THORN: The story's the thing

By Patti Thorn, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published December 5, 2008 at 3 p.m.

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Photo by Photo by Ellen Jaskol/The Rocky; photo styling by Tobie Orr/Special to the Rocky

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What a year for ingenious plot twists:

Ambitious men dueling for power, their fates twisting on the latest Dow Jones report. A former beauty queen strutting into the national spotlight as if she knew she belonged there all along. Back stabbing, lies, crowds frothing at the mouth. More back stabbing. More lies.

And that's just the routine ups and downs of the presidential election. Imagine what you could find in actual novels.

You have to admit, some of the year's best story lines were spun from campaign headquarters. No wonder that, like many, I found myself hooked up to the computer every night as if it were an IV, madly Googling "Obama," "McCain" and - the gift that kept on giving! - "Palin," transfusing the day's fresh political shock and awe into my poor, overloaded, overexcitable brain.

Suffice to say that the drama took a bite out of my book reading time, but not to worry. I still managed to have a hugely satisfying reading year, scoring more than my average share of memorable books.

As always, there were thousands of titles to choose from. In nonfiction, popular themes included the Bush administration and its many missteps,the future of the political right and the war in Iraq.

As for fiction, the biggest surprise often came from who was getting attention, rather than what. In an arena dominated by titles from big- name authors, several debut novels hit the jackpot - or, as we in the industry prefer to call it, the best-seller list. They included Brunonia Barry's The Lace Reader; Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows' The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society ; and Colorado's own David Wroblewski's The Story of Edgar Sawtelle.

They went head to head with well-received novels and story collections from the likes of Toni Morrison, Philip Roth, Marilynne Robinson, Annie Proulx, Salman Rushdie, Ethan Canin, Jhumpa Lahiri and others.

Today, we offer a look at many of these and more, with our annual holiday books issue. We've culled all the titles that earned an A or A-minus from Rocky critics through the year to offer our absolute favorites of 2008 in fiction, nonfiction, children's titles and more. We hope you'll use this comprehensive list as a guide for your own reading, as well as for holiday gift giving.

In the meantime, here are a few of my personal favorites of 2008.

Favorite novel No. 1: Home, by Marilynne Robinson (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $25). Some critics panned this novel for moving at a snail's pace, but I say one man's snail is another's escargot. This poignant story, which dovetails with Robinson's acclaimed Gilead, follows a prodigal son's return home after a 20-year absence, seeking reconciliation with his family and especially his minister father, who is slowly dying. Nothing much happens on these pages - if you call deep emotional insights rendered with the prose of a poet "nothing much." Settle in. And savor.

Favorite novel No. 2: The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, by David Wroblewski (Ecco, $25.95). Wrob-who? This Westminster author came out of left field and knocked one out of the park. Sawtelle takes the story of Hamlet, complete with a villainous uncle, casts a mute teenage boy in the title role and sets it all on a Wisconsin farm where dogs are bred and trained. It seems impossible that these elements could add up to one of the most absorbing stories of recent memory. But Wroblewski wags his tale - a recent Oprah Book Club pick - with rich atmosphere, engrossing characters and good, old-fashioned, page-turning suspense.

Favorite nonfiction: The Forever War, by Dexter Filkins (Knopf, $25). We all know war zones are hell. But New York Times' Filkins fills in the eye-opening details, re-creating the surreal world he encountered during his years reporting from Afghanistan and Iraq. The author's display of sheer guts is well worth witnessing as he meets people straight out of Mad Max and faces the everyday absurdity of places where there's only one real rule left: survival of the fittest.

Favorite novelty book: Cringe: Teenage Diaries, Journals, Notes, Letters, Poems, and Abandoned Rock Operas, edited by Sarah Brown (Crown, $25.95). Anyone who's ever saved diaries and notes from their teen years will love this book in which contributors offer their most cringeworthy adolescent writings. Sappy love poems mix with confessional fan mail and Dear Diary entries displaying ADD-style sensitivity, such as: "(Blank) wrote me a letter, and her father abuses her and her mother. I am so scared for both of them. Kerri didn't get me a present from Mexico, and she got all her other friends one." You'll laugh. You'll cry. But most of all, you'll cringe.

Favorite book for providing awesome small talk No. 1: The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World, by Eric Weiner (Twelve, $25.955). Weary and disgruntled after years of covering war-torn regions of the world, National Public Radio reporter Weiner sets out to find the happiest places on Earth, only to learn that happiness isn't about place so much as perspective. Weiner sprinkles great tidbits throughout on what makes us happy and why.

Favorite book for providing awesome small talk No. 2: Outliers: The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown, $27.99). Gladwell tries to figure out why some people are successful and others aren't, arriving at a conclusion that seems obvious: We don't all get the same breaks in life, regardless of talent and determination. But it's the details that startle. Why, for example, are the best Canadian hockey players all born early in any given year? Gladwell teases out the answer with his usual aplomb.

Favorite book I finally caught up to: What is the What, by Dave Eggers. (Vintage, $15.95). When you hear that this novel is based on the life of a man who was one of the Lost Boys of Sudan, you'll probably turn away. More horrors? Why not just click on the TV news? But Eggers manages to fuse humor, humanity and high drama into this story that, admittedly, has horrors aplenty but is guaranteed to keep you riveted until the end. Even then, you'll race to Google "Sudan," "Eggers" and anything else you can think of, because you can't bear to leave the book behind.

Unless, of course, you're still addicted to the election. In that case, we can forget Sudan: you'll obviously be busy Googling "Palin."

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