Best Reads of 2010!

Last year I blogged about some of my most and least favorite books that I had read in 2009 and so I thought I would continue that again for my reads in 2010 and blog about it before January ends! I know I love to hear what good books others have read too so I can add them to my must read list!! I use goodreads.com on a regular basis to track and share the books I read if you want to follow me there. It is a fun easy way to track what you read and share what you think with others. I rarely have time for a lengthy review but still like to catalogue what I read as I have been tracking what I read for at least the last 10 years via journal and this website makes it much easier to do. So I read (or mostly listened to via audible.com on my ipod in the car, during workouts, and on walks) about 20 books last year and here were my top favorites. I don't really have any I read that I did not like last year (or there were a few I started and never got into but those don't count).


Fall of Giants
Ken Follett
Description: This book follows the fates of five interrelated families-American, German, Russian, English, and Welsh-as they move through the world-shaking dramas of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for women's suffrage. Thirteen-year-old Billy Williams enters a man's world in the Welsh mining pits...Gus Dewar, an Ame...moreThe first novel in The Century Trilogy, this book follows the fates of five interrelated families-American, German, Russian, English, and Welsh-as they move through the world-shaking dramas of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for women's suffrage. Thirteen-year-old Billy Williams enters a man's world in the Welsh mining pits...Gus Dewar, an American law student rejected in love, finds a surprising new career in Woodrow Wilson's White House...two orphaned Russian brothers, Grigori and Lev Peshkov, embark on radically different paths half a world apart when their plan to emigrate to America falls afoul of war, conscription, and revolution...Billy's sister, Ethel, a housekeeper for the aristocratic Fitzherberts, takes a fateful step above her station, while Lady Maud Fitzherbert herself crosses deep into forbidden territory when she falls in love with Walter von Ulrich, a spy at the German embassy in London...

MY THOUGHTS:
Ken Follett is my favorite author so no surprise that this was probably my favorite book this year! And its the first novel in a trilogy so that makes me more excited!!! It was another work of magic by Ken! His historical fiction truly brings the story and characters to life while educating one of the topic - in this case WWI. I did not want it to end! It was so neat to read about the development of WWI through the eyes of citizens of different countries at the time and loved all the characters and relationships (although it did seem like everyone was in love with everyone else - like a soap opera war novel - but that is probably what made it a fast read too!).

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption
Laura Hillenbrand
Description:
On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared. It was that of a young lieutenant, the plane’s bombardier, who was struggling to a life raft and pulling himself aboard. So began one of the most extraordinary odysseys of the Second World War.

MY THOUGHTS: Seabiscuit is another one of my all time favorite books because Hillenbrand is such a good author and this book by her is another that did not disappoint! Definitely another one of my all time favorite books! This story is so well written and an amazing story of - as she puts it - Survival, Resilience, and Redemption during the war from survival at sea to surviving prison camp in Japan. My stepgrandmother was in a Japanese prison of war camp during WWII so those descriptions touched me deeply too. I would recommend it to anyone and just a miraculous story.


Juliet
Anne Fortier
Description:
Twenty-five-year-old Julie Jacobs is heartbroken over the death of her beloved aunt Rose. But the shock goes even deeper when she learns that the woman who has been like a mother to her has left her entire estate to Julie’s twin sister. The only thing Julie receives is a key—one carried by her mother on the day she herself died—to a safety-deposit box in Siena, Italy.

MY THOUGHTS: This was a fun take on the history of Romeo and Juliet and a very fun, easy read that was well written and well thought out. It can be cheezy and a few plot holes at times, but overall I would highly recommend it as a fun, fast read and made me want to revisit the traditional story of Romeo and Juliet again after reading this!


Bless Me, Ultima
Rudolfo Anaya
Description:
Set in NM on the border between a small village and the huge llano (plains), Bless Me, Ultima is Rudolfo Anaya's much acclaimed and award-winning coming-of-age novel from the Hispanic perspective. Antonio is torn between his father's cowboy side of the family who ride on the llano and his mother's village and farming relations. Many conflicts are presented here: Hispanic vs American culture, Catholicism vs paganism, parents' expectations vs the child's desires, Spanish blood vs native blood.

Antonio's life is forever altered when his aunt Ultima, a curandera (healer) comes to live with the family; she teaches Antonio many things, most importantly how to gather the self-knowledge that will help carry him into adulthood.

MY THOUGHTS: I read this years ago in high school and remember liking it. I read it again this year as a book club read and was so enthralled with the story and the way it was told and the beautiful vignettes of life in this boy's family. I did really enjoy the book from the way the story is told to the many poignant topics and questions the main character brings up and invites us to think about with him - Do we make our own destiny? who is God? Why is their death in this world? Why do people suffer? What is evil?

The Postmistress
Sarah Blake
Description:
Filled with stunning parallels to today's world, The Postmistress is a sweeping novel about the loss of innocence of two extraordinary women-and of two countries torn apart by war.

On the eve of the United States's entrance into World War II in 1940, Iris James, the postmistress of Franklin, a small town on Cape Cod, does the unthinkable: She doesn't deliver a letter. In London, American radio gal Frankie Bard is working with Edward R. Murrow, reporting on the Blitz. One night in a bomb shelter, she meets a doctor from Cape Cod with a letter in his pocket, a letter Frankie vows to deliver when she returns from Germany and France, where she is to record the stories of war refugees desperately trying to escape. The Postmistress is an unforgettable tale of the secrets we must bear, or bury. It is about what happens to love during wartime, when those we cherish leave. And how every story-of love or war-is about looking left when we should have been looking right

MY THOUGHTS: My mother in law recommended this book and I really enjoyed it! Being a war story it is depressing, but this story was well told and from an interesting perspective rarely seen in WWII stories. I liked the characters and the way everything connected in the end and had a "moral of the story" type ending. Check it out if you are looking for a new book to read.