In the Top Ten of My Reading Year
587390
I stumbled across a review of Myriam Gurba's "Mean", and my interest was piqued, so I picked up a copy. To say that the book blew me away is an understatement. The author's confidence, her casual erudition, her gritty realism, and her ruthless, take-no-prisoners honesty kept me captivated from the opening lines. Her style is miraculous, and utterly her own - completely accessible, funny as hell, yet with that deceptive simplicity masking a complexity of thought and structure that only a born writer can achieve. It made me want to go out and read everything she's ever written, and hang around the bookstores hoping for more. If you love brilliant, fearless memoir writing, you are doing yourself a disservice if you do not read Ms. Gurba's work. This book runs you over like a truck, and I mean that as the highest kind of praise.
4947066
I re-read this book recently - 10 years after I first read it, and it still sucked me into its amazing world.  I love the way it is written, the over the top provision of every detail, the storyline, the joys,  the heart breaks.  It is a book my mind returns to regularly to think about people and their behaviours.
1004020
In terms of the factors above best book of the year!
3996853
I won this book at a Nanowrimo kick off party raffle a couple of years ago, and just got round to reading it yesterday, finishing it today.  I must say, I read it at the perfect time in my life.  This collection of poems has touched me at my core, and is both life propelling and life changing.  I believe this will be one of those books that will stay with me forever.  Incredibly gorgeous, insightful, soulful, empowering, peaceful, warm, real - I could go on for quite some time.  I felt I knew each author by the time I turned the last page, and my only criticism isn't a true criticism at all: I want to read what they've written since!
1214400
This is a spellbinding book meeting every readers expectations in every way. This is among my top ten of the year.
212523
Because it is a real favorite!  And I will read again  another time I am certain before the year is over!
4708025
one of the best books ive read this year, wonderful
3030453
A great read,  I was glued to it, and was worth re- reading
978990
This was really a wonderful book. In every way. There are plenty of reviews here that give WAY TOO MUCH away. I just wanted to put my two cents in that--as a person who reads several dozen books annually--I consider this one of my five top reads of the year.
Please, PLEASE will someone translate more of Zafon's books into English right away!
425949
I am making a hobby of philosophy and am collecting some of the great authors to read in my leasure over the next year or so.
1597682
This is hands-down the best book of 2010, and it quickly rose to the top of my favorites list. I read about 50 books a year, and this novel warranted two reads within a few months -- and I don't think I'll be able to go long without reading it again. The first for Hamann, I was impressed with the novel's prose and the characters she's created within a world about finding yourself and love and the integrity and strength within all of that.

I won't give you a synopsis on what the book is about, but only tell you that's it's a compelling read with a likeable heroine who sometimes knowingly and unknowingly points out the truths of life, as corny as that may sound. But Hamann does all of it with unpretentious grace. The writing is almost poetic, so beautiful in some parts that I had to read some sentences twice. This author also completely captures what it's like to not only be a teenager, but a woman.

I have nothing but praise for "Anthropology of an American Girl," and anyone who recognizes and values the art of the written word will appreciate the beauty of this book.
2960707
This was hands down my 'favourite' book of 2017. It's hard to attach positive sentiments for a such a harrowing book but it is so worthy of your time. Hanya Yanagihara draws you in (not quickly, it's worth hanging in there though) to the lives of these four friends in New York, so much so that you feel like you're really with them on this journey. The range of emotions this drew from me was staggering and it is 100% in my top ten books I've ever read. I still feel emotional thinking about it now and it's been three months since I read it.
4139089
There is an irony in writing a online review for a book about life that is located and physical. That noted, the Spirit of Food will be one of the best reads on my list this year. The book itself was a feast; chapter after chapter of poetic yet accessible writings reminding me that being present physically in the everyday is a spiritual act. The book is at once joyful and somber; a wonderful reflection on rooted living and work. I'd recommend it to those who like Wendell Berry and Michael Pollan, vegetable gardening and farmers markets, as well as those who like Phillip Yancy and Donald Miller, church potlucks and Wednesday night Bible study.
1305817
One of the strangest and wonderful coming of age stories that I have read in years, and one of the best novels I have read in the last ten years.  MO Walsh is  at the top of his game, and the world he spins is vibrant and rich and authentic and comic and lovely and tragic.  This should be at the top of everyone's reading list, and if it doesn't win a major award next year I will eat my hat.
4154488
I read a lot. A whole lot. A slow year of reading for me is about eighty books. And I'm really good about picking out the books I'll like. So, I read a whole lot of books that I really enjoy.

There are different kinds and levels of enjoyment though. I've read a lot of fantasy and swashbuckling adventure sorts of books, and I'm always amused by the brief escape they offer. They're like the old college buddies who you don't talk to much, but when they're in town, you have a good weekend. Then, you go back to your normal life a little more capable of handling it.

I read quite a few literary novels, too, and I usually end up feeling appreciation toward them. They taught me something, and I'm grateful for it, even though I'll never read any of them again if I can help it. It's sort of like those old friends from your hometown, I guess, who you love but also avoid when you go back home to visit.

Then there are those books that have provided me with a little of everything--the adventure and the laughs and the intellectual stimulation that have sustained me this far. Those, of course, are like the friends and family that are always there. I enjoy seeing these books on the shelves around me the moment I wake up or walk through my apartment door.

There's some other level though, too, I've noticed, which is more rare to find. Even having read as many books as I've read, I can only think of a handful of books that have provided such an experience. These books, I think, have offered me every gift those other books have and something a little more. They've touched my imagination in such a way so as to spark some senses of meaning and of communion with the rest of the world. Discovering "cosmos within chaos," I think Madeleine L'Engle once called this feeling. I'm not sure if that's exactly the right way to describe it. What I do know is that having finished such a book, I feel the profound urge (this sounds stupid) to hug people. And that is precisely what I feel, having finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

I guess this should be a warning to J.K. Rowling. Having finished the final Harry Potter book, I'm overwhelmed by a feeling of gratitude. If, by chance, I were to ever run into Mrs. Rowling, I would have difficulty fighting the urge to offer her a Hagrid-sized hug.
429773
It's been 3 weeks since I've read Bait, and I still can't form coherent thoughts to write a review that will do it justice. All I can say is that it is quite possibly my top favorite book of the year, and definitely in my top 10 favorite books EVER. I can't remember the last time a book had this effect on me-- where when I see things as simple as anchors, fish, bees, coffee mugs, violins, RED JEANS, or sexy curly hair-- all I can think of is BAIT. And long for the second book.
3860358
It gave me the Push that I needed - I am going to read it several more times this year!