My Best Books of 2006

Okay, time for my personal book awards. (The Bibs?)

Criteria? Reading pleasure!

I'll give my book of the year award to Peter Carey's Theft (he won my award a year or two back for True History of the Kelly Gang. Is this love?)

Close runners-up: Paul Auster's The Brooklyn Follies, Yiyun Li's A Thousand Years of Good Prayers and Etgar Keret's The Bus Driver Who Thought He Was God.

I've also read and enjoyed several very good memoirs this year, particularly Stuart: A Life Backwards by Alexander Masters (made me cry) and The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson (made me laugh - a lot).

A special mention also goes to the beautiful and informative Malacca: Voices from the Street by Lim Huck Chin and Fernando Jorge. It may have cost a small fortune, but it's a book to treasure.

My reading vows for next year:

To complete the TBR challenge I've set myself up for.
To read and review more books, especially local fiction.
To discover some of the books and authors you guys have been recommending.
To read more foreign fiction and short fiction collections.

That'll do!

So okay then - what were your best books of the year and your reading vows for next?

Books of the Year

Another post for those who love book lists and recommendations (as I do!).

Literary luminaries who've written for the Guardian over the past year were invited to write about their favourite books of the year. The article is nicely timed to coincide with the annual orgy of christmas shopping!

(Oh dear, wave after wave of book greed comes upon me ...)

The paper also invites readers to e-mail in a short piece about what they've enjoyed most over the last twelve months. But since I'm sure you won't do that, why not just leave a note here? Meanwhile, I'll start thinking about how I'd answer this question myself in a year when I've read just so much good stuff.

Meanwhile here's Eric's list. (And it was great to meet my fellow litblogger for the first time the other day. This man is formidably well-read.)

Update:

Goodness - looks like everyone is issuing their best books lists this weekend! In the Sunday Times, Peter Kemp lists his favourites of 2005 and concludes that it's been a very good year for fiction. And the New York Times has announced its 100 notable books of the year.