BOTNS Books Podcast #58: Our Favorites (and Yours) of 2009

Books on the Nightstand, Episode 58 (31:48)

It’s the end of the year, which of course means a “Best of 2009” list. But you’re not only going to get our list, but also the top vote getters in our readers’ poll. Thanks to all 144 of you who voted! Here are the top vote-getters:

   1. The Help
   2. The Girl Who Played With Fire
   3. Catching Fire
   4. Cutting for Stone
   5. Await Your Reply
   6. When You Reach Me
   7. Waiting for Columbus
   8. Let the Great World Spin
 tie:
   9. Little Bee
   10. A Gate at the Stairs
   11. Her Fearful Symmetry

And then, there were two books near the top 11 that were completely not on our radar, but sound fascinating to us: An Irreverent Curiosity by David Farley and Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie.

Now we come to our favorites of the year. They are in no particular order, and the links will take you back to the original discussion of the book.

Michael’s Five Favorite Books of 2009 (plus one!)

• When You Reach Me
• The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
• Stitches
• Beowulf on the Beach
• Await Your Reply
• The Book Thief (the best book Michael read this year, but it was not a 2009 publication)

Ann's Five Favorite Books of 2009

• Cutting for Stone
• Waiting for Columbus
• The Girl Who Played With Fire
• A Gate at the Stairs
• The Unit

Finally, Ann and Michael each discuss a book that got votes on the Best of 2009 poll, that they wish they had gotten a chance to read this year. Michael tells us about A Happy Marriage by Rafael Yglesias and Ann discusses A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick.

(You can listen to the podcast by using the player at the top of this post. If you're using Internet Explorer, click twice to listen. If your browser does not support javascript, you won't see the player; click the link below the player to listen, or right-click to download the episode. If you are receiving this post by email and cannot see the player at the bottom of the message, please visit http://www.booksonthenightstand.com to listen)
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We encourage you to write down or print out the title information and shop at your local bookstore. Titles link to LibraryThing, a social networking site that allows you to catalog your home library. LibraryThing also links to various online purchasing options. Here are the books from this post:
The Help by Kathryn Stockett, Putnam hardcover
The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson, Knopf hardcover
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins, Scholastic Press hardcover
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese, Knopf hardcover
Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon, Ballantine hardcover
When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead, Wendy Lamb Books hardcover
Waiting for Columbus by Thomas Trofimuk, Doubleday hardcover
Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann, Random House trade paperback
Little Bee by Chris Cleave, Simon & Schuster hardcover
A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore, Knopf hardcover
Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffeneger, Scribner hardcover
An Irreverent Curiosity by David Farley, Gotham hardcover
Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie, Picador trade paperback
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley, Delacorte hardcover
Stitches by David Small, Norton hardcover
Beowulf on the Beach by Jack Murnighan, Three Rivers Press trade paperback
The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak, Knopf Books for Young Readers trade paperback
The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist, Other Press trade paperback
A Happy Marriage by Rafael Yglesias, Publisher format
A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick, Algonquin hardcover
(all information is for the U.S. editions).

For your listening pleasure ...

As we mentioned in our last podcast, Michael and I are taking this week off from podcasting in order to spend time with our family. (Oh, who am I fooling? This week was spent shopping and wrapping and cooking and eating far too many Christmas treats).

We will be back on Wednesday, December 30th with a podcast that will announce the winners of our reader/listener poll for favorite book of 2009, and we'll tell you our top picks as well.

In case you still need something to listen to today, we think you will find this special episode of NPR's On The Media to be of interest. Titled "The Past, present and future of the book," it's a good overview of the turmoil and great change that is happening in the book industry today.
Stream it   Download the MP3

In addition, we'd like to share some of our favorite podcasts about books with you.  While we certainly hope you'll stick with us at Books on the Nightstand, we encourage you to add other book podcasts to your playlist as well.

• Reading and Writing Podcast is produced by Books on the Nightstand listener and friend Jeff Rutherford. Jeff's podcast features interviews with authors, many of whom write in the suspense and thriller genres. I will always be jealous that Jeff snagged an interview with one of my favorite authors, Lee Child.
  MP3 download page  iTunes page
  

• Nancy Pearl's Book Reviews podcast airs on KUOW radio in Washington state as well as on the internet as a podcast (hey, how can Books on the Nightstand get a radio show??). Seattle's most famous librarian (she even has an action figure!) provides book reviews and recommendations that are not stuffy and are fun to listen to.
  MP3 download page  iTunes page
  

• The New York Times Book Review podcast is always interesting, with author and book-reviewer interviews and my favorite segment, "bestseller news".
  MP3 download page  iTunes page
  

• The Washington Post Book World podcast has sadly stopped publishing as of November 13th, but there are 97 episodes archived for you to explore. Featuring book industry news and author interviews, this was my favorite weekly listen.
  MP3 download page  iTunes page

Wishing you all the best this holiday season, no matter what you celebrate. Thank you for your friendship and support of Books on the Nightstand this past year; it's a gift that we can never repay.


image credit: jmtimages via Flickr

But Wait, There's More!

I know Ann and I have given recommended many books to give as gifts this holiday season, but I've got just one more... I discovered this book too late to include it in the Gift Guide, but it still deserves to be wrapped up and given to all of your bibliophile friends.

50 Things to Do with a Book (Now That Reading is Dead) is written and illustrated by famed satirist Bruce McCall. You'd probably recognize McCall's artwork if you've ever subscribed to the New Yorker. (One of my favorite covers of his features a mummy family posing for a photo in front the Temple of Dendur at the Metropolitan Museum of Art).

As the title implies, the book is filled with, shall we say, "alternative" uses for books, including this one which is illustrated on the cover:

"Kill a Mockingbird' by hiding in the bushes and flinging a copy of this famous book at the first mouthy little avian to appear. A stuffed bird does just as well. A badminton bird is a last resort.

Each one is paired with a hilarious McCall image. As I said earlier, this a perfect gift for your book-loving friends. Let's prove that parenthetical subtitle wrong!
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We encourage you to write down or print out the title information and shop at your local bookstore. Titles link to LibraryThing, a social networking site that allows you to catalog your home library. LibraryThing also links to various online purchasing options. Here are the books from this post:
50 Things to Do With a Book (Now That Reading is Dead) by Bruce McCall, ItBooks hardcover

(all information is for the U.S. editions).

BOTNS Books Podcast #57: Wrap up some good fiction!

Books on the Nightstand, Episode 57 (21:32)

We love this time of year because so many year-end anthologies show up in bookstores. The oldest seems to be Best American Short Stories, which has been published since 1915. Ann's favorite is Best American Non-Required Reading, edited by Dave Eggers and a cast of high school students. Proceeds from the collection support the work of Eggers' 826 Valencia project, a student writing lab. Eggers and his student collaborators also blog their meetings that determine which pieces are included. It's a fascinating project to watch, and is always one of the most interesting anthologies of the year.

Michael's favorite anthology is, of course, Best American Comics. This year Ann discovered Best Food Writing 2009, which Michael put on his Christmas wishlist. Ann is hoping for Best Music Writing 2009 under her Christmas tree.

Do you have any favorite year-end anthologies? Let us know in the comments.

In segment 2, we take a closer look at some of the fiction selections in our holiday gift guide. Often we think of pretty, coffee-table type books as great gifts, but novels are also eagerly received. Michael recommends Jacquelyn Mitchard's No Time to Wave Goodbye, if your gift recipient is a woman. This is the follow-up to Mitchard's first book, The Deep End of the Ocean, which also happened to be the first Oprah book club pick. For the man on your list, Michael recommends No Less Than Victory: A Novel of World War II by Jeff Shaara. This is the third book in a trilogy, picking up just after the Normandy Invasion, takes us through the Battle of the Bulge, the fall of Hitler, to the end of the war in Europe. Wrap this book up with the first two books in the series, The Rising Tide and The Steel Wave, and you have a great gift for the reader of war novels or military history.

 

Ann also recommends a book of historical fiction, New York by Edward Rutherfurd, a sprawling saga that covers the history of New York from the early 17th century through 2009. For those people on your gift list who are not big readers or who don't buy books for themselves during the year, two good choices are The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown and Ford County by John Grisham; both can be enjoyed by either men or women. Michael's pick for someone who doesn't read much: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society.

And finally, a note about our schedule for the next few weeks: we will be taking next week off, and then will return with our year-end episode on Wednesday, December 30th. We'll probably have a few blog posts between now and then, but if you are a diehard podcast listener, we hope you can forgive us for not posting a new episode on 12/23. In January, all will return to normal, including the much-missed segment, "Two books we can't wait for you to read."

(You can listen to the podcast by using the player at the top of this post. If you're using Internet Explorer, click twice to listen. If your browser does not support javascript, you won't see the player; click the link below the player to listen, or right-click to download the episode. If you are receiving this post by email and cannot see the player at the bottom of the message, please visit http://www.booksonthenightstand.com to listen)

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We encourage you to write down or print out the title information and shop at your local bookstore. Titles link to LibraryThing, a social networking site that allows you to catalog your home library. LibraryThing also links to various online purchasing options. Here are the books from this post:

Best American Short Stories 2009, edited by Alice Sebold, Mariner Books paperback
Best American Nonrequired Reading 2009, edited by Dave Eggers, Mariner Books paperback
Best American Comics 2009, edited by Charles Burns, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt hardcover
Best Food Writing 2009, edited by Holly Huges, Da Capo Press paperback
Best Music Writing 2009, edited by Griel Marcus, Da Capo Press paperback
No Time to Wave Goodbye by Jacquelyn Mitchard, Random House hardcover
No Less Than Victory by Jeff Shaara, Ballantine hardcover
The Rising Tide by Jeff Shaara, Ballantine paperback
The Steel Wave by Jeff Shaara, Ballantine paperback
New York by Edward Rutherfurd, Doubleday hardcover
The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown, Doubleday hardcover
Ford County by John Grisham, Doubleday hardcover
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Maryann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, Dial Press paperback

(all information is for the U.S. editions).

Don't Forget to Vote!

There are only a few days left to nominate your top 3 books of 2009.  (If you're not when a book was published, a good place to check is Indiebound.org.)

We will announce the winners on our final podcast of the year (December 30th). Please remember, we will be closing the poll at 11:59pm EST on Wednesday, December 16th. That gives us enough time to tally the votes and then relax for the holidays.

(And remember, please don't leave your votes in the comments here -- we can only count them if you use the poll. Thanks!)

Gift Guide Spotlight: Salty Sweets

Chocolate covered pretzels are probably the most common example of a salty/sweet treat, but they have got nothing on the scrumptious cakes, cookies, ice creams and puddings in Salty Sweets. As author Christie Matheson writes, "Sweet is sweet, but it can be kind of one-dimensional. But when you add a salty element to said sweet - even if the result is not an overtly salty flavor - the treat in question gets seriously amped up."

Some of the recipes that I've tried or want to try include Perfectly Imperfect Pecan Pralines, Toffee Cookies with Dark Chocolate Glaze, Lemon Cake with Lemon-Brown Sugar Glaze, Sticky Toffee Pudding, Nantucket Sea Salt Ice Cream and Salted Caramel Ice Cream. Is your stomach growling yet? The fine folks at Harvard Common Press have allowed us to reprint a recipe here, and I've picked one of my favorites, so get cooking!

 

Perfectly Imperfect Pecan Pralines

makes 25 to 30 good-size pieces

1 1/2 cups sugar

1/2 cup heavy cream

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt

2 teaspoons molasses

1 1/2 tablespoons bourbon (or 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract)

1 cup lightly toasted pecan halves

1. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. In a medium-size saucepan, combine the sugar, cream, butter, salt, molasses, and bourbon and bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring frequently with a wooden spoon. After it starts to boil, boil for 6 minutes, stirring occasionally.
3. Remove the pan from the heat and let it cool just until the mixture completely stops bubbling. Add the pecan halves and stir them in well, then quickly pour the mixture onto the baking sheet and spread it out as much as you can. (It will get thick quickly while you're doing this - so this is the time to remember that it doesn't have to be perfect!)
4. Let cool completely, the break the praline into bite-size pieces (you get to decide what "bite-size" means... and snack on the little shards that don't measure up). The pralines will keep in an airtight container for up to 1 week.
   

Excerpted from Salty Sweets, by Christie Matheson. (c) 2009, 

used by permission from The Harvard Common Press.

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We encourage you to write down or print out the title information and shop at your local bookstore. Titles link to LibraryThing, a social networking site that allows you to catalog your home library. LibraryThing also links to various online purchasing options. Here are the books from this post: 
Salty Sweets by Christie Matheson, Harvard Common Press hardcover
(all information is for the U.S. editions).

The Season of Giving

Ann and I recently spoke about our collections of books. She manages to keep hers in check. Mine is out of control. Seemingly on cue, I read about a new initiative that has been created to honor Dewey, a beloved book blogger who passed away suddenly this time last year.

Lisa Roe at Online Publicist has created The Dewey Tree, something that will honor Dewey and get books into the hands of those who need them. Basically, gather up any books you can live without. Donate them to a group you think is deserving. The American Library Association has compiled a list of sites they think are worthwhile, but your local library or literacy organizations are good places to start. Take a picture of your donation and send it to Lisa (onlinepublicist [AT] gmail [DOT] com). As Lisa says, "It can be a pic of the mailing label on your package, one of your kids giving a box of books to a librarian, or you handing books over to your literacy center. Be creative and have fun!" Be sure to check out Lisa's post about The Dewey Tree to find out how you can enter a giveaway contest she's running.

I urge you all to take a long hard look at your bookshelves and share the wealth of the written word. Here is my (pretentiously arty) photo of the books I'm donating to my local library.

Gift Guide Spotlight: White on White

Tonight finds me snowed in at my favorite Vermont inn, where I will soon curl up by the fireplace with a great book (er, electronic manuscript) and a glass of wine. Just a few miles down the road from me is the gorgeous Old First Church in Old Bennington, Vermont.

Why am I telling you this? Because that church, and many other beautiful churches, are featured in one of my favorite gift books of the season -- White on White: Churches of Rural New England by Steve Rosenthal.

This book is simply stunning. Its oversized format draws you right into the striking black and white photos of some of the prettiest churches in New England. Simple and elegant, the churches represent a simpler time when the church was the center of life in 18th and 19th century. At the same time, the architectural details of these buildings show the evolution of design sensibilities and purpose. In the introduction to this book, Verlyn Klinkenborg tells us that, "Many of the early New England village churches in this book were not originally painted white. The color came into fashion during the Greek revival of the early nineteenth century and was meant to mimic stone." Still, one cannot imagine New England without the classic white buildings dotting the landscape.

This blog post cannot possibly do justice to the beauty of this book, you must see it in person. In the meantime, here are a few more sample images to inspire you. Thank you to our friends at The Monacelli Press, the publisher of this gorgeous volume, for giving us the permission to share these photos with you.

All photos, copyright Steve Rosenthal, 2009, used by permission.

BOTNS Books Podcast #56: Fluffy, Feathery & Fanged

Books on the Nightstand, Episode 56 (14:17)


Don’t forget to download both of the Books on the Nightstand Gift Guides: Our general guide, which features mostly books for adults, and our first-ever Kid’s Books Gift Guide!

Is it possible to buy a book for someone you don’t know well? We think it is. Faced with holiday gift giving events like Secret Santas or Yankee Swaps, or even just that cousin you don’t see that often, how do you pick the perfect book? Of course, books of trivia or fun facts, like You are One-Third Daffodil, which Michael has written about before, would appeal to just about anyone. Ann mentions books that are displayed at the cash register area of the bookstore are often the perfect “one-size-fits-all” gifts. She also mentions Detective Stories, which is part of the Everyman’s Pocket Classics, and features stories from contemporary writers all the way back to Arthur Conan Doyle and Edgar Allan Poe. Ann then discusses The Black-Out Book, a compilation of 500 games, puzzle, jokes and pastimes used by British families to pass the time during the dark nights of the Blitz.

We continue our gift guide category spotlight this week by cover books about Nature and Animals. Michael tells us about Homer’s Odyssey, the tale of a blind cat and the woman who loves him, perfect for fans of Dewey or Marley and Me. Slightly more science-based, but still eminently readable is The Bird, a history of all things avian. Ann discusses the beautifully-illustrated Bedside Book of Beasts, which chronicles creatures both real and imagined. Visit the book’s website to see samples of several interior pages.

(You can listen to the podcast by using the player at the top of this post. If you're using Internet Explorer, click twice to listen. If your browser does not support javascript, you won't see the player; click the link below the player to listen, or right-click to download the episode. If you are receiving this post by email and cannot see the player at the bottom of the message, please visit http://www.booksonthenightstand.com to listen)
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We encourage you to write down or print out the title information and shop at your local bookstore. Titles link to LibraryThing, a social networking site that allows you to catalog your home library. LibraryThing also links to various online purchasing options. Here are the books from this post:
You are One-Third Daffodil compiled by Tom Nuttall, Broadway Books trade paperback
Detective Stories edited by Peter Washington, Everyman's Library hardcover
The Black-Out Book by Evelyn August, Osprey hardcover
Homer's Odyssey by Gwen Cooper, Delacorte Press hardcover
The Bird by Colin Tudge, Crown hardcover
The Bedside Book of Beasts by Graeme Gibson, Nan A. Talese hardcover

(all information is for the U.S. editions).

Nominate your favorite books of 2009!

It's that time of year -- every newspaper, magazine and literary website is publishing its list of  Best Books on the Year. And now that we are closing the door on "The Oughts" (still doesn't sound right to me), we are seeing lists of The Best Books of the Decade.

We want to know what books YOU would choose.

Click on the image below to nominate your top 3 books of 2009.  (If you are not sure of the publication date, a very good place to check is Indiebound.org.)

Don't wait to vote! We'll announce the winners on our last podcast episode of the year (December 30th). In order to give us time to tally the votes and still enjoy the holidays with our families, we will be closing the poll at 11:59pm EST on Wednesday, December 16th.

(Please don't leave your votes in the comments here -- we can only count them if you use the poll. Thanks!)

image credits:
"NYC - Chesea: VOTE by Clark Clark" courtesy of wallyg via Flickr
"Vote Here" courtesy of  lakelandlocal via Flickr