Top 100 book lists: ideas for reading and gift-giving

Sunday 29 November 2009 20:00 EST

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The New York Times Book Review is the latest source to publish a Top 100 book list, following on the heels of Amazon.com, The Times (UK), The Telegraph, and many others. Picks for fiction and nonfiction, plus gift books, graphic novels, and illustrated children's books, provide a range of suggestions for giving and getting.

Among New York Times fiction picks for 2009, which are not ranked, are popular titles such as Colum McCann's Let the Great World Spin (winner of the US National Book Award), Barbara Kingsolver's The Lacuna, Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall (winner of the Booker Prize), and Orhan Pamuk's The Museum of Innocence, as well as books by Margaret Atwood and Alice Munro. Editors noted the resurgence of the short story as a "heartening development" this year and included twelve collections on the list, including ones by John Updike and Kazuo Ishiguro.

At The Times and the Telegraph, whose lists cover the best 100 books of the decade, titles include Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, Cormac McCarthy's The Road, and books by Barack Obama, JK Rowling, Dan Brown, and Dave Eggers.

The New York Times also noted graphic novels including The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, a retelling of the L. Frank Baum story by Eric Shanower and Skottie Young, and the deluxe first volume of Fables, by Bill Willingham and Mark Buckingham, about classic fairy tale characters living in exile in New York. Children's books include The Lion and the Mouse, illustrated by Jerry Pinckney, and All the World, by Liz Garton Scanlon and Marla Frazee.

Top 100 book lists:

The New York Times Book Review's 100 Notable Books of the Year:
http://www.nytimes.com/gift-guide/holiday-2009/100-notable-books-of-2009-gift-guide/list.html

Amazon.com's Best Books of 2009:
http://www.amazon.com/bestbooks2009

The Times's 100 Best Books of the Decade:
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/book_reviews/article6914181.ece?print=yes

The Telegraph's 100 books that defined the decade:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/6554803/100-books-that-defined-the-noughties.html