All such lists are matters of pure subjectivity. No one has read everything -- not even that woman who consumes thousands of books a year in order to post her synopses of the plots on Amazon.com.
One can simply talk about the things he or she has read over the last 12 months. Some years, it's difficult to narrow things down to a single title as standing out over all others.
That isn't the case for 2009. The best book I read this year was "Await Your Reply" by Dan Chaon.
Chaon's novel tells three seemingly disparate stories -- a man searching for his long-lost twin brother, a high school student who has run off with a favorite teacher, a teenaged boy who reconnects with his biological father. And each story deals in one way with the concept of identity -- how precious and how fragile it is, and how great the cost one pays for slipping in and out of other people's lives.
The way these three stories come together makes for a story that is thrilling and poignant. Chaon has acknowledged the influences of such writers as Shirley Jackson and Peter Straub on his work, and the way he maintains the sense of dread and foreboding throughout "Await Your Reply," as well as the sympathy and insight he brings to his very human characters, shows he's learned lessons from these masters very, very well. It's a book that will haunt you, as it has haunted me for months since last reading it.
A close second would be "Do Not Deny Me," the collection of short stories by Jean Thompson. As we said, "What makes (Thompson's stories) so worthwhile is the clarity of Thompson's prose and sharpness of her insights. You do more than simply understand the way her characters feel and react — you find yourself nodding along in agreement, because you've felt that way yourself, or could see yourself reacting in the same way."
Other books we enjoyed this year, in no particular order:
"Sweet Charlotte's Seventh Mistake" by Cori Crooks. An innovative blend of memoir and collage, about the life of Crooks' mother, a "good time girl" whose life kept going bad.
"Poe" by Peter Ackroyd. A terse yet entertaining and insightful biography of Edgar Allan Poe.
"Cheever" by Blake Bailey. The definitive biography of one of America's greatest short story writers.
"The Fate of Katherine Carr" by Thomas H. Cook. Another of Cook's marvelously atmospheric tales of mystery, this one marked by a subtle sense of the uncanny.
"The Great Perhaps" by Joe Meno. A family comes deliriously apart in Meno's novel, as each one tries to find the one thing that will give their lives meaning and structure.
"Altman" by Mitchell Zuckoff. The legendary director of "M*A*S*H," "McCabe and Mrs. Miller," "Nashville" and "Gosford Park" is maybe the only person for whom the "oral biography" makes perfect sense.
"The Jazz Loft Project: Photographs and Tapes of W. Eugene Smith from 821 Sixth Avenue, 1957-1962" by Sam Stephenson. A fascinating portrait of mid-century New York City life, as told through the obsessive chronicles of photographer Smith, who opened his apartment to some of the city's top jazz artists for extended after-hours jams.
