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We've made a couple of changes to our Puddlys Prize this year.
We discovered that galoshes made entirely of 24-carat gold have
a nasty tendency to be sort of heavy, and also to stick in puddles
at crucial moments like, say, when one is crossing a rain-slicked
street in heavy traffic. Therefore, this year's galoshes are made
of a fine, breathable latex inlaid with 9-carat gold bands. The
other big change is, all acceptance speeches must come in under
twenty seconds or we're cueing up the orchestra. And without further
ado, the winners:
  While we were asking you to cast your Puddly votes, we also asked our fellow Powell's employees to name the best book they read last year. As a bonus, our fifty favorites are listed here.  America (the Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction by Jon Stewart  by Susanna Clarke 
1.
The
Da Vinci Code
by Dan Brown
2.
The
Time Traveler's Wife
by Audrey Niffenegger
3.
Jonathan
Strange and Mr. Norrell
by Susanna Clarke
4.
The
No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
by Alexander McCall Smith
5.
The
Harry Potter Series
by J. K. Rowling
6.
The
Kite Runner
by Khaled Hosseini
7.
The
Five People You Meet in Heaven
by Mitch Albom
8.
The
Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
by Mark Haddon
9.
America
(the Book)
by Jon Stewart
10.
The
Dark Tower Series
by Stephen King
11.
Angels
and Demons
by Dan Brown "[P]lenty of thrilling cat-and-mouse maneuvers and life-or-death cliffhangers....Romance, religion, science, murder, mysticism, architecture, action. Go!" Kirkus Reviews 12.
The
Secret Life of Bees
by Sue Monk Kidd "Sue Monk Kidd's eccentric, inventive, and ultimately forgiving novel is reminscent of the work of Reynolds Price in its ability to create a truly original Southern voice." Anita Shreve 13.
Middlesex
by Jeffrey Eugenides "Middlesex isn't just a respectable sophomore effort; it's a towering achievement, and it can now be stated unequivocally that Eugenides' initial triumph wasn't a one-off or a fluke. He has emerged as the great American writer that many of us suspected him of being." Jeff Turrentine, The Los Angeles Times 14.
Life
of Pi
by Yann Martel "[M]artel’s writing is so original you might think he wants you to read as if, like a perfect snowflake, no other book had ever had this form…. In Pi one gleans that faith — one of the most ephemeral emotions, yet crucial whenever life is one the line — is rooted in the will to live. In any event, when Pi does come to the end of his journey, he has it." National Post 15.
The Thursday Next Series
by Jasper Fforde "The Eyre Affair is mostly a collection of jokes, conceits, and puzzles. It's smart, frisky, and sheer catnip for former English majors, a cross between Douglas Adams's A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Jonathan Lethem's Gun, With Occasional Music, with a big chunk of The Norton Anthology of English Literature tossed in." Laura Miller, Salon.com 16.
Cloud Atlas
by David Mitchell "Great Britain's answer to Thomas Pynchon outdoes himself...maddeningly intricate, improbably entertaining....[O]ne of the most imaginative and rewarding novels in recent memory....Sheer storytelling brilliance." Kirkus Reviews 17.
Bad Cat
by Jim Edgar Bad Cat is a laugh-out-loud look at hundreds of not-so-pretty kitties and cats gone bad — bad habits, bad intentions, and bad attitude. Based on the hit Web site www.mycathatesyou.com, this collection pays homage to the baddest cats around. 18.
The Lord of the Rings
by J. R. R. Tolkien "A unique, wholly realized other world, evoked from deep in the well of time, massively detailed, absorbingly entertaining, profound in meaning." New York Times Book Review 19.
Shadow of the Wind
by Carlos Ruiz Zafón "The Shadow of the Wind will keep you up nights — and it'll be time well spent. Absolutely marvelous." Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review) 20.
The Lovely Bones
by Alice Sebold "Sebold has given us a fantasy-fable of great authority, charm, and daring. She's a one-of-a-kind writer." Jonathan Franzen, author of The Corrections 21.
The Plot against America
by Philip Roth "It may well be [Roth's] best [novel], and it may well arouse more controversy than all the rest combined....The Plot Against America is far and away the most outward-looking, expansive, least narcissistic book Roth has written." Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post 22.
The Purpose-Driven Life
by Rick Warren "If you only read one book on what life is all about — make it this one! Rick Warren is absolutely brilliant at explaining our real purpose in the world and making the complex understandable. Read this book, then give it to everyone you care about. It is life-changing. Believe me, you’ll never be the same after reading this!" Lee Strobel, author of The Case for Christ 23.
The Baroque Cycle
by Neal Stephenson "The characters are compelling and draw the reader into the arcana as they muddle their way through a pivotal era in human existence....It's geek literature of the highest order." Eric S. Elkins, The Denver Post 24.
The Shopaholic Series
by Sophie Kinsella "Too good to pass up." USA Today 25.
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books
by Azar Nafisi "Stunning...a literary life raft on Iran's fundamentalist sea....All readers should read it." Margaret Atwood 26.
The Last Juror
by John Grisham "The Last Juror does not need to coast on its author's megapopularity. It's a reminder of how the Grisham juggernaut began." The New York Times 27.
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
by David Sedaris "[A] brilliant comic performance — a deftly shaken cocktail of wit, weirdness, and melancholy....Sedaris deserves a rave for giving us another book, period. But he's getting one here for giving us the best book of his career. (Grade: A)" Augusten Burroughs, Entertainment Weekly 28.
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and
Madness at the Fair That Changed America
by Erik Larson "[Larson] uses language well, but has little sense of pacing or focus, perhaps because of the huge amount of material available on the fair....There is much less material available on H. H. Holmes, and Larson tells that part of the story economically." David Traxel, The New York Times Book Review 29.
My Life
by Bill Clinton "My Life is, by a generous measure, the richest American presidential autobiography — no other book tells us as vividly or fully what it is like to be president of the United States for eight years." Larry McMurtry, The New York Times 30.
Bel Canto
by Ann Patchett "Let me put this plainly: Ann Patchett has written the best book I've read in a long, long time. Bel Canto is a masterpiece true to its title, a beautiful song, a broad, bold entirely original love story destined to become an international classic. This is the book we all wait for, the one we thrust into the hands of friends, saying, 'You've got to read this! You've got to read this now!'" A. Manette Ansay, author of Midnight Champagne 31.
The Known World
by Edward P. Jones "This extraordinary novel [is] the best new work of American fiction to cross my desk in years." Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post Book World 32.
The Birth of Venus
by Sarah Dunant "Simply amazing, so brilliantly written...almost intolerably exciting at times, and at others, equally poignant." Antonia Fraser 33.
Chronicles: Volume 1
by Bob Dylan "Gone is the druggy logorrhea of his 1966 novel, Tarantula, as Mr. Dylan...looks back on his life. Yet Chronicles is hardly tame. It is lucid without being linear, swirling through time without losing its strong storytelling thread." Janet Maslin, The New York Times 34.
Odd Thomas
by Dean Koontz "In a cleaner, less congested style than he usually favors, Mr. Koontz builds an enveloping story....Odd Thomas walks a very thin line between the exploitation of horror and the feel-good religious optimism that transcends the darkness..." Janet Maslin, The New York Times 35.
The Notebook
by Nicholas Sparks "Nicholas Sparks is a singer of songs, a harp-weaver who will not let you go. His novel shines with integrity: a real mission impossible." Dallas Morning News 36.
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 37.
"[A] typically unabashed blend of razor-witted denunciation and old-fashioned gumshoe detective work directed at right-wing crazies both in and out of government....And Franken can be very funny." Andrew Gumbel, The Independent (U.K.) 38.
A Series of Unfortunate Events Series
by Lemony Snicket "While the misfortunes hover on the edge of being ridiculous, Snicket's energetic blend of humor, dramatic irony, and literary flair makes it all perfectly believable." Library Journal 39.
Under the Banner of Heaven
by Jon Krakauer "Powerfully illuminating....Almost every section of the book is fascinating in its own right, and together the chapters make a rich picture....An arresting portrait of depravity." The New York Times Book Review 40.
The Way the Crow Flies
by Ann-Marie MacDonald "[P]erhaps MacDonald's most impressive accomplishment is her uncanny ability...to vividly re-create the wonder, humor, and fears of childhood." Joanne Wilkinson, Booklist 41.
My Sister's Keeper
by Jodi Picoult "Picoult's timely and compelling novel will appeal to anyone who has thought about the morality of medical decision making and any parent who must balance the needs of different children. Highly recommended." Library Journal 42.
Eragon: Inheritance, Book I
by Christopher Paolini "Full praise to Eragon, and I want more! A winner...tip of the hat to young master Paolini." Anne McCaffrey, author of The Dragonriders of Pern series 43.
Atonement
by Ian McEwan "No one now writing fiction in the English language surpasses Ian McEwan." The Washington Post Book World 44.
East of Eden
by John Steinbeck "A moving, crying pageant with wilderness strengths." Carl Sandburg 45.
His Dark Materials Series
by Philip Pullman "Philip Pullman is a writer I very much admire. I think he can write most adult authors off the page....I think he's amazing." J.K. Rowling 46.
A Short History of Nearly Everything
by Bill Bryson "Bryson...achieve[s] exactly what he'd set out to do, and, moreover, [he does] it in stylish, efficient, colloquial and stunningly accurate prose....[S]eems destined to become a modern classic of science writing." Ed Regis, The New York Times 47.
Gilead: A Novel
by Marilynne Robinson "Gilead is an almost otherworldly book. Its characters are, to a one, good people trying to do right. Obviously a work of enormous integrity, it feels different in kind from the work of writers who produce a book every couple of years, rushing to meet alimony payments, one imagines, or wanting to renovate kitchens. One senses none of the rub of greed informing the writing of the book — but because it lacks the mess of life poking up from the bottom, one is also left without the urgency of fiction." Mona Simpson, The Atlantic Monthly 48.
The Namesake
by Jhumpa Lahiri "Lahiri's short story collection, Interpreter of Maladies, won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize, and her deeply knowing, avidly descriptive, and luxuriously paced first novel is equally triumphant." Donna Seaman, Booklist 49.
Case Histories
by Kate Atkinson "Extravagantly inventive, exuberantly written, emotionally engaging, richly plotted, unafraid of human frailty, heart-wrenching, and so, so funny, Case Histories is prime Kate Atkinson. My Christmas shopping is done!" Christina Schwarz, author of Drowning Ruth and All Is Vanity 50.
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's
Childhood Pal
by Christopher Moore "In inventing his own conflicted, determined Jesus — one who found His conviction one step at a time instead of emerging from the manger fully formed and ready to preach — Moore is endlessly, wryly creative." Tasha Robinson, The Onion
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