The moment you've all been waiting for:

[eleneariel]

Marie's 2007 Book Awards!


Statistics first:

Books read: 151 (last year: 111)

39% were nonfiction, 60% fiction (don't ask me where the other 1% went.) Only 18 books were rereads.

Best Nonfiction Book: The Perfect Summer: England 1911, just before the storm, Juliet Nicolson

Best Audio Book: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, John Boyle

Best Picture Book: Wee Gillis, Munroe Leaf

Best New Release From A Dead Author: The Children of Hurin, JRR Tolkien

Best Chick-lit: The Cinderella Pact, Sarah Strohmeyer

Best Book Rediscovered From My Childhood: Danny, The Champion of the World, Roald Dahl

Best Terry Pratchett Book Released in 2007 (Don't laugh, there were two - and it was a tough choice): Making Money

Book That Garnered The Most Pages of Incredulous and Rebuttal-Type Notes In My Reading Notebook: Getting Serious about Getting Married, Debbie Maken

"The Movie was Better" Award goes to The Prestige, Christopher Priest

Most Engaging Fiction Book: I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith

Most Macho Main Character is won by Bad Luck and Trouble, Lee Child

Book Which Prompted The Most Deep Thinking From the Reader: a tie between Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters (Courtney Martin) and Living Beautifully Together (Alexandra Stoddard).

Best Book of a Type That I Normally Don't Like: The History of Love, Nicole Krauss

Book that I am Most Grateful To Have Been Introduced To: Beowulf, as translated by Seamus Heaney

Book that Caused the Most Laughter At Inopportune Moments: Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons

Longest Book That I Enjoyed Every Page Of: Coming in at a smidge over 1,000 pages, A History of London, Steven Inwood

Marie's Extra Special MOST RIDICULOUS Award goes to The Christian Faith and the Truth Behind 9/11, David Ray Griffin

And finally, the prestigious WHY Didn't Anybody Make Me Read This Earlier?! Award goes to The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster.

Comments

[windandtherain.livejournal.com]

How fun! When I read more I'll make up a list like this! :-)

[eattheolives.livejournal.com]

Yay! I just love seeing lists of people's favorite books. :)

[everydayjoy.livejournal.com]

My cousins keep pressing me to read The Phantom Tollbooth and I keep forgetting :). Now I have a second recommendation to add it to my list.

Did you write elsewhere of your thoughts on Getting Serious About Getting Married? The title kind of appalls me; I'd love to know what you thought!

Roald Dahl is awesome.

[eattheolives.livejournal.com]

You should! It's just the sort I think you'd like. :)

I gave it a short review in my August booklist: http://eattheolives.livejournal.com/342326.html

[everydayjoy.livejournal.com]

Thank you! After you shared the link, I had an attack of paranoia and shame, wondering if I'd read your review, commented, and then promptly forgotten. But I hadn't commented so... phew!

I appreciated that review; I think it was really helpful! Now I want to read the book, but I have a feeling I won't agree with much of it :).

[eattheolives.livejournal.com]

Like I'd be annoyed if you forgot something so trivial!

I read the book knowing I probably wasn't going to agree with much (and on the other hand, she DID have a lot of good to say; it was just her main point I disliked!) but hearing from other friends who liked it made me curious. And I have a policy about not debating books I haven't read, so I had to read it. :)

[elvishcalarilme.livejournal.com]

Ahh! For some reason, "The Phantom Tollbooth" was in my to-list-on-paperbackswap box and I saved it! For some reason, Mom and I said, "Hmm, that sounds like a book that needs to be read" and we pulled it out. Now I must read it.

[eattheolives.livejournal.com]

Definitely read it!!

[the-storygirl.livejournal.com]

Let me just say that I LOVE "These are the best books I read this year!" Because Borders can be the most dreadful wilderness and I hate buying books that aren't any good. I also hate reading books that aren't mine (eg, library). I keep up with things I need to read on Chain Reading, and it's quite wonderful. :)

[eattheolives.livejournal.com]

I feed off of other people's recommendations a lot ... especially people who I know generally have similar taste. :) Plus it gets me exposed to things I probably wouldn't pick up on my own.

I loved ChainReading for keeping a to-read list. I was converted over to GoodReads, which I do like better because it allows you to see what your friends are reading and reviewing, but ChainReading still has a soft spot in my heart. :)

[ruthette.livejournal.com]

I didn't miss it!

[eattheolives.livejournal.com]

Yay! Now I don't have to bother looking up the html for a proper link. :D

All of your trip photos are awesome, btw. They rock my world.

[melyndie.livejournal.com]

Please tell me more about Perfect Summer, Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters, and A History of London!

[eattheolives.livejournal.com]

With pleasure!

Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters is about body image and the way almost all western females have a twisted and unhealthy view of food and their weight. I think every woman really ought to read it. It's not a book full of answers, but it does a powerful job of opening your eyes to these dangerous thought patterns.

A History of London is massive, but it has a right to be -- it packs in around 2,000 years of history. (It's too bad that so little is known about the first thousand years, which gets only about 50 of the 1,000 pages. I love the ancient stuff.) It covers almost everything ... trade, politics, disasters, plagues, society of all types, the economy, the wars (the section on London during WWII was particularly interesting), shopping, living conditions -- everything. I read it in a week only because it was during last January's power outage and I had nothing to do from 6:00 - 9:00pm but sit around with candles and read. Otherwise it probably would have taken me a month or more. :)

The Perfect Summer ... The title is a bit misleading, as the summer of 1911 wasn't a particularly perfect one, although I suppose it was in light of the war that would follow a few years later. It's just a series of vignettes of life in England that summer, at turns beautiful, poignant, and sordid. I really, really liked it.

[(Anonymous)]

151 books?!
Man, it blows me away when I ever I read my friends list and see how many more books they read each year than I do. :-) I've never kept track, but I doubt it's one tenth what you've read this year. :-) Maybe for 2008 I'll keep track of the number of books I've read. Although I have a feeling the results might be a bit embarrassing. :-)

[eattheolives.livejournal.com]

I have several good excuses for my excess ... it's almost essential to me being good at my job, I have little social life, and I'm a very fast reader. :)

[equuschick.livejournal.com]

WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU HADN'T READ THE PHANTOM TOLBOOTH UNTIL THIS YEAR?

I am so shocked. If I had known, I so would have made you read it sooner. Practically at gunpoint. I read it before I was 13!

Sorry. Just losing it, that's all.

[eattheolives.livejournal.com]

I wish you had. It's not like I WANTED to be 23 before I discovered this classic!