{"id":3254,"date":"2008-01-08T19:50:57","date_gmt":"2008-01-09T01:50:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/crankymonkeybutt.com\/snip\/archives\/2008\/01\/girlreaction-reads-favorites-of-2007.html"},"modified":"2025-04-05T15:43:02","modified_gmt":"2025-04-05T20:43:02","slug":"girlreaction-reads-favorites-of-2007","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/crankymonkeybutt.com\/snip\/archives\/2008\/01\/girlreaction-reads-favorites-of-2007.html","title":{"rendered":"GirlReaction Reads: Favorites of 2007"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I read 85 books <a href=\"http:\/\/www.crankymonkeybutt.com\/lists\/2007\/12\/books_read_in_2007.html\">(full list here) <\/a>in 2007, that&#8217;s probably about average for me, sometimes closer to 100, rarely below 50. Books may or may not have come out this year, it&#8217;s that I read them this year that counts.<br \/>\n<u><\/u><\/p>\n<p><u>My Favorite Six Books of 2007 were:<\/u><\/p>\n<ul type=\"square\">\n<li>&#8220;Winter&#8217;s Bone&#8221; by Daniel Woodrell (fiction)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Love Is a Mix Tape&#8221; by Rob Sheffield (memoir\/music)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;The Used World&#8221; by Haven Kimmel (fiction)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Why the Devil Chose New England for His Work&#8221; by Jason Brown (short stories)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Remainder&#8221; by Tom McCarthy (fiction)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Freddy and Fredericka&#8221; by Mark Helprin (fiction \/ really, really funny)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><u>(Very very close) Runners Up Were:<\/u><\/p>\n<ul type=\"square\">\n<li>&#8220;Run&#8221; by Ann Patchett<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith&#8221; by Jon Krakauer (wow, could NOT put it down. he&#8217;s a great researcher\/writer)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Simplify&#8221; by Todd Goldberg<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;The Uncommon Reader&#8221; by Alan Bennett (sooo funny)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;The Yiddish Policemen&#8217;s Union&#8221; by Michael Chabon<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><u>Favorite New (to me) Discoveries:<\/u><\/p>\n<ul type=\"square\">\n<li>Scarlett Thomas (&#8220;The End of Mr. Y&#8221; &#8211; philosophical fiction)<\/li>\n<li>Margo Lanagan (&#8220;Black Juice&#8221; and &#8220;Red Spikes&#8221; &#8211; thanks Marrije!! &#8211; fantasy short stories)<\/li>\n<li>Tana French (&#8220;In the Woods&#8221; &#8211; best mystery I read this year!!)<\/li>\n<li>Chris Cleave (&#8220;Incendiary&#8221; &#8211; fiction)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><u>I Read a Bunch of Good Books by Authors I Already Loved:<\/u><br \/>\nThe aforementioned books from Haven Kimmel (and &#8220;She Got Up Off the Couch&#8230;&#8221; too), Ann Patchett (and &#8220;Taft&#8221; too) and Michael Chabon (and &#8220;Gentlemen of the Road&#8221; too). As well as:<\/p>\n<ul type=\"square\">\n<li>&#8220;The Rain Before It Falls&#8221; by Jonathan Coe<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Day&#8221; by A.L.Kennedy<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Death of a Writer&#8221; by Michael Collins<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;The Quarry&#8221; by Damon Galgut (won the Booker for his previous book &#8220;The Good Doctor&#8221;)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Killing Pablo&#8221; by Mark Bowden (can he write a bad book?)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;12 Edmondstone Street&#8221; by David Malouf<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Black Cat&#8221; by Martyn Bedford<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;An Invisible Sign of My Own&#8221; by Aimee Bender<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Ludmilla&#8217;s Broken English&#8221; by DBC Pierre (another former Booker winner)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I read some more &#8220;Looks like Chick Lit but Isn&#8217;t (It&#8217;s Better!)&#8221; (Leah Stewart, Marisa de los Santos, Nina Solomon). I continued to work on Proust (three down, three to go?). I read mysteries from Jake Arnott, Lee Child, Dick Francis, and Harlan Coben. I read bits of different sci fi\/fantasy series (James Morrow, a true god of writing; Terry Goodkind&#8217;s Chainfire &amp; Sword of Truth series; George R.R. Martin). I read books about vampires and werewolves and the like (Tanya Huff, Patricia Briggs, Stephenie Meyers, Amber Benson &amp; Christopher Golden among others) and that&#8217;s not even counting all the Buffy Season 8 comics!<\/p>\n<p>It was a good year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I read 85 books (full list here) in 2007, that&#8217;s probably about average for me, sometimes closer to 100, rarely below 50. Books may or may not have come out this year, it&#8217;s that I read them this year that &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/crankymonkeybutt.com\/snip\/archives\/2008\/01\/girlreaction-reads-favorites-of-2007.html\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72,63,66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-72","category-all-faves","category-favebooks"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/crankymonkeybutt.com\/snip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/crankymonkeybutt.com\/snip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/crankymonkeybutt.com\/snip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/crankymonkeybutt.com\/snip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/crankymonkeybutt.com\/snip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3254"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/crankymonkeybutt.com\/snip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3254\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3921,"href":"http:\/\/crankymonkeybutt.com\/snip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3254\/revisions\/3921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/crankymonkeybutt.com\/snip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/crankymonkeybutt.com\/snip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/crankymonkeybutt.com\/snip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}