Holiday Books 2010

What was the best book you read this year? We open the phone lines to ask listeners about their recent and all-time favorites.

Below is a list of the books mentioned on the show:

• Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades — Robert Spencer
• Brida — Paulo Coelho
• The Alchemist — Paulo Coelho
• The Female Brain — Louann Brizendine
• The Male Brain — Louann Brizendine
• Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things — Professor Gail Steketee, Professor Randy Frost
• Farenheit 451 — Ray Bradbury
• The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: A Memoir of Life in Death — Jean-Dominique Bauby
• Eat Pray Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia — Elizabeth Gilbert
• Slow Fat Triathlete: Live Your Athletic Dreams in the Body You Have Now — Jayne Williams
• The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment — Eckhart Tolle
• A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose — Eckhart Tolle
• Everyday Grace: Having Hope, Finding Forgiveness, and Making Miracles — Marianne Williamson
• Enchanted Love: The Mystical Power of Intimate Relationships — Marianne Williamson
• Keys to the Kingdom — Alison Armstrong
• On Balance — Adam Phillips
• The Instructions — Adam Levin
• Tinkers — Paul Harding
• Home — Marilynne Robinson
• Housekeeping — Marilynne Robinson
• Callings: Findings, and Following an Authentic Life — Gregg Michael Levoy
• The Forty Rules of Love: A Novel of Rumi — Elif Shafak
• Radio Ciudad Perdida/ Lost City Radio — Daniel Alarcon
• Cloud Atlas — David Mitchell
• Specimen Days — Michael Cunningham
• The Hours — Michael Cunningham
• The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature — Matt Ridley
• Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph — T.E. Lawrence
• Winter’s Tale — Mark Helprin
• Parable of the Sower — Octavia Butler
• True Grit — Charles Portis
• Half Brother — Kenneth Oppel
• Super Sad True Love Story — Gary Shteyngart
• The Unbearable Lightness of Being — Milan Kundera
• The Traveler — Daren Simkin
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Fin — Mark Twain
• Freedom — Jonathan Franzen
• The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet — David Mitchell
• Life — Keith Richards
• Zeitoun — Dave Eggers
• Farm City — Novella Carpenter
• Physics for Future Presidents: The Science Behind the Headlines — Richard Muller
• Shadow Tag — Louise Erdrich
• Death of the Liberal Class — Chris Hedges
• The Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History — S.C. Gwynne
• Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy — David Hoffman
• The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care — T.R. Reid
• Cryptonomicon — Neal Stephenson
• The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom — Graham Farmelo
• Spirits’ Book — Allan Kardec
• Running Out of Water: The Looming Crisis and Solutions to Conserve Our Most Precious Resource — Peter Rogers, Susan Leal, and Congressman Edward Markey
• Isn’t It Great? — Sue Oksanen, Riley Zeisler, Tina DeRungs
• The Adderall Diaries — Stephen Elliott
• War In the Age of Intelligent Machines — Manuel DeLanda
• Suite Francaise — Irene Nemirovsky
• Dimanche and Other Stories — Irene Nemirovsky
• Agnes’s Jacket: A Psychologist’s Search for the Meanings of Madness — Gail Hornstein
• The Dancing Lion — Stephen D. Barry
• Cheever: A Life — Blake Bailey
• All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror — Stepehn Kinzer
• Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA — Tim Weiner
• The Puzzle Palace: Inside the National Security Agency, America’s Most Secret Intelligence Organization — James Bamford
• Reality Hunger: A Manifesto — David Shields
• Solar — Ian McEwan
• Skippy Dies — Paul Murray
• The Front Runner — Patricia Nell Warren
• When God Was A Woman — Merlin Stone
• Color: A Natural History of the Palette — Victoria Finlay
• Jewels: A Secret History — Victoria Finlay
• Art of Racing in the Rain — Garth Stein
• Still Life with Woodpecker — Tom Robbins
• Don Quixote — Miguel de Cervantes
• A Christmas Memory — Truman Capote
• Dropsy, Dialysis, Transplant: A Short History of Failing Kidneys — Steven Peitzman
• Sea of Poppies — Amitov Ghosh
• Someone Knows My Name — Lawrence Hill
• Norwegian Wood — Haruki Murakami
• The Wasted Vigil — Nadeem Aslam
• Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand — Helen Simonson
• The Dork of Cork — Chet Raymo
• When God Is Gone, Everything Is Holy: The Making of a Religious Naturalist — Chet Raymo
• Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer — Siddharatha Mukherjee
• A Light In August — William Faulkner
• Last Words — George Carlin
• Cutting for Stone — Abraham Verghese
• Brooklyn — Colm Toibin
• Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War — Karl Marlantes
• A Band of Brothers — Walter McDonald
• The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them — Elif Batuman
• War — Sebastian Junger
• Why Your World Is About To Get a Whole Lot Smaller: Oil and the End of Globalization — Jeff Rubin
• The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl — Timothy Egan
• The Children’s Book — A.S. Byatt
• Kay Francis: I Can’t Wait To Be Forgotten- Her Life on Film and Stage — Scott O’Brien
• Virginia Bruce – Under My Skin — Scott O’Brien
• Ann Harding – Cinema’s Gallant Lady — Scott O’Brien
• Seven Types of Ambiguity — Elliot Perlman
• Reaching the Animal Mind: Clicker Training and What It Teaches Us About All Animals — Karen Pryor
• The White Tiger — Aravind Adiga
• Kingbird Highway: The Biggest Year in the Life of an Extreme Birder — Ken Kaufman
• The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle — Haruki Murakami
• The Stranger — Albert Camus
• Black Swan Green — David Mitchell
• The Spellman Files — Lisa Lutz
• Through the Heart of the South — Jody Meacham
• Madness at the Gates of the City: The Myth of American Innocence — Barry Spector
• The King of California: J.G. Boswell and the Making of a Secret American Empire — Mark Arax, Rick Wartman
• Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism — George Akerlof, Robert Shiller
• A Different Kind of Luxury: Japanese Lessons in Simple Living and Inner Abundance — Andy Couturier
• Barcelona and Modernity: Picasso, Gaudi, Miro, Dali — William Robinson, Jordi Falgas, Carmen Bellon Lord
• The Two Years Before the Mast — Richard Henry Dana, Jr.
• Let’s Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship — Gail Caldwell
• Travels in Siberia — Ian Frazier
• The Life and Death of the Great American School System — Diane Ravitch
• Saved By a Poem: The Transformative Power of Words — Kim Rosen
• Possession — A.S. Byatt
• When the Elephants Dance — Tess Uriza Holthe
• Big Girls Don’t Cry: The Election that Changed Everything for American Women — Rebecca Traister
• The Confessions of Nat Turner — William Styron
• Slaughterhouse-Five — Kurt Vonnegut
• Prescription for the Planet — Tom Blees
• Ireland: A Novel — Frank Delaney
• Madre: Perilous Journeys with a Spanish Noun — Liza Blakewell
• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks — Rebecca Skloot
• Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character) — Richard Feynman
• Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter — Tom Bissell
• Maurice — E.M. Forester
• The Testament — John Grisham
• The Freak Observer — Blythe Woolston
• Breaking Out of Bedlam — Leslie Larson
• One With Nineveh: Politics, Consumption, and the Human Future — Paul and Anne Ehrlich
• The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration — Isabel Wilkerson
• The Help — Kathryn Stockett
• Just Kids — Patti Smith
• Infidel — Ayaan Hirsi
• Ordinary Wolves — Seth Kantner
• Angle of Repose — Wallace Stegner
• Shanghai Girls — Lisa See
• The Elegance of the Hedgehog — Muriel Barbery
• Assembling California — John McPhee
• Why Meditate: Working With Thoughts and Emotion — Matthieu Ricard
• Honeybee Democracy — Thomas Seeley
• The Oligarchs: Wealth and Power in the New Russia — David Hoffman
• A Suitable Boy — Vikram Seth
• One Hundred Years of Solitude — Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• Towers of Gold: How One Jewish Immigrant Named Isaias Hellman Created California — Frances Dinkelspie
• War Dances — Sherman Alexie
• Dubliners — James Joyce
• Descent Into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia — Ahmed Rashid
• Little Bee — Chris Cleve
• So Big — Edna Ferber
• Let the Great World Spin — Colum McCann
• A Visit From the Goon Squad — Jennifer Egan
• Nemesis — Phillip Roth
• The Lovers — Vendela Vida
• Wuthering Heights — Emily Bronte
• The Year of Rice and Salt — Kim Stanley Robinson
• None of Us Were Like Before: American Soldiers and Torture — Joshua E. S. Philips
• Beasts of the Field: A Narrative History of California Farmworkers, 1769-1913 — Richard Steven Street
• The Angel’s Game — Carlos Ruiz Zafon
• Living in the Heart: How to Enter into the Sacred Space Within the Heart — Drunvalo Melchizedek
• Dark Star — Alan Furst
• On Drugs — David Lenson
• The Magna Carta Manifesto: Liberties and Commons For All — Peter Linebaugh
• Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism — Sheldon Wolin
• The Gay Place — Billy Lee Brammer
• Hold Still — Nina LaCour
• Cornered: The New Monopoly Capitalism and the Economics of Destruction — Barry C. Lynn
• Unlikely Allies: How A Merchant, A Playwright, and A Spy Saved the American Revolution — Joel Richard Paul
• The Quiet Book — Deborah Underwood
• Bear in the Air — Susan Meyers
• Babymouse #1: Queen of the World — Jennifer Holm, Matthew Holm
• Turtle in Paradise — Jennifer Holm
• The Ghostwriter Secret (Brixton Brothers) — Mac Barnett
• Snook Alone — Marilyn Nelson
• Mockingbird — Katherine Erskine
• A Course in Miracles — Dr. Helen Schucman
• Footprints Along the Shore on an Incoming Tide: Impressions of a Fellow Traveler — Janaka
• Passages in Caregiving: Turning Chaos into Confidence — Gail Sheehy
• The Story of Edgar Sawtelle — David Wroblewski
• Anathem — Neal Stephenson
• 44 Scotland Street — Alexander McCall Smith
• My Family and Other Animals — Gerald Durrell
• Blunderland — Elizabeth O’Kane
• Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption — Laura Hillenbrand
• An Equal Music — Vikram Seth
• Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America — Paul Tough
• The Coroner’s Lunch — Colin Cotterill
• Amy and Isabelle — Elizabeth Strout
• Olive Kitteridge — Elizabeth Strout
• The Geography of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World — Eric Weiner
• Quién decide el destino de los hombres?/ Who decides the fate of men? — Vassily Grossman
• Sacred Hunger — Barry Unsworth
• The Songs of the Kings — Barry Unsworth
• The Rage of the Vulture — Barry Unsworth
• Land of Marvels — Barry Unsworth
• Heidegger’s Glasses — Thaisa Frank Unsettling
• The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest — Stieg Larsson
• Passage to Nirvana — Lee Carlson
• Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays — Joan Didion
• The Lacuna — Barbara Kingsolver
• I Thought So: More Original Epigrams — Mike Lipsey
• Time On My Hands — Peter Delacorte
• How the Mind Works — Steven Pinker
• The Book of Mormon — Joseph Smith
• Hydrogen, The Essential Element — John Rigden
• Trek: An American Woman, Two Small Children, and Survival in World War II GermanyMary Hunt Kentsch, Steve Mumford —
• Living Buddha, Living Christ — Thich Nhat Hanh
• Pop Apocalypse — Lee Konstantinou
• A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier — Ishmael Beah
• California Crackup: How Reform Broke the Golden State and How We Can Fix It — Joe Mathews, Mark Paul
• Bluest Eye — Toni Morrison
• Beloved — Toni Morrison
• Light Years — James Salter
• What Is the What — Dave Eggers
• Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln — Doris Kearns Goodwin
• Secrets of the Olympic Ceremonies — Myles Garcia
• The Historian — Elizabeth Kostova
• The Golden Spruce — John Vaillant
• Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War — Andrew Bachevich
• The Junior Officer’s Reading Club — Patrick Hennessey
• Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman — Jon Krakauer
• Random Family — Adrian Nicole LeBlanc
• Handcrafted Modern — Leslie Williamson
• Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions — Dan Ariely

If you are interested in buying one of these books, you can support KQED by clicking on the title, which will take you to that book on Amazon.com. A portion of the profit will go to KQED.

These titles are also available from your local independent bookseller. You can find the one nearest you at BookSense.com.