In January, we asked you to tell us the best book you read last year.
Thousands of you cast your vote in this year's Puddly Awards balloting.
More than a thousand different titles were nominated, but who did you choose to wear the Golden Galoshes?
The
Lovely Bones
by
Alice Sebold
#1
The
Lovely Bones
by
Alice Sebold
"By the time
The Lovely Bones landed on bookstore shelves
it had become the most highly anticipated book of the season. Then came
the astonishingly enthusiastic critical response. Within two months, a
million copies were in print. Still, readers encountering a simple plot
summary might be tempted to turn away. Newspapers offer enough tragedy
these days; do we really have time and energy for dark, tragic fiction?
Consider those apprehensions dismissed: Sebold's debut fiction is an unflinching,
graceful gift of a novel, an invigorating, expansive work of storytelling
that should not work, but magically does."
Dave, Powells.com
#2
The
Lord of the Rings
by
J. R. R. Tolkien
"No imaginary world has been projected which is at once so multifarious
and so true....Here are beauties which pierce like swords and burn like
cold iron."
C. S. Lewis
#3
Atonement
by
Ian McEwan
"This twist, this revelation, further emphasizes the novel's already explicit
ambivalence about being a novel, and makes the book a proper postmodern
artifact, wearing its doubts on its sleeve, on the outside, as the Pompidou
does its escalators. But it is unnecessary....because the fineness of
the book as a novel, as a distinguished and complex evocation of English
life before and during the war, burns away the theoretical, and implants
in the memory a living, flaming presence."
James Wood, The New Republic
#4
Fast
Food Nation
by Eric Schlosser
"Forget the urban legends about rats in chicken buckets and bodily
fluids in the deep-fryer. Eric Schlosser's new Extra Value Meal of a
tome is Anthony Bourdain's
Kitchen Confidential with twice the
heart and one-tenth the budget. Incomprehensibly svelte (from the neck
up, anyway, in his jacket photo), Schlosser ate 'an enormous amount
of fast food' during the two fry-soaked years he spent researching
Fast
Food Nation, and fortunately for us, he lived to tell the tale."
Rebecca Schuman, Esquire
#5
Stupid
White Men: And Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation!
by
Michael Moore
"A more irresponsible book on a more important topic would be impossible
to write."
New Republic
#6
American
Gods
by
Neil Gaiman
"
American Gods is a crackerjack suspense yarn with an ending that
both surprises and makes perfect sense, as well as many passages
of heady, imagistic writing."
Laura Miller, Salon.com
#7
The
Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
by
Michael Chabon
"I'm not sure what the exact definition of a 'great American novel'
is, but I'm pretty sure that Michael Chabon's sprawling, idiosyncratic,
and wrenching new book is one."
Daniel Mendelsohn, New York Magazine
#8
Bel
Canto
by
Ann Patchett
"This is a story of passionate, doomed love; of the glory of art; of
the triumph of our shared humanity over the forces that divide us, and
a couple of other unbearably cheesy themes, and yet Patchett makes it
work, completely."
Laura Miller, Salon.com
#9
Empire
Falls
by
Richard Russo
"Richard Russo first made his reputation with a series of blue-collar
novels that suggested a more antic and expansive Raymond Carver. But
by the time he published
Straight Man, in 1997, Russo was clearly
interested in breaking new ground, and that foray into academic farce
showed off his comic timing and sneaky construction to superb effect.
Now comes
Empire Falls, the author's most ambitious work to date."
James Marcus, Atlantic Online
#10
Life
of Pi
by
Yann Martel
"
Pi is Martel's triumph. He is understated and ironic, utterly
believable and pure..."
Toronto Globe and Mail
#11
Harry
Potter and the Goblet of Fire
by J.K. Rowling
"[This book] brings the fun, and not just in stingy little buckets....At
734 pages,
Goblet brings it by the lorry load....The most remarkable
thing...is that Rowling's punning, one eyebrow-cocked sense of humor
goes the distance."
New York Times Book Review
#12
The
Red Tent
by Anita Diamant
"Diamant vividly conjures up the ancient world of caravans, farmers,
midwives, slaves, and artisans...her Dinah is a compelling narrator
that has timeless resonance."
Merle Rubin, The Christian Science
Monitor
#13
Seabiscuit:
An American Legend
by Laura Hillenbrand
"Seabiscuit was a great horse, perhaps the best ever, running in one
of the worst decades ever, the Great Depression, bringing excitement
and pleasure to millions of Americans when they needed those emotions
desperately. This is more than a fine piece of writing about the sport
of racing; it is also about our history. I wish all sportswriters could
write like this."
Stephen Ambrose, author of Undaunted Courage
#14
The
Corrections
by Jonathan Franzen
"Yes, there are a million novels on just this theme, but none move
so perfectly between black comedy and tragic pathos; none are written
with such swooping lyric intensity; none make so overt the link between
the kitsch — the junk food — of Middle American dreaming (turkey in
the oven, the kids all home playing touch football) and the unhappy
realities it tries to stave off and cannot. What this man writes is
true, and what is true indicts us."
Sven Birkerts, Esquire
#15
Nickel
and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America
by Barbara Ehrenreich
"We have Barbara Ehrenreich to thank for bringing us the news of America's
working poor so clearly and directly, and conveying with it a deep moral
outrage and a finely textured sense of lives as lived. As Michael Harrington
was, she is now our premier reporter of the underside of capitalism."
Dorothy Gallagher, New York Times Book Review
#16
Peace
Like a River
by Leif Enger
"I'm urging this book on you because it is written in prose tart and crisp
as a Minnesota Autumn.
Peace Like a River is seductive and chatty
and deliciously American and there are passages so wondrous and wise you'll
want to claw yourself with pleasure."
Frank McCourt, author of Angela's
Ashes and 'Tis
#17
The
Poisonwood Bible
by Barbara Kingsolver
"With the publication of
The Poisonwood Bible, this easy, humorous,
competent, syrupy writer has been elevated to the ranks of the greatest
political novelists of our time. She is something new: a political novelist
who is careful not to step on anyone's toes. Barbara Kingsolver does not
finally give a hoot about Africa."
Lee Siegel, The New Republic
#18
Lamb:
The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal
by Christopher Moore
"An audacious and irreverent novel...guaranteed deeply to offend all right-thinking
Christians....The style is a bizarre mix of serious and sometimes brutal
historical fiction laced with black humor, wordplay, in-jokes, and sharp
one-liners worthy of a good stand-up comedian."
Kirkus Reviews
#19
Proof
through the Night: A B-29 Pilot Captive in Japan
by K.P. Burke
"This is a stunningly important book about courage and suffering, heroism
and humanity. The story of Ernest Pickett is one that none of us should
ever forget. Read it and weep, read it and be proud."
Jim Lehrer, The
NewsHour with Jim Lehrer
#20
A
Fine Balance
by Rohinton Mistry
"Those who continue to harp on the inevitable decline of the novel ought
to hold off for a while. The unique task of the genre, after all, is truthfulness
to human experience in all its variety, and thanks to the great migrations
of population in our time, human variety is to be found in replenished
abundance all around us....Consider Rohinton Mistry....Rhoninton Mistry
needs no infusions of magical realism to vivify the real. The real world,
through his eyes, is quite magical enough."
A. G. Mojtabai, New York
Times Book Review
#21
The
Hours
by Michael Cunningham
"Michael Cunningham's novel
The Hours is that rare combination:
a smashing lliterary tour de force and an utterly invigorating reading
experience. If this book does not make you jump up from the sofa, looking
at life and literature in new ways, check to see if you have a pulse."
Ann Prichard, USA Today
#22
Prodigal
Summer
by Barbara Kingsolver
"A complex web of human and natural struggle and interdependency
is analyzed with an invigorating mixture of intelligence and warmth....Kingsolver
doesn't hesitate to lecture us, but her lessons are couched in a
context of felt life so thick with recognition and implication that
we willingly absorb them. This deservedly popular writer takes risks
that most of her contemporaries wouldn't touch with the proverbial
ten-foot pole.
Prodigal Summer is another triumphant vindication
of her very distinctive art."
Kirkus Reviews
#23
The
Crimson Petal and the White
by Michel Faber
"This entertaining and morally persuasive portrait of 19th-century London
society, from the lowliest of the low to the haughtiest of the high, is
already being hailed as 'Dickensian.' A better term would be 'hyper-Dickensian.'
Faber's filthy guttersnipes are too wretched, his foppish dandies too
pompous, and his scheming whores too cunning — and his outlook far too
(deliciously) cynical — for the author of
Great Expectations. Like
Madonna's vinyl corset, Michel Faber's
The Crimson Petal and the White
is a Victorian artifact retooled for the 21st century."
C. P. Farley,
Powells.com
#24
The
Golden Compass
by Philip Pullman
"Arguably the best juvenile fantasy novel of the past 20 years....It's
sheerly, breathtakingly, all-stops-out thrilling."
Washington Post
#25
John
Adams
by David McCullough
"Given that your average American learned much of his country's history
at that show at Disney World with the scary automatons in goofy Amadeus-era
tights, it's no small feat that this narrative succeeds so marvelously
well at rendering all these players of early American history human....Here
is a book that's so good it'll make you shiver."
Adrienne Miller, Esquire
#26
The
Summons
by John Grisham
"In
The Summons, [Grisham] returns in all his Grisham
glory, complete with lawyers both good and bad, legal issues to
be pondered and the delightful suspense that keep us flipping the
pages." Bernadette Murphy, Los Angeles Times
#27
Skipping
Christmas
by John Grisham
"Grisham astutely captures the way many people spend the holiday season,
from fighting the crowds to commenting on their neighbors' Christmas trees.
A Painted House was Grisham's first departure from the legal thriller
genre, and this further demonstrates his ability to tell a story with
nary a courtroom in sight."
Library Journal
#28
The
Botany of Desire: A Plant's Eye View of the World
by Michael Pollan
"A lovely book that succeeds in attaining that most elusive of states:
grace."
Adrienne Miller, Esquire
#29
Carter
Beats the Devil
by Glen David Gold
"Gold's material is utterly irresistible — flappers, bootleggers,
Secret Service goons, beautiful magician's assistants, icky mobsters
— and it's impossible not to be engrossed."
Adrienne Miller,
Esquire
#30
Me
Talk Pretty One Day
by David Sedaris
"The joy of each piece is in the reading itself….Each essay is a delight,
and explores the different worlds of family, city, and foreign countries
in a consistent voice and rhythm....Some, in fact, are among the best
things Sedaris has written."
The Boston Book Review
#31
Middlesex
by Jeffrey Eugenides
"[I]t is an often affecting, funny, and deeply human book. For all its
scope and its size, for all the data that crowds this novel, Eugenides
seems a charmingly ingenuous writer."
James Wood, The New Republic
#32
You
Shall Know Our Velocity
by Dave Eggers
"[E]ntertaining and profoundly original....Eggers makes a strong argument
for the arbitrary quality of wealth, and how difficult it is to redistribute
it in a way that is not equally arbitrary. And though he coats this meditation
on generosity in his helium-inflected humor, there is a self-reflexive
sadness, too."
John Freeman, San Francisco Chronicle
#33
The
Fiery Cross
by Diana Gabaldon
Diana Gabaldon mesmerized readers with her award-winning Outlander
novels, four dazzling
New York Times bestsellers featuring 18th-century
Scotsman James Fraser and his 20th-century time-traveling wife, Claire
Randall. Now, in this eagerly awaited fifth volume, Diana Gabaldon continues
their extraordinary saga....
#34
The
Hobbit: Or There and Back Again
by J. R. R. Tolkien
"Seventeen years ago there appeared, without any fanfare, a book
called The Hobbit which in my opinion, is one of the best children's stories
of this century."
W. H. Auden, The New York Times Book Review, 1954
#35
Unless
by Carol Shields
"You wouldn't expect it from her, but Carol Shields has written
a naughty book....the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of
The Stone
Diaries is doing something indecorous here — ribbing our notions
of grief, even snickering at what inspires us....This is one of
those books that make you regret that reading is a solitary pleasure."
Ron Charles, The Christian Science Monitor
#36
White
Oleander
by Janet Fitch
"Janet Fitch writes with breathtaking beauty about the central
theme of our age: the search for self.
White Oleander is a remarkable
debut novel."
Robert Olen Butler, author of A Good Scent from a Strange
Mountain
#37
The
Curse of Chalion
by Lois McMaster Bujold
When he returns to the castle after years away, a former page finds
himself hired as teacher of the princess, who is several people removed
in the line of succession. But, given the curse that haunts the royal
family, soon the princess is ruling and the former page is suddenly thrust
into a position of great importance as her confidant.
#38
The
Eyre Affair
by Jasper Fforde
"Surreal and hilariously funny, this alternate history, the debut
novel of British author Fforde, will appeal to lovers of zany genre work
(think Douglas Adams) and lovers of classic literature alike....Witty
and clever, this literate romp heralds a fun new series set in a wonderfully
original world."
Publishers Weekly
#39
The
Little Friend
by Donna Tartt
"[A]nother ambitious dark-hued melodrama....[V]ery long, very overheated,
yet absorbing....Despite an overload of staggered false climaxes, it's
all quite irrationally entertaining....Still, the characters are gritty
and appealing, and the story holds you throughout. Tartt appears to have
struck gold once again."
Kirkus Reviews
#40
The
Secret History
by Donna Tartt
"A great, dense, disturbing story, wonderfully told."
Cosmopolitan
#41
The
Shelters of Stone
by Jean M. Auel
The fifth installment of Jean Auel's Earth's Children series, which
began with
The Clan of the Cave Bear, is one of the most hotly
anticipated books in publishing history. In
The Shelters of Stone,
Ayla and Jondalar complete their epic journey across Europe, join Jondalar's
people, the Zelandonii, and face new and perilous challenges.
#42
The
Bible
The bestselling book in all of history.
#43
Everything
Is Illuminated
by Jonathan Safran Foer
"Foer exquisitely executes the book's best jokes: the way that
Jonathan's minor flaws — his vanity, his American cluelessness, his tendency
to patronize — filter through Alex's admiring portrait of the young man
he calls his 'most premium friend' and 'the hero.' As the novel shades
inexorably into the tragic mode, and as Alex comes to be a much better
writer than Jonathan, with both a finer sense of truth and a more urgent
understanding of the need for happy endings, his stumbling English incandesces
into eloquence. And that alone is worth the price of admission."
Laura
Miller, Salon.com
#44
Fall
on Your Knees
by Ann-Marie MacDonald
"A plate piled dangerously high with calamities, perhaps, but the
time, place, and people — especially the children — all ring clear and
true, making for an accomplished, considerably affecting saga."
Kirkus
Reviews
#45
Girl
with a Pearl Earring
by Tracy Chevalier
"Tracy Chevalier has so vividly imagined the life of the painter
and his subject that you say to yourself: This is the way it must have
been."
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
#46
The
Secret Life of Bees
by Sue Monk Kidd
"A wonderfully written debut that rather scants its subject of
loss and discovery...in favor of a feminist fable celebrating the company
of women....Despite some dark moments, more honey than vinegar."
Kirkus
Reviews
#47
Four
Blind Mice
by James Patterson
Alex Cross is plunged into a case where military codes of honor
conceal dark currents of revenge and ambition, and the men controlling
the moves have the best weapons and training the world can offer.
#48
Lullaby
by Chuck Palahniuk
"This is arguably Palahniuk’s greatest gift: his ability to jab
his finger right on the sharpest point of a nerve we might not even have
known was exposed. In
Fight Club, it was the growing dissatisfaction
with a materialistic world bent on conformity and consumption; in
Survivor,
the dangerous pervasiveness of pop-culture icons; and now, in
Lullaby,
he taps into the noise that surrounds us, the noise we wish we could drown
out — and he makes us wonder to what lengths we might go for that blessed
silence."
Chris Bolton, Powells.com
#49
The
Miracle Life of Edgar Mint
by Brady Udall
"Udall's style is reminiscent of the '60s black humorists, but
he doesn't share their easy cruelty or inveterate superciliousness, making
this not only an accomplished novel, but a wise one."
Publishers Weekly
#50
Red Rabbit
by Tom Clancy
"Smart
and likable, Jack Ryan has become one of the best-known characters in
contemporary American fiction."
Washington Post
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