Best Books, My List from 2009

I know we’re more than halfway through 2010 but I’ve wanted to share my list from 2009 since …. well, 2009. This year my reading has been relatively light, but for the past 15 years or so I have been averaging about 100 books a year. So this list is the crème de la crème. It will not be like anybody else’s list and that’s the beauty of it. You don’t have to copy (unless you want to). You can discover what appeals to you and decide what is the best of the best for you. There are 8 literary fiction selections and one nonfiction. Since I read mostly literary fiction this is not meant to be a representative sample of what’s out there, just the best of what I read in 2009. I don’t anything so far for 2010 believe it or not, but I may revise that.


Here it is in no particular order:

1. The Age of Orphans by Laleh Khadivi

2. Lima Nights by Marie Arana

3. On a Moonless Night by Sijii Dae

4. To Siberia by Per Petterson

5. Winter Vault by Anne Michaels

6. Gourmet Rhapsody by Muriel Barbery

7. Desert by J. M. G. LeClezio

8. Sefarad by Antonio Munoz Molina

9. My Father’s Paradise: A Son’s Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq by Ariel Sabar

Let’s start with the memoir, “My Father’s Paradise,” because my reasons for selecting this title are somewhat different than they are for the fiction selections. This book is so amazing and for so many reasons, not only to myself but to others I’ve heard speak about the book. It tells the story the Iraqi Jews and not incidentally a story of relevance to all Jewish people by telling a personal story of tragedy and triumph. The answer to the question of what happened to the ten lost tribes of Israel may find its roots in Northern Iraq and the Kurdish Jews who were speaking Aramaic until the middle of the 20th century.

Looking back at 2009 it was a very good year for reading and there were many tremendous books.

I would say that coincidentally but not intentionally that none of the fiction authors are American at least by birth. What does it say about about the type of book I gravitate toward? I ask myself the question. I do read many American authors, probably more American authors than any other. I would say that message is part of it but not all of it. I think this list reflects for me an appreciation of a writing style that is magical. You begin reading and you know. You are mesmerized and submerged by the writing itself. In some of the works more than others there is a certain poetry. These are not populist books. They don’t have a story in the typical sense. Of course there is a story, often an upheaval—personal and societal, but it is subsumed by the character’s internal experience, and the message follows like a lightning bolt.

Of this group of fiction Desert and On A Moonless Night stand out even in translation. Now another coincidence hits me. Both are translated from the French, but two completely different stories and authors. Desert tells a story 100 years in the making of the displacement of the Tuareg peoples of Morocco as a result of colonialism. On a Moonless Night tells the story of an elusive ancient scroll and the spiritual and political history of the Chinese people. Again, both are told through the eyes of a few characters and mostly one particular character.

The end result? I feel that I have also been on a journey.