New York Times 10 Best Books of 2010

The 10 Best Books of 2010, as chosen by the editors of the New York Times Book Review.

Fiction

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

The New Yorker Stories by Ann Beattie

Room by Emma Donoghue

Selected Stories by William Trevor

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

Nonfiction

Apollo’s Angels: A History of Ballet by Jennifer Homans

Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff

The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee

Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954-1981) with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes by Stephen Sondheim

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson

Community Service Alert: Read a Book, Write a Review

Need Community Service hours for school?  You can earn four hours of community service by reading a Young Adult book (published in 2009, 2010, 2011) and filling out a review sheet.

The YA title can be: fiction, nonfiction, graphic novel, a book from our library, a book from another library, a book that you own. It *must* be a Young Adult title though, and It MUST HAVE BEEN PUBLISHED in 2009, 2010, 2011.

Yes, it’s that easy.  Read the book. Answer a few simple questions. Bring the form back here and hand it to Miss Kate. If you need a great book recommendation, check out our New Book Friday posts, browse the YA section downstairs, or ask!

Read a Book Write a Review Form

Read a Book Write a Review Form.docx

Books for a Better Life

The Books for a Better Life Awards recognize self-improvement authors who are inspiring people to live their best lives. The 2010 Finalists include:

Childcare/Parenting

Baby, We Were Meant for Each Other: In Praise of Adoption by Scott Simon

Brave Girl Eating: A Family’s Struggle with Anorexia by Harriet Brown

First Book

The Boy Who Loved Tornadoes: A Mother’s Story by Randi Davenport

The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee

Green

Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet by Bill McKibben

Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food by Paul Greenberg

Inspirational Memoir

Breaking Night: A Memoir of Forgiveness, Survival, and My Journey from Homeless to Harvard by Liz Murray

Devotion: A Memoir by Dani Shapiro

Imperfect Endings: A Daughter’s Tale of Life and Death by Zoe Fitzgerald Carter

Motivational

God Never Blinks: 50 Lessons for Life’s Little Detours by Regina Brett

Life Unlocked: 7 Revolutionary Lessons to Overcome Fear by Srinivasan S. Pillay, MD

Lift by Kelly Corrigan

Personal Finance

The New Good Life: Living Better than Ever in an Age of Less by John Robbins

Psychology

In Pursuit of Silence: Listening for Meaning in a World of Noise by George Prochnik

Lonely: A Memoir by Emily White

The Male Brain by Louann Brizendine, MD

Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things by Randy O. Frost, PhD and Gail Steketee, PhD

Relationships

In the Neighborhood: The Search for Community on an American Street, One Sleepover at a Time by Peter Lovenheim

Let’s Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship by Gail Caldwell

Mom Still Likes You Best: The Unfinished Business Between Siblings by Jane Isay

Somewhere Inside: One Sister’s Captivity in North Korea and the Other’s Fight to Bring Her Home by Laura Ling and Lisa Ling

Spiritual

The Ten Things to Do When Your Life Falls Apart by Daphne Rose Kingma

Women Food and God by Geneen Roth

Wellness

Ah-choo!: The Uncommon Life of Your Common Cold by Jennifer Ackerman

Back to Life After a Heart Crisis by Marc Wallack, MD and Jamie Colby

Change Your Brain, Change Your Body by Daniel G. Amen, MD

Read a Book, Write a Review

Loved it? Hated it? Have no idea *what* the librarian was thinking when she ordered (insert any title here)? Thought it was so funny that you then went out and read everything else by the author? Or … you really just want those community service hours?

Wait, what? Community service hours … for reading?!!?

Here’s the deal: starting on November 1st, you can ask a Youth Services librarian for a Book Review form. You can read the latest teen fiction and non-fiction (books must be from the YA section in the library, or could be found in the YA section of a library on Long Island.  The “latest” refers to books published from 2009 to present).

Read the book. Answer a few simple questions about the book (what’s it about, how awesome is it, what was your favorite {or least favorite} part). Then, bring your form back to the library and hand it in to a Youth Services librarian.  To make everyone happy, please PRINT your first and last name on your form.  If you hand in something without your name, you cannot earn community service.

If you’re waffling about what to read, either check out our New Books Friday and click on the title (and -gasp!- the publication year will reveal itself to you!) or ask Miss Kate about the newest YA titles.

Read a Book Write a Review Form

Read a Book Write a Review Form.docx

Frightening Reads

Halloween is almost here! Enjoy a scary novel or non-fiction account of the paranormal.

Superstition by David Ambrose
A university researcher’s psychology experiment goes horribly awry when a group of volunteers, instructed to create a fictitious ghost, succeeds all too well and raises a specter that begins to take their lives.

Isis by Douglas Clegg
After her beloved brother dies after saving her from her rageful governess, Isis Villiers learns that the family burial crypt on the grounds holds mystical powers to raise the dead.

The House of Lost Souls by F.G. Cottam
In an effort to save his sister from the madness that is threatening the lives of guests at derelict Fischer House, Nick Mason teams up with a troubled man who escaped the house a decade earlier, and learns of an unspeakable crime that occurred at the house in the 1920s.

Weird New York: Your Travel Guide to New York’s Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets by Chris Gethard, Mark Moran, and Mark Sceurman
Odd legends, bizarre beasts, and twisted mysteries from throughout New York.

The Strain: Book I of The Strain Trilogy by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan
A vampiric virus infects New York and spreads outward, threatening the city and then the world, as a CDC doctor and a Holocaust survivor fight to save humanity.

Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill
A collector of obscure and macabre artifacts, unscrupulous musician Judas Coyne is unable to resist purchasing a ghost over the Internet, which turns out to be the vengeful spirit of his late girlfriend’s stepfather.

The Man in the Picture: A Ghost Story by Susan Hill
A  mysterious painting has the power to demonically possess the minds of people who stare at it.

Unbelievable: Investigations into Ghosts, Poltergeists, Telepathy, and Other Unseen Phenomena from the Duke Parapsychology Laboratory by Stacy Horn
Investigates the scientific community’s attempts to prove or disprove the existence of the paranormal world.

The Dead Path: A Novel by Stephen M. Irwin
After the death of his wife, Nicholas Close is haunted by ghosts doomed to repeat their final violent moments, a situation that sweeps him into a disturbing series of disappearances and murders involving an evil spirit.

No Doors, No Windows: A Novel by Joe Schreiber
After his father’s death, Scott Mast discovers an unfinished manuscript that is a riveting ghost tale about a house with a hidden wing.  Learning that the house is real, Scott moves in to complete the novel.

A Winter Haunting by Dan Simmons
Returning to his hometown to pick up the pieces of his shattered life, Dale Stewart leases an empty farmhouse of a long-dead friend and finds that the house is haunted.

The New Annotated Dracula by Bram Stoker
An illustrated tribute to Stoker’s classic shares additional insights into the historical plausibility of vampire lore, surveying more than two centuries of popular culture and myth.

American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from Poe to the Pulps & American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from the 1940s to Now, edited by Peter Straub
Collection of the American Gothic tradition, from Edgar Allan Poe to today’s masters of terror and the uncanny.