The Best Books of the Year - 2009

Now I have moved to a subject about which I know nothing, just what I have gleaned from other readers.  I read more contemporary books than I perhaps let on - this year about one in five were from the last ten years.  But a fair number of those are mysteries, none of which belong with the Best Books of 200X, and much of the rest is non-fiction.  Native American history, criticism of Yiddish literature, and popularized science, for example.

So I can't make a 2009 list (an actual 2009 list - see below), but that shouldn't stop other people.  Best of lists are an essential part of the transmission of books.  Imagine the poor book that finds itself on no lists at all!  Most books fall into that category, pretty quickly, listed only on the list of the unlisted, which is imaginary.  Bye bye, books.

I sometimes wonder how the really dedicated readers of the new go about their business.  I mean critics, professionals.  Here we see Tom Hull, a jazz critic I like a lot, discuss his method in obsessive detail.  He has heard 699 of the jazz records released in 2009, plus another 300 or so non-jazz albums.  This is considerable.  He is a music processor, continually evaluating, triaging, culling.  His Top 10 list has some weight behind it, although when Hull reviews the lists of other critics, he is always amazed by the number of albums he has never heard.  For practicing music critics, I think his statistics are typical.  A mere fan, I hear about 100 records a year, plus who knows how many stray songs.  My Top 10 list is filled with great records, absolutely, but the base is pretty limited.

So how do book reviewers do their work?  When they make their Best of the Year list, what is the denominator?  Eva at A Striped Armchair reads about 500400 books athis year.  Are the pros all like her?  I'll bet not.  They miss a lot, and I question how well they read a lot of what they read (I question how well I read, too).  A really great book is complex, right?  Ah, they're all doing what they can.  Le's have some lists:

Tales from the Reading Room's Best of 2009.  I have read one of these, the Georg Büchner.

The Little Professor.  Congratulations on cracking 7,000 books in the personal library!

The Incurable Logophile.  The only one I've read is Vanity Fair.  Pathetic.

A highly focused year-end from Dan Green.

A best of the decade, category: English language fiction, from D. G. Myers.

My list is coming tomorrow.  If I missed your list, please link in the comments.  One might notice that no one here, except possibly Prof. Myers, has any interest in coverage, like the professional critics.  These lists are personal, idiosyncratic, and no less valuable for that.  Emily of Evening All Afternoon, in a comment here, said that these are the lists she finds truly valuable.  I think the critics' lists are essential, too, a mechanism that keeps books alive.  But if I want to read a recent book, I'm looking at one of those lists I linked, or at your list.

Update: Jenny at Shelf Love. Lots of goodies. Her posts earlier in the year about The Story in the Stone are very much worth a look.

mel u at The Reading Life with a Best of, Part I. I've actually read 7 of the 10 novels. And the Japanese, etc. best of is still to come.