favorite books of 2006

I read 142 books in 2006. 100 of them, or over 70 percent, were by women (including two co-written with a male author) . So shame on all those best-of lists that are white-male-centric! There were plenty of amazing books written by women this year.

Anyway, it's the last day of the year, I'm not getting anymore reading done, and it's time to post my eleven favorites of 2006! Alphabetically by author:

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie--Half of a Yellow Sun
Gillian Flynn--Sharp Objects
Nell Freudenberger--The Dissident
David Grossman--Someone to Run With
Sara Gruen--Water for Elephants
Maile Meloy--Family Daughter and Liars and Saints*
James Morrow--The Last Witchfinder
Marisha Pessl--Special Topics in Calamity Physics
Scott Simon--Pretty Birds
Scarlett Thomas--The End of Mr. Y
Markus Zusak--The Book Thief

Some of my favorite authors--David Mitchell, A.B. Yehoshua, and Haruki Murakami--all published wonderful and readable books this year, but none quite made the list. The ones I recommended most frequently were Pretty Birds, Water for Elephants, and The End of Mr. Y.

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*Both books are excellent on their own, but as counterparts they're pretty brilliant.