Best Books of 2008

I shared my favorite books of 2008 with the Betsy-Tacy list on New Year's Eve but forgot to post it here so apologies to those who were looking for it:

I believe I read 143 books in 2008, down from 160 in 2007 (reflecting far too much time spent at my former law firm - boo) but I don't always remember to record the rereads (or partial reads, when one picks up a book to check a quote, then forget and read the entire thing!).

I always appreciate recommendations from friends and family, sometimes on books I would never have chosen otherwise or on others already on my mental list but not yet in my possession. I always think fondly of the librarians at the Boys and Girls Library in Newton, MA, when I was growing up, a little yellow house full of women who loved books as much as I did, and who always pointed out the new book from the Margaret McElderry imprint and other books they thought I would like.

Adult Fiction

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society /Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows

Mystery

I Shall Not Want / Julia Spencer-Fleming

An Expert in Murder / Nicola Upson

Historical Fiction

City of Shadows / Diana Norman writing as Ariana Franklin

The Fortune Hunter / Ira Morris

North and South / Elizabeth Gaskell

Nonfiction

American Bloomsbury / Susan Cheever (despite flaws)

YA Fiction

Dairy Queen / Catherine Gilbert
Life as We Knew It / Susan Beth Pfeffer

How Not to be Popular / Jennifer Ziegler

YA Historical

Small Gains / K.M. Peyton (she is the only author on this list I have been reading since grade school!)

Another Shore / Nancy Bond

YA Fantasy

Seven Daughters and Seven Sons / Barbara Cohen

Crown Duel / Sherwood Smith

A Curse as Dark as Gold / Elizabeth Bunce

Children's Books

The Green Glass Sea / Ellen Klages

Best Reread

The Witch of Blackbird Pond / Elizabeth George Speare

Picture Books

The Happy Lion / Louise Fatio

Boys and Girls Library, Newton
The Betsy-Tacy books were shelved to the left of that door