I have to say, I love lists. I make lists. I use lists. I think I would have babies with other lists I have made. And guess what, it is the time of the year when lists lovers come together for the mania of list giving and receiving. Santa is checking his lists and People Magazine is checking everyone’s outfit. The whole year end round up of everything. Best tech toys, best movies, best stocks, best lead filled toys. There are lists for everything, we just get inundated with them while it is time to go shopping for the holidays. I mean there is even the list of the years best lists here on Fimoculous.com. Yet, of course my favorite list are those that deal with books.
The parade of best books of 2007 have been coming out for the past couple of weeks. I work at a bookstore, a corporate suburban bookstore to be exact. Frankly, these best book lists make no difference unless you are a junkie. Well, a literary junkie. There a tons of women who throw down a romance or two a day, yet they could give a crap about these. So they aren’t really for all readers. I love them, because I actually know what they are talking about. I heard of these books, I have consumed these books. Though not as many as I would like, being a student and all. Usually the most important book list is the New York Times most 100 notable and then they size it down to the top 10 in fiction(5) and non-fiction(5). Slate has its take, Publishers Weekly , London’s The Guardian and every local newspaper and magazine.
There are some repeats within some lists:
Then We Came to an End by Joshua Farris
Three of Smoke by Denis Johnson
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano
Of course these are all fiction books. It seems that it is harder to nail down the non-fiction books for the myriad of non-fiction genres. I was looking at the lists and it seems that the Washington Post was the only one that had its best book list with genres. It had a section for historical fiction and even sci-fi/fantasy section, which is usually only something that consumers of that genre look at. Though I will mention of course that romance was not included even in Washington Post. Though there has to be a website or blog that notes the ten best romance of 2007, though I am going to be the snobby one and say that no one is reading them.
So to end I just have to say, thank G-d for the holiday break, which gives me the extra reading time. Only three weeks, what to read?
Running While Screaming 