THE BOOK ADDICT'S TOP 60 FAVOURITE READS OF 2009

Novels
1. The Anthologist (Simon & Schuster, 2009) / Nicholson Baker
2. Strangers (Fig Tree, 2009) / Anita Brookner
3. The Children’s Book (Knopf/Doubleday, 2009) / A.S. Byatt
4. Await Your Reply (Ballantine/Random House, 2009) / Dan Chaon
5. Galore (Doubleday Canada, 2009) / Michael Crummey
6. Solo (Fourth Estate, 2009) / Rana Dasgupta
7. The Great Lover (Sceptre, 2009) / Jill Dawson
8. Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi (Canongate, 2009) / Geoff Dyer
9. The Man in the Wooden Hat (Chatto & Windus, 2009) / Jane Gardam
10. Another Gulmohar Tree (Telegram Books, 2009) / Aamer Hussein
11. This Is How (Canongate, 2009) / M.J. Hyland
12. The Truth About Love (Virago, 2009) / Josephine Hart
13. Family Album (Fig Tree, 2009) / Penelope Lively
14. The Confessions of Edward Day (Nan A. Talese/Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2009) / Valerie Martin
15. Wolf Hall (Fourth Estate, 2009) / Hilary Mantel
16. The Glass Room (Little, Brown, 2009) / Simon Mawer
17. Let the Great World Spin (Bloomsbury, 2009) / Colum McCann
18. The Bishop’s Man (Random House Canada, 2009) / Linden MacIntyre
19. Under This Unbroken Sky (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2009) / Shandi Mitchell
20. Stone’s Fall (Jonathan Cape/Spiegel & Grau, 2009) / Iain Pears
21. Lark and Termite (Alfred A. Knopf, 2009) / Jayne Anne Phillips
22. The Mistress of Nothing (McArthur & Co., 2009) / Kate Pullinger
23. Burnt Shadows (Bloomsbury, 2009) / Kamila Shamsie
24. Brooklyn (Viking, 2009) / Colm Tóibín
25. Love and Summer (Viking, 2009) / William Trevor
26. Waiting for Columbus (McClelland & Stewart/Knopf Doubleday, 2009) / Thomas Trofimuk
27. The Little Stranger (Virago, 2009) / Sarah Waters
28. A Happy Marriage (Simon & Schuster, 2009) / Rafael Yglesias

First Novels
29. A Reliable Wife (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2009)/ Robert Goolrick
30. An Equal Stillness (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2009) / Francesca Kay
31. The Golden Mean (Random House Canada, 2009) / Annabel Lyon
32. American Rust (Simon & Schuster, 2009) / Philipp Meyer
33. After the Fire, a Still Small Voice (Jonathan Cape, 2009) / Evie Wyld

Stories
34. Between the Assassinations (Free Press/Simon & Schuster, 2009) / Aravind Adiga
35. Love Begins in Winter (HarperCollins, 2009) / Simon Van Booy
36. An Elegy for Easterly (Faber & Faber, 2009) / Petina Gappah
37. It’s Beginning to Hurt (Jonathan Cape/Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2009) / James Lasdun
38. Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It (Riverhead Books, 2009) / Maile Meloy
39. Too Much Happiness (Knopf Doubleday/Chatto & Windus, 2009) / Alice Munro
40. In Other Rooms, Other Wonders (W.W. Norton/Bloomsbury, 2009) / Daniyal Mueenuddin
41. What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us (Dzanc Books, 2009) / Laura van den Berg
42. Once the Shore (Sarabande, 2009) / Paul Yoon

Poetry
43. The Sun-Fish (The Gallery Press, 2009) / Eilean Ni Chuilleanain
44. The Water Table (Bloodaxe, 2009) / Philip Gross
45. Through the Square Window (Carcanet, 2009) / Sinead Morrissey
46. A Scattering (Arete, 2009) / Christopher Reid

Nonfiction
47. Life Class: The Selected Memoirs of Diana Athill (Granta Books, 2009) / Diana Athill
48. Cheever: A Life (Alfred A. Knopf, 2009) / Blake Bailey
49. William Golding: The Man Who Wrote Lord of the Flies (Faber & Faber, 2009) / John Carey
50. Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India (Bloomsbury, 2009) / William Dalrymple
51. The Music Room: A Memoir (W.W. Norton, 2009) / William Fiennes
52. Flannery: A Life of Flannery O’Connor (Little, Brown, 2009) / Brad Gooch
53. The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham (John Murray, 2009) / Selina Hastings
54. Saving God: Religion after Idolatry (Princeton University Press, 2009) / Mark Johnston
55. Lit: A Memoir (Harper, 2009) / Mary Karr
56. A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (Allen Lane, 2009) / Diarmaid MacCulloch
57. The Essays of Leonard Michaels (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2009) / Leonard Michaels
58. The Blue Hour: A Portrait of Jean Rhys (Bloomsbury, 2009) / Lilian Pizzichini
59. Raymond Carver: A Writer’s Life (Scribner, 2009) / Carol Sklenicka
60. Charles Dickens: A Life Defined by Writing (Yale University Press, 2009) / Michael Slater