.
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#13 Guilty as charged …
But Beck is slime … complete slime … Mormon slime to boot.
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All right, I went through the list and can officially say I haven’t read any of the 100 . . . but there were a lot of titles on there that were intriguing enough to make me pick up the book if I saw it at the library, and probably several I’ll read in future years.
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As for the list, not only have I not read any of them, but I haven’t heard of them. Only a couple seem interesting.
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Chas mentions Traitor to His Class. Yes, it’s a bit thick going, but I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it.
I am looking forward to In Fed We Trust by WSJ columnist David Wessel.
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I haven’t read the book on Satchel Paige, but I will!
A couple of his famous quotes are”
“Don’t look back, somebody might be gaining on you”
“Age is a question of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it don’t matter.”
“If a man can beat you, walk him”
“You win a few, you lose a few. Some get rained out. But you got to dress for all of them.”
“Mother always told me, if you tell a lie, always rehearse it. If it don’t sound good to you, it won’t sound good to no one else.”
“I use my single windup, my double windup, my triple windup, me hesitation windup, my no windup. I also use my step-n-pitch-it, my submariner, my sidearmer, and my bat dodger. A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.”
And, the original, “Work like you don’t need the money. Love like you’ve never been hurt. Dance lik nobody’s watching.
And, yes he’s got a lot more. I didn’t ruin the story at all. Haopefull it creates a bit more interest in a wonderful athelete and man.
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I haven’t read to many books over the past year, but the ones I have I highly recommend. They’re fiction, so you need to be up for a good story if you want to read these.
The Lion in the Dark series by Francine Rivers
Excellent books for spiritual application.
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I like World’s list of must reads a whole lot better!
1. Most important book to me, God’s Word
2. Powerful book to me, Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
3. fun books, Lori Wick and Francine Rivers
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I only read Ronald Wright’s book. Here’s my review from Facebook/Living Social
Wright posits a gradual evolution of multiple tribal gods to a universal moralistic monotheistic god. As conditions on the ground change and it becomes advantageous (non-zero sum) god becomes more inclusive and extensive. An exercise in cultural history based on evolutionary principles he approaches a whiggish methodology (a bad thing according to pro historians) and uses his own nonzero idea to point of annoyance. Far too much self-reflection and an afterword that should be shed as it is irrelevant. A better written account of God’s history can be found in Karen Armstrong’s History of God.
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