Bestselling Books of 2008

Hah! Playing for Pizza is in the queue, and the only one I've read is No. 50, The Alchemist, which was written in 1988.

 

Poe wrote a book about molluscs, a project taken for little purpose other than drinking money, and it became a high seller and critical smash.

It would never have made this list.

 

Read two - "Eat This, Not That" and playing for "Playing For Pizza."

Oddly enough, my 11 year old son has also read two.

 

Just another reason to weep for the Great American Novel.

Catch-22 remains the most recent example.

 

Yes, I seem to have come to the same conclusion.

 

Eh ... Tom Perrotta seems to have the stuff. "Little Children" came about as close as I've ever seen in print - "American Beauty" is the best film example - of capturing modern suburban soccer mom and dad angst.

David Foster Wallace's "Infinite Jest" is supposedly up there, as well, though I've never tackled it. And I wouldn't count out Jonathan Lethem quite yet. "Cold Mountain" was a pretty damned big accomplishment, as well, by Charles Frazier.

Art and commerce seem to have taken off in different directions at some point. But there still seems to be a niche for art, and a lucrative niche for the men and women at the top.

 

Rosenberg's gonna be pissed that his book isn't there...

 

The Kite Runner is a better book than it was a movie

 

His book is very, very good. And selling extremely well, from what I understand, for being primarily aimed at men.

 

More than ever.

I'll have to take a crack at the Wallace.

UPDATE: Third in line, at the library. Given their liberal renewal policies, it could take six months. I can wait.

 

Loved Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn and Fortress of Solitude but have not read the most recent one. Does anyone recommend others by him? And I thought Cold Mountain was outstanding.
From this list, I have "read" Eat This, Not That, and I own Marley & Me but have not gotten to it yet.

 

The Appeal and Outliers are the only ones I read. Both are far from being their author's best work.