THORN: Memorable books from forgettable year

By Patti Thorn, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published December 25, 2008 at 7 p.m.

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One more week and 2008 will be history, much like all of our retirement funds. But unlike the stock market, which we'd rather forget, 2008 brought many books worth remembering.

Before we look to 2009, I thought you'd be interested in Publishers Marketplace's second annual compilation of the year's best books.

The industry online publication analyzed best book lists of Amazon.com, the Boston Globe, the Christian Science Monitor, the Los Angeles Times, New York Magazine, the New York Times, the National Book Awards finalists, Publishers Weekly, Salon, Time magazine, the Washington Post, and lists from New York Times critics Michiko Kakutani and Janet Maslin.

Here are the titles that appeared most often on these lists, in order of popularity (* indicates a tie).

Fiction

1. 2666 by Roberto Bolano

2. Netherland, by Joseph O'Neill

3. A Mercy, by Toni Morrison

4. When Will There Be Good News?, by Kate Atkinson

*Lush Life, by Richard Price

*The Likeness, by Tana French

7. Home, by Marilynne Robinson

*The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, by David Wroblewski

*Unaccustomed Earth, by Jhumpa Lahiri

10. Serena, by Ron Rash

Nonfiction

1. The Forever War, by Dexter Filkins

2. This Republic of Suffering, by Drew Gilpin Faust

*The Hemingses of Monticello, by Annette Gordon-Reed

4. The Suicide Index: Putting My Father's Death in Order, by Joan Wickersham

*The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War of Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals, by Jane Mayer

*The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America, by David Hadju

*Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood, by Mark Harris.

Stop the madness!

In honor of the coming bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth in February, publishers are unleashing a battalion of new books - so many that I'm tempted to declare my own literary Appomattox and wave a white flag just to get them to stop. In coming weeks, readers will be treated to biographies, essays on Lincoln, reproductions of his handwriting, accounts of his assassin - all in addition to the stacks of books on the 16th president already out.

With the many comparisons of Barack Obama to Lincoln during the recent election, there's sure to be interest. But come on guys. What about MY needs? I don't care if Lincoln walked on water, I'm running out of places to put all these books!

Finally, on a more sorrowful note . . .

A new January title will revisit the 2007 shooting at the New Life Church in Colorado Springs. Gone in a Heartbeat is written by David and Marie Works (with Dean Merrill), the parents of two teenage girls shot and killed by Matthew Murray, a troubled kid on a rampage.

From religious publisher Tyndale, the book "is a touching tribute to their daughters Stephanie and Rachel," according to press material. The news release goes on to quote David Works:

"Our daughters were young women of incomparable faith," he says. "The paramedic who was with Stephanie at the moment of her death remarked that he had never witnessed a victim of violent crime that died with a smile on their face. Those who were in the ambulance with Rachel witnessed an indescribable light that filled the coach as she was revived long enough to tell them about her Lord."

The book begins with Marie Works recalling the day she heard the news about the Columbine killings on the radio. "David and I finally went to bed pondering what a violent society we had become."

Now that's a passing thought sure to send shivers down any parent's spine.

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