Best Books of 2008 (According to Stephen King)

A couple of weeks ago in his regular Entertainment Weekly column, Stephen King was positively literary when listing his favorite CDs of 2008, describing Girl Talk's Feed the Animals "as dense and allusive as James Joyce's Ulysses, only you can dance to it" and AC/DC as "rave-up William Faulkner." This week he turned is attention to his favorite books of 2008. Note that, unlike our own Best Books of 2008, which focuses on new hardcover and paperback original releases published in the 2008 calendar year, King opens it up to anything he actually read in the past 12 months.

"Books are still the best bang for your entertainment buck, and 2008 was a great year for reading," says King. And below is his Top 10 picks for the Best Books of 2008.

1. The Novels of Robert Goddard  ("In Pale Battalions, his second novel, was the first book I read on my new Kindle.")
2. The Garden of Last Days by Andre Dubus III ("It's terrifying, unputdownable, and the best novel so far about 9/11.")
3. When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson ( As a reader, I was charmed. As a novelist, I was staggered by Atkinson's narrative wizardry.")
4. The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney ("If you liked Life of Pi and The Secret Life of Bees, this is for you. ")
5. Nixonland by Rick Perlstein ("It's the best history of the turbulent '60s I've ever read.")
6. Hearthsick/Sweetheart Chelsea Cain ("We've been down Hannibal Lecter Avenue many times, and these two books shouldn't work...but they do.")
7. Hollywood Crows by Joseph Wambaugh ("Wambaugh's Hollywood is an open-air psycho ward where even the cops need Valium.")
8. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Cindy Stieg Larsson ("The good news is that Larsson delivered two more novels with this one. The bad news is that he died of a heart attack shortly after doing so.")
9. Old Flames by Jack Ketchum ("Remember Glenn Close as the bunny-boiler scorned in Fatal Attraction? Raise that to the 10th power..." )
10. The Good Guy by Dean Koontz ("[T]his is Koontz at his Hitchcockiest")

--BTP

Comments

[Children Anxiety Disorder on March 23, 2009 at 03:48 AM]

why the Good Guy is the last one???? are you completele out of mind... have to been the first one!!!!!