This year we took our annual slugfest to the pub underneath our new office and came up with a list of the year 39 s top 100 books that could be our best ever. It wasn 39 t any easier with a drink in hand to pick, and agree upon, the best books of 2010, but we did it. And, as a magazine that 39 s published continuously since 1872 and reviews over 7,0 books a year, we had a lot to consider. Jonathan franzen farrar, straus, and giroux did you know jonathan franzen has a new novel? he does.

It 39 s called freedom, and it follows a minnesota family whose problems, squabbles, and poor decisions encapsulate the very essence of what it means to have lived through the first decade of the 21st century. Readers of this soul stirring narrative will never forget louis zamperini, who after a career as a runner served in wwii only to be captured and held prisoner by the japanese a more horrific internment would be difficult to imagine. Zamperini 39 s physical and spiritual sufferings both during and after wwii and his coming out the other side become the story of a true american hero from that greatest generation. Hardcover, 240 pages, faber faber, list price: $26 ofeibea quist arcton picks 'queen pokou' translated from the original french by amy baram reid.

Boulder, co. '2010's best cookbooks: real life labors of love' recommended by t. Susie chang in the kitchen with a good appetite, by melissa clark, hardcover, 464 pages, hyperion co. List price: $40 nigella kitchen: recipes from the heart of the home, by nigella lawson, hardcover, 512 pages, hyperion co. List price: $35 the food substitutions bible: more than 6,500 substitutions for ingredients, equipment and techniques, by david joachim, paperback, 696 pages, robert rose, list price: $24.95 'people are talking. About these five books' recommended by heller mcalpin freedom by jonathan franzen, hardcover, 576 pages, farrar, straus and giroux, list price: $28 so much for that by lionel shriver, hardcover, 448 pages, harper, list price: $25.99 room by emma donoghue, hardcover, 336 pages, little, brown and co.

Earle, hardcover, 384 pages, mark batty publisher, list price: $45 where we know: new orleans as home edited by david rutledge, paperback, 304 pages, broken levee books, list price: $16 the gendarme by mark t. What can you do? have no fear, help is near! there are many ways you can get back on track with magento store. The protagonist of this haunting psychological suspense novel doesn't just rattle around inside the norwegian author's head he shows up at her doorstep and pleads with her to treat him sensitively. This suspense story demands to be inhaled as quickly as possible, but it's also a superb work of social criticism about the death penalty and its casualties. Using a different first person point of view in every section, reiken creates an emotionally acute, complex story about a woman whose father may have died in the holocaust. Chinese miners are brutally massacred on the idaho border, and a disaffected lawman with more than enough troubles of his own finds himself hunting down the killers. Berl pickett, feckless doctor and accused murderer, is a splendid addition to the gallery of semi cracked eccentrics who populate the literature of the american west.

A devoted daughter struggles for years to save her emotionally controlling father from alcohol. Sex, spies, murder, big money, doomed romance and exotic travel are smoothly braided into this story about the wartime race to make large quantities of penicillin. The interlocking stories of a defense analyst and a mapmaker examine the collateral damage of a lifetime of keeping secrets, raising provocative questions about washington's culture of deception. When several family members fall off the roof of a chicago apartment building, the sole survivor is biracial rachel, who goes to live with her grandmother in an african american neighborhood. The conclusion to the millennium trilogy is an ambitious panorama that encompasses the worlds of journalism, corporations, medicine, organized crime and government. Returning from a strange, shadow haunted island, a young tourist finds herself turning into crystal. elizabeth hand view full size mark twain house amp museum any reports of his literary reputation's death are greatly exaggerated.

autobiography of mark twain: volume 1 is a series of writings and dictations made between 1870 1906 and thoroughly edited by harriet elinor smith and others at the mark twain project at the university of california. Twain left instructions that they remain unpublished until 100 years after his death, when he would be dead, unaware, and indifferent. It's cheerier than letters from the earth, and although it doesn't hang together as well, it's pure twain. His only meeting with irascible editor horace greeley ended when twain stepped into greeley's office by mistake. I was looking for a gentlem don't keep them in stock clear out! the oregonian's best books of 2010 are divided into a national and a northwest list.

They were selected by the books editor, after consultation with reviewers and colleagues. The northwest list includes writers who live in oregon, washington or idaho or retain a connection to the region, and could include books on northwest subjects. Thanks go to everyone who wrote for the books section in 2010, and everyone who read it. The immortal life of henrietta lacks by rebecca skloot crown, $26, 368 pages you probably don't know it, but a woman named henrietta lacks has played an important part in your life, wrote marc covert, the oregonian's reviewer. One way or the other through a childhood polio or measles vaccination, the chemotherapy that saved a loved one's life, the skin lotion that didn't make you break out in hives practically any time a scientifically tested product or treatment has come in contact with you or someone you know, it was likely developed and tested using hela, the world's first and most widespread line of immortal human cells. By their very pervasiveness, hela cells, all 50 million metric tons produced since 1951, are easily taken for granted, and the desperately ill 31 year old african american mother of five who provided them without ever knowing it has been largely forgotten, buried 59 years ago in an unmarked grave.