The Best Books Books of 2010

As the end of the year approaches, it's a time for reflection: holiday letters with the family's yearly update, New Year's Resolutions, and Best of Lists. We've compiled a list of the ten most anticipated books of 2010 at Carnegie-Stout Public Library, and you can check them out at the link below.

Ten Most Anticipated Books at Carnegie-Stout, 2010

We've also gathered together links to some of the popular Best Books of 2010 lists, and we'd love it if you shared your favorite books from the year in the comments here or on Facebook!

Publisher's Weekly: Best Books of 2010

• The source for our weekly Best Seller Lists, Publisher's Weekly starts with their ten best, before breaking the selections down by genre.

Book Page: Ten Best Books of 2010

• Book Page is the monthly magazine of book reviews available at the Recommendations Desk, and they written a series of articles on their blog about the best in books for 2010.

The New York Times: The 10 Best Books of 2010

• The New York Times is famous for their bestseller lists, and it would be surprising if they didn't compose a best of the year article.

NPR: Best Books of 2010

• The many and varied programs on NPR each week introduce listeners to a variety of different books and authors. Their collection of Best of Lists likewise cover all manner of topics from cookbooks to guilty pleasures as selected by writers, critics, and booksellers.

Library Journal: Best Books of 2010

• Library Journal covers the news of the library world and reviews thousands of books each year. This is their first end of the year Best of List, and unsurprisingly, they found it difficult to limit the list to just 10. Within the article, you can find links to lists for Genre Fiction, Audiobooks, and more.

Born Under a Million Shadows

"Born Under a Million Shadows" mixes humor, romance, and hope with the horrors of living in war-torn Afghanistan. The narrator, Fawad, is a boy on the edge of becoming a teenager, and his life has been anything but easy. His family has been torn apart and he lives with his mother in Kabul supported by the charity of resentful relatives. Through it all, Fawad remains cheerful, adventurous, friendly, and fiercely protective of his mother. Then his mother finds a position as a live-in housekeeper for a group of foreigners, and Fawad is catapulted into a different world.

The character of Fawad is based on children the author, Andrea Busfield, met during her time as a journalist in Afghanistan. Ms. Busfield's experiences over the past decade gave her access to a side of Afghanistan that is largely invisible to those of us in the Western world. The author wanted to share her love for the everyday Afghanistan and the friends she has made in her first novel, and while "Born Under a Million Shadows" does open a window into an Afghanistan beyond bombs, kidnappings, and war, it does not shy away either. The result is an engaging mix of controversy, danger, friendship, mystery, and most of all, love.

You can read more about Andrea Busfield's time in Afghanistan in this article she wrote in 2009, this author interview from 2010, or this 2009 Vogue interview.

The Forgotten Garden

After this weekend's snow, chances are pretty good that you are not gardening. But perhaps you have time to read about a garden, The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton. The mystery begins when a tiny girl is abandoned on a ship headed for Australia in 1913. She arrives with nothing but a small suitcase containing a few clothes and a single book—a beautiful volume of fairy tales. She is taken in by the dock master and his wife and raised as their own. On her twenty-first birthday they tell her the truth and with very little to go on, “Nell” sets out on a journey to England to try to trace her story, to find her real identity. Her quest leads her to Blackhurst Manor on the Cornish coast and the secrets of the doomed Mountrachet family. But it is not until her granddaughter, Cassandra, takes up the search after Nell’s death that all the pieces of the puzzle are assembled. At Cliff Cottage, on the grounds of Blackhurst Manor, Cassandra discovers the forgotten garden of the book’s title and is able to unlock the secrets of the beautiful book of fairy tales.

A pleasant pastime while waiting for those seed catalogs to arrive.
~Betty, Adult Services

Heaven's Keep by William Kent Krueger

“If you don’t know Cork O’Connor, get to know him now.” ---Booklist

Corcoran O’Connor is the Ojibwe-Irish sheriff-private investigator central character of a series of award-winning mysteries by William Kent Krueger. Krueger is one of the three authors that make up the Minnesota Crime Wave, a group that visited Carnegie-Stout Public Library in January 2007 as part of The Big Read programming for The Maltese Falcon. It’s not sacrilege to mention Kent Krueger in the same sentence as Dashiell Hammett; yes, Krueger’s books are that good. Heaven’s Keep is the ninth in the series which began in 1998 with Iron Lake. The tenth, Vermilion Drift, came out in September 2010, and Krueger has already signed contracts for two more Cork O’Connor mysteries.

Taut suspense, a strong sense of place and believable characters are Krueger’s hallmarks. Leaving their north woods Minnesota home, Cork and his thirteen-year-old son Stephen travel to the Wyoming Rockies to try and find what happened to their wife and mother Jo, whose plane is missing. Jo, an attorney, was traveling with tribal representatives to the National Congress of American Indians to discuss oversight of Indian gaming casinos, when the plane goes down in a blizzard in the Washakie Wilderness. Cork and Jo had quarreled over his interest in going back to work for the Tamarack County sheriff’s office just before she left, so Cork feels the additional weight of an unhappy parting. Will Cork be able to say “I’m sorry” to Jo? Was the plane sabotaged to prevent its occupants from speaking out on gaming issues? Was the pilot a stereotypical drunken Indian? Read Heaven’s Keep to find these answers and discover how Krueger keeps his readers enthralled and asking for more.

~ Michelle, Adult Services

Steampunk

Yearning for a distant age filled with wonder, adventure, invention, and style? Steampunk may be the answer.

Steampunk is a sub-genre of speculative fiction (a catch-all phrase for Science Fiction, Fantasy, and those unquantifiable books in between) that re-imagines the Victorian age to better fit the visions of H.G. Wells and Jules Verne.

Evans, Greg. Luann. . 31 Oct. 2010, United Feature Syndicate.


Steampunk has been growing in popularity since the late 1980's, but in recent years it's started to expand beyond the confines of fictional worlds. There are multiple conventions at which Steampunk aficionados gather to compare fashion and home decorating tips. From an article on Steampunk style and fashion in the New York Times to a recent episode of the popular show Castle, you can't seem to avoid the excitement.

If you're interested in further exploring Steampunk, you might enjoy these Steampunk books available at the Carnegie-Stout Public Library.

We also have a selection of movies with Steampunk elements available for check out.

Or you can stop by the Recommendations Desk on the first floor to pick up a bookmark listing Steampunk authors.