Member's Books of the Year

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Rather than just post lists of what the "experts" reckon, I thought it would be good for us to share what we thought were the best books we read in 2009.

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For the first time ever, I maintained a list of pretty much everything I read this year, so I can be reasonably sure I haven't forgotten anything major.

I've decided to include the books that I read this year, not just those published in 2009. Most of the ones I'm listing are pretty recent anyway.

The top novels for me were:

1. Blood's a Rover, by James Ellroy
Ellroy lost me with The Cold Six Thousand, which I hated, but won me back with this culmination to his trilogy. It's a sprawling plot, littered with disreputable and despicable characters, yet he has managed to give most of them some light and shade (as he did in LA Confidential). His staccato prose style is still there, but it somehow seemed to be less of a hindrance than before, and the novel rattled on at a great pace.

2. 2666, by Roberto Bolano
OK, I was late to the party on this one. If I describe Ellroy as sprawling, then 2666 is Brobdingnagian. Its various parts seem wildly disparate, to the point where you suspect they were just cobbled together, yet he manages to bring it all together at the end with a neat conclusion. The book covers the war years through to the present day, across three continents and milieus as different as academia, war stories and hard-bitten cop drama. In the process he manages to make many telling points about poverty and corruption. It's the work of a master story-teller, thoroughly in command of his material.

3. The Slap, by Christos Tsiolkas
A social realist novel that reaped huge critical plaudits here. The central premise - whether it's OK to slap a misbehaving child - is emotional for many, but few can fail to have an opinion on it. Tsiolkas' novel is brilliant in that it accommodates all those points of view while exploring the social backgrounds that bring people to their different positions on the subject. In the process, the novel says a lot about the immigrant experience, parenting styles, and Melbourne's different subcultures. It's structure - a chapter devoted to the backstory of each character who witnessed the slap - enables him to cover all of this with a great deal of economy, and without ever being judgmental about who is right and who is wrong.

4. Netherland, by Joseph O'Neill
Just the fact that this novel portrays cricket in New York was enough to intrigue me. To use this as a metaphor for a foreign banker's sense of being an outsider in post-9/11 NYC was a deft touch. The novel also introduced a wonderful anti-hero in Chuck Ramkissoon, a West Indian entrepreneur with a shady past. The impact of 9-11 on Hans, his career and his marriage is recounted with empathy and the novel has some excellent observations on the souring of the American dream.

5. Parrot and Olivier in America, by Peter Carey
I reviewed this one elsewhere. It is one of Carey's better novels, and I'm expecting it to figure in a lot of the prize lists next year. It returns Carey to his Dickensian mode, a style of novel he does extremely well.

These books were so disparate I really couldn't settle on a #1 choice, although it would probably be between 2666 and The Slap, depending on how the mood took me.


I didn't read as much non-fiction this year as I normally do, and very little of it was recent. The highlights for me were:

1. The Rape of Nanking, by Iris Chang
This is purely due to my own ignorance, but this book was a searing eye-opener to me. I was aware of the misdeeds of Japanese soldiers in the Pacific War, but usually in the context of their mistreatment of Allied soldiers. I had heard of this event, but never knew of what really happened. Chang's matter-of-fact recounting, bolstered by photos of the events, was harrowing. What is truly horrifying is Japan's consistent refusal to acknowledge its misdeeds. Even after all this time, the historical record is falsified in their school system, their war criminals are lionised as heroes and they utterly refuse to acknowledge blame or take accountability for reparations. It is stunning that they are allowed to get away with this.

2. Black, The History of a Colour, by Michel Pastoureau
A social history with an utterly original concept - recounting the history of the colour black in terms of the meanings associated with it, its use in art and fashion, the process of producing black pigments and so on. This is a huge coffee-table book with stunning illustrations. The only problem was the companion volume - "Blue". Once I read that, I realised that these books were cookie-cutter copies written to a formula and reusing much material (with "Black" being the second). That diminished the book in my view, but it's still a great idea.

3. Entre Les Murs, by Francois Begeaudau
I saw the film made of this - The Class - and had to read the book. I got to it after my wife, who cracked up throughout (she's a teacher). I didn't see as much humour as she did, but it's certainly a great account of a year in a teacher's life. The French school system is very different to ours, and the processes of classroom and even teacher discipline were interesting. The novel also portrays the difficulties France is having absorbing the children of African immigrants. This was salient reading for Australians, as we are now experiencing many of the same problems as waves of Sudanese, Ethiopian and Somalian refugees start to arrive here.

4. The Lost City of Z, by David Grann
I thought this was a novel when I read the blurb, and it would have made a rattling good one, except it happens to be true. I had never heard of Percy Fawcett, and certainly never imagined that the search for El Dorado was still going on as recently as 1925. The book contrasts Fawcett's individualistic style of exploration with the technology-based efforts of his competitors, and is a compelling portrayal of obsession. As the icing on the cake, I learned at the end that Fawcett inspired a character in a Tintin book, which I recalled from my childhood.

5. Outliers; The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell
Gladwell's book tries to explain why some succeed while others fail. His argument is that situations and opportunities determine success, not heredity or socio-economic status. A lot of it is pretty convincing, such as the research into the effect of birth dates in predicting the success of hockey players. He also talks about how people like Bill Gates benefited from a highly unusual access to mainframe computers while still in high school, and how some Jewish lawyers in New York actually benefited from the Establishment's discrimination against them. Gladwell can stretch his point too far at times, such as his assertion that it takes 10,000 hours of practise to become expert and the success goes to those who get that early. That seems a pretty glib statement to be applied so generally.

No problem at all picking my best non-fiction book of the year. Iris Chang's book both educated me and horrified me to an extent that I was not at all prepared for when I picked it up at the library on a whim.

[Peltigera]

Surprised to see a book I read and enjoyed mentioned by someone else - doesn't happen very often as I have strange tastes in literature.  I am referring to Netherland by Joseph O'Neill.

Another strange book I enjoyed was Firmin (about a rat) but I have forgotten the author.

Mostly I read history and this last year I have been reading classical histories by Seutonius, Tacitus and Caesar (in translation, I hasten to add. My Latin is no longer good enough.) and The Road to Stalingrad by Erickson.

This year I shall be reading about languages as I have enrolled on a Linguistics degree course (to stop my brain from rusting further). I shall also be reading The Islandinga Sagas which Bestbeloved bought me for Xmas (again, in translation - my Norse is non-existent).

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Hi Pelti.

Firmin was written by Sam Savage. I've always meant to read it. It just so happens that I picked up his new novel at the Boxing Day sales - it's called The Cry of the Sloth. I'm looking forward to it, and will track down Firmin again on your recommendation.