I didn’t read anything relevant last year, so as soon as the wide variety of “best books of 2008″ listings began to appear in magazines & newspapers, I started to sift through them with a rabid verve.
At some point I decided to weed out ten books, and that Top Ten would make a decent reading list for 2009. Besides, it is much better to read the best of 2008 in 2009, because I’ve realised the pleasures of paperbacks severely outweigh the downsides of lugging along a hardcover, and in 2009 many of the best of 2008 will be available.
I compiled this list in early 2009, when the lists came online, so I no longer remember why my Top Ten became an Elevated Eleven. The various sources are long forgotten too. As the list betrays, I read mainly English and American listings. Of my so called system I remember that if a mentioned book pricked up my interest I did some additional research on it. These were deemed worth a go while others faded away.
Surprisingly five of these books are fiction and five non-fiction with Gordon Burn’s Born Yesterday somewhere in between, but probably falling on the fiction-side. Surprisingly since I’m more a fiction feeler than a non-fiction noticer.
I intend to write more about these all, so sorry at this point for no added information on any of the listed books. Netherland was definitely the book that was mentioned most often as the best of the year.