Best of the Class This Year
By Margaret Hicks in Arts & Entertainment on Dec 11, 2006 3:27PM
One of our favorite things about the end of the year, besides pretty lights on houses, presents and actually having a date for New Years, is all the end of the year “best of” lists. Yesterday, the Tribune named the best books of 2006. You can check these out after the jump.
There were a couple of books we agreed with and a couple we didn’t. We loved Sarah Gruen's Water for Elephants, even with our fear of circus people. Terrorist by John Updike had us going until the end when we felt Updike took the easy way out, and we almost threw Alice McDermott’s After This out the window, but realize that some found it quite beautiful. Overall, it was a fun list to look over and we added a couple of books to our future reading list.
So tell us, what were your favorite books of 2006?
At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-1968
By Taylor Branch
Blue Arabesque: A Search for the Sublime
By Patricia Hampl
The Echo Maker
By Richard Powers
A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan
By Michael Kazin
The Inheritance of Loss
By Kiran Desai
The Lay of the Land
By Richard Ford
Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War
By Nathaniel Philbrick
The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher
By Debby Applegate
What Is the What
By Dave Eggers
When Madeline Was Young
By Jane Hamilton
FICTION
FOREIGN INTRIGUES
Suite Francaise
By Irene Nemirovsky
Cellophane
By Marie Arana
Alentejo Blue
By Monica Ali
Saving the World
By Julia Alvarez
Seeing
By Jose Saramago, translated from Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa
L'America
By Martha McPhee
Absurdistan
By Gary Shteyngart
Against the Day
By Thomas Pynchon
SHORT CUTS
The Unfinished Novel and Other Stories
By Valerie Martin
Nancy Culpepper: Stories
By Bobbie Ann Mason
All Aunt Hagar's Children
By Edward P. Jones
Now You See It . . .: Stories From Cokesville, Pa.
By Bathsheba Monk
The View From Castle Rock
By Alice Munro
Brief Encounters With Che Guevara: Stories
By Ben Fountain
St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves: Stories
By Karen Russell
MYSTERIOUS WAYS
The Boy Detective Fails
By Joe Meno
Special Topics in Calamity Physics
By Marisha Pessl
Forgetfulness
By Ward Just
Talk Talk
By T.C. Boyle
The Brief History of the Dead
By Kevin Brockmeier
WE ARE FAMILY
Breakable You
By Brian Morton
The Keep
By Jennifer Egan
After This
By Alice McDermott
The Road
By Cormac McCarthy
Digging to America
By Anne Tyler
DOMESTIC AFFAIRS
The Last Town on Earth
By Thomas Mullen
Triangle
By Katharine Weber
The Whole World Over
By Julia Glass.
Red Weather
By Pauls Toutonghi
Water for Elephants
By Sara Gruen
The Driftless Area
By Tom Drury
The Emperor's Children
By Claire Messud
Thirteen Moons
By Charles Frazier
Strivers Row
By Kevin Baker
GIRLS JUST WANNA PULL THEMSELVES TOGETHER
History Lesson for Girls
By Aurelie Sheehan
America's Report Card
By John McNally
The Flamenco Academy
By Sarah Bird
Calling Out
By Rae Meadows
Black Girl/White Girl
By Joyce Carol Oates
BOYS JUST WANNA BE WOMANIZERS, TERRORISTS AND HYPOCHONDRIACS
Poison
By Susan Fromberg Schaeffer
Terrorist
By John Updike
Everyman
By Philip Roth
NON-FICTION
BEST-LAID PLANS
Julius Rosenwald: The Man Who Built Sears, Roebuck and Advanced the Cause of Black Education in the American South
Yes You Can!: Behind the Hype and Hustle of the Motivation Biz
By Jonathan Black
FAMILY MATTERS
The First and Final Nightmare of Sonia Reich: A Son's Memoir
By Howard Reich
Sweet and Low: A Family Story
By Rich Cohen
Life, Death & Bialys: A Father/Son Baking Story
By Dylan Schaffer
The Division Street Princess: A Memoir
By Elaine Soloway
CAPITAL GAINS
The Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope
By Jonathan Alter
The House: The History of the House of Representatives
By Robert V. Remini
A Perfect Union: Dolley Madison and the Creation of the American Nation
By Catherine Allgor
The Senator and the Socialite: The True Story of America's First Black Dynasty
By Lawrence Otis Graham
Thomas Jefferson's Scrapbooks
By Jonathan Gross
House of War: The Pentagon and the Disastrous Rise of American Power
By James Carroll
Manhunt: The Twelve-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer
By James L. Swanson
BACK IN THE OLD DAYS
The Colony: The Harrowing True Story of the Exiles of Molokai
By John Tayman
Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves, and the American Revolution
By Simon Schama
What Paul Meant
By Garry Wills
ROCK YOU LIKE A . . .
The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast
By Douglas Brinkley
Breach of Faith: Hurricane Katrina and the Near Death of a Great American City
By Jed Horne
A DAY IN SEPTEMBER
Watching the World Change: The Stories Behind the Images of 9/11
By David Friend
The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth From 9/11 to Katrina
By Frank Rich
The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11
By Lawrence Wright
Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq
By Thomas E. Ricks
BOOKS FOR THE CIVIL WAR RE-ENACTOR IN YOUR LIFE
Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil War
By Nicholas Lemann
Democracy Reborn: The Fourteenth Amendment and the Fight for Equal Rights in Post-Civil War America
By Garret Epps
WRITING MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDER
The Company They Kept: Writers on Unforgettable Friendships
Edited by Robert B. Silvers and Barbara Epstein
Double Lives: American Writers' Friendships
By Richard Lingeman
AMERICA THE UGLY
Strange Piece of Paradise
By Terri Jentz
A Pickpocket's Tale: The Underworld of Nineteenth-Century New York
By Timothy J. Gilfoyle
Our Town: A Heartland Lynching, a Haunted Town, and the Hidden History of White America
By Cynthia Carr
MODERN LIFE
Cross X
By Joe Miller
Millennium Park: Creating a Chicago Landmark
By Timothy J. Gilfoyle
I Feel Earthquakes More Often Than They Happen: Coming to California in the Age of Schwarzenegger
By Amy Wilentz
WALK A MILE IN THEIR SHOES
Flaubert: A Biography
By Frederick Brown
There Is No Me Without You: One Woman's Odyssey to Rescue Africa's Children
By Melissa Fay Greene
Miss American Pie: A Diary of Love, Secrets, and Growing Up in the 1970s
By Margaret Sartor
Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero
By David Maraniss
The Good Good Pig: The Extraordinary Life of Christopher Hogwood
By Sy Montgomery
William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism
By Robert D. Richardson
A Strong West Wind: A Memoir
By Gail Caldwell
Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany
By Bill Buford
I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman
By Nora Ephron
Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee
By Charles J. Shields
Truck: A Love Story
By Michael Perry
The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop: A Memoir, A History
By Lewis Buzbee
ONCE UPON A TIME
The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane
By Kate DiCamillo, illustrations by Bagram Ibatoulline
Incantation
By Alice Hoffman
Sold
By Patricia McCormick