Top Tens

Today I thought I would write about one of my New Year's Resolutions - that of reading more best-sellers. And, fortunately for me, my friend has returned my copy of Entertainment Weekly which has their list of the top 10 fiction and non-fiction books of 2010. This is where I intended to start with my popular books. Unfortunately, I recycled the magazine yesterday and the recycling was taken away this morning.

However, with some searching on the Entertainment Weekly website, I found the fiction list. (And let me point out now that it was much easier to do this with Google than with Entertainment Weekly's internal search engine, which is terrible.) And while searching for the non-fiction list, I realized that I'd recycled the year-end issue in my study recycling box, which did not get added to the rest of the recycling and taken away this morning. Sigh.

Here, without further ado, are Entertainment Weekly's picks for Top 10 Fiction and Nonfiction books of 2010:

Nonfiction
1. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
-about a line of extremely virile cells taken from a poor black woman before she died of cancer. These highly fertile cells have helped medical researchers around the world with new discoveries, while Lacks' own descendants suffered the inability to afford health insurance.

2. The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
-discusses the time period from 1915-1970 when millions of black Americans left the South.

3. The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddartha Mukherjee
-presumably the subtitle makes the substance of this work obvious.

4. Autobiograhy of Mark Twain by Mark Twain
-again, the title is obvious

5. Just Kids by Patti Smith
-this is also an autobiography, but as I have no idea who Patti Smith is (Entertainment Weekly credits her as being "...the poetry-spouting high priestess of punk..." [Issue #1134/#1135 Dec.24/31, Leah Greenblatt, pg.118]) the subject of the book is less obvious than previous

6. Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff
-not a biography! Instead, an apparently well-research book into Egypt's most famous Queen. Is apparently being turned into a movie for Angelina Jolie.

7. Packing for Mars: The Curious Science About Life in the Void by Mary Roach
-about the minutiae of space travel.

8. Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin
-about the 2008 American Presidential election.

9. How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less by Sarah Glidden
-a Jewish woman's travels in Israel as she attempts to understand the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

10. The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks, and Giants of the Ocean by Susan Casey
-like tornado chasers, only for waves. And in a boat.

Fiction
1. The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall
-a non-fiction account of a polygamist family.

2. Room by Emma Donoghue
-the story of a young boy. But there's a twist: the boy's world is limited to a single room which he shares with his abducted and rape-victim mother.

3. 40: A Doonesbury Retrospective by Garry Trudeau
-a collection from the famous comic strip.

4. The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer
-two Hungarian Jews in Paris during World War Two.

5. Skippy Dies by Paul Murray
-a young man at a Catholic school dies after a doughnut eating contest.

6. One Day by David Nicholls
-the author checks in on two lovers on the same date over a period of 20 years.

7. Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes
-Vietnam War.

8. The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman
-about an English-language newspaper in Rome.

9. Rich Boy by Sharon Pomerantz
-the American class system.

10. The Surrendered by Chang-Rae Lee
-a young girl, fleeing North Korea, loses her family and ends up at an orphanage with an American GI.


So, those are the lists! Now, this is my blog, so my rules. I don't want to read all of the books on these lists: 20 books are a lot, especially when there are a lot of other books clamouring for my attention. And I don't want to read books I don't like. Of course I'm trying to broaden my horizons, but there is only so much time to read, after all. And some of the books just don't interest me based upon their descriptions. I'm sure you can tell which ones based on my discussion in the above list. There are some areas of life I'm just not interested in reading about.

Here are my picks for books I would like to read in 2011:

Non-fiction
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, The Emperor of All Maladies, Cleopatra, Packing for Mars, and Game Change.

No surprise that Cleopatra is on the list. I do love historic female monarchs after all! I'm not usually one for medical books, but both The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and The Emperor of All Maladies sound appealing. One a little more human interest, one more history. I've heard that Packing for Mars is a really excellent book, and space travel is fascinating. Who didn't want to be an astronaut when they grew up? Finally, I've wanted to read Game Change since I first learned about it. I'm a bit of a political junkie, and this book sounds really interesting.

Fiction
The Lonely Polygamist, Room, Skippy Dies, and One Day.

I love the "Sister Wives" show on TLC. (New episodes in March!) So there's no surprise that I would pick The Lonely Polygamist. I've also been interested in One Day since I first read the review, and it seems a good time to read it before the movie comes out. (I think Anne Hathaway is attached to star.) I'm not usually into novels like Room, but I think the twist of the narrator will keep it from veering into Oprah's Book Club territory. Finally, Skippy Dies? Where did that come from? You are as surprised as I. I'm going out on a limb with this pick, but upon rereading the description from Entertainment Weekly, it sounds somewhat appealing. I'm looking forward to trying it out.

Now, off to the library to put all my selections on hold. What is everyone else reading that is new and exciting? Any other bestsellers I should check out?