Best Books of 2008

After the success of last year’s Best of the Books post I thought I’d squeeze this one in just under the wire in the last few hours of 2008.  Again, these are the best books that I read in 2008, not necessarily the best books ever or the best new books of 2008.  Hopefully you’ll find something interesting in the mix!

10.  A Wallflower Christmas – Lisa Kleypas.

Alright, the book wasn’t outstanding but I’m a huge Wallflower fan and devoured this one in a record time so it had to make the list!  The four Wallflowers come together again at Christmas to help Rafe Bowman, brother of Lillian and Daisy, find and marry his true love.  In retrospect I just liked meeting the Wallflowers again and finding out what they were doing – Rafe wasn’t a huge draw for me.  

9. The Rabbi’s Daughter: A True Story of Sex, Drugs and Orthodoxy – Reva Mann.

I’ve been on a memoir kick all year and this one took me to a world I barely knew existed.  Reva Mann, journalist and daughter of a well known London rabbi, finds herself with a hepatitis B infection and charged with drug possession following a few tumultuous young adult years.  In response, she travels to Jerusalem and falls in love with an American Jew who becomes a Hasid.  Through this marriage Mann learns much about herself, her family, her religion and her world.

8.  The Russian Lieutenant’s Woman: A Tale of Love, Betrayal and Vodka – Barbara Davies.

Another memoir!  Barbara Davies is a reporter for The Daily Mirror who happens to have a spotty track record with men.  When she travels to Russia on assignment she meets the beautiful Lieutenant Dmitry Valinsky and they begin a relationship.  Perhaps as much in love with Russian culture and his harsh life as she is with him, Davies becomes pregnant and must ultimately decide what is best for her child and herself.  

7.  The Goddess Experience – Gisele Scanlon.

A sequel of sorts to stylish Irish Scanlon’s The Goddess Guide, I pick this book up just about weekly to flip through the creative, collage-y pages and remember that there’s a whole wide world of cool out there.  And really, no one does cool better than Scanlon.  James Dean would want to be in her posse.

6.  Julie & Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously – Julie Powell.

Umm, yeah, another memoir-y story.  Though I never read the blog of the same name I still loved this “blook” for capturing that feeling of yearning for yet hating a big project of your own making.  When Powell decides to spend a year cooking every recipe in Julia Child’s classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking she winds up with a tiny kitchen full of ingredients, a legion of die hard fans and a fantastically funny little memoir.  Not to mention I wanted to give her a high-five for her observations about marrying young in this day and age.

5. Love The One You’re With – Emily Giffen.

I kind of resisted this novel because I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to read about a young married woman who must decide if she loves her husband or wants to pursue a relationship with “the one that got away” but I’m so glad I eventually gave in.  I couldn’t put this one down, and I have to discuss it with everyone I know who has read it too.  Definitely food for thought, not to mention an excellent story.

4.  Revolutionary Road – Richard Yates.

I have to be honest, I did not love this book.  I didn’t love the story, I didn’t love the writing and I pretty much hated the characters.  Yet months later I can’t stop thinking about it and why it got to me so much.  This is another book I have to talk about with everyone I know who has read it.  Now I’m very much looking forward to the film by the same name – and not just because it’s another two hours of a grown up Leonardo di Caprio. 

3.  The Kommandant’s Girl AND The Diplomat’s Wife – Pam Jenoff.

Though these are two separate books I’m going to include them as one because they both tell the extended story of best friends Emma Bau and Marta Nederman.  In The Kommandant’s Girl, Emma Bau escapes the Krakow ghetto by assuming a Gentile identity and going to work undercover for Nazi Kommandant Georg Richwalder.  When Georg and Emma begin to feel for each other, her loyalty to her husband, the Resistance and her principles are all tested.  In The Diplomat’s Wife, Marta Nederman survives a concentration camp only to lose a new love when his plane crashes.  She travels to London and marries a seemingly mild mannered British diplomat but soon finds herself embroiled in much more than a loveless marriage.  Both are page-turners.

2. Comfort Food – Kate Jacobs.

Middle-aged television chef Augusta – Gus – Simpson is losing “it”.  Whatever it is that made her a famed hostess and well liked tv personality is fading and for the life of her she isn’t sure how to get it back.  When the network decides to throw her together with up-and-coming YouTube sensation Carmen Vega, Gus is shocked to find that the public loves their half-cookery, half-reality show.  And even more shocked when she begins to enjoy herself a little.  A cosy read for a cold day.

1.  Peyton Place – Grace Metalious.

The classic tale of what goes on behind some of the closed doors in a small New England town.  Definitely not as shocking now as it must have been in upon its first publication in 1956, but I still loved the way Metalious wove together all of the secrets of all of the characters and still made subtle social commentaries on class, race, gender, religion and much more.  Stayed up all night to finish this one.