1. Never Let Me Go--Kazuo Ishiguro (still haunting me)
2. Birdsong--Sebastian Faulks (not the bits set in 1979, though, and despite the award-winning bad sex)
3. The End of Mr Y--Scarlett Thomas (still not sure I've learned not to judge a book by its cover)
4. The Hotel New Hampshire--John Irving (however, choosing books because of Dawson's Creek episodes with the same name can sometimes pay off; even if they are the episode where Dawson finally loses his virginity--eww!)
5. Revolutionary Road--Richard Yates (pretty fucking devastating but then I've never been one to require a happy ending when it comes to fiction)
Token non-fiction: Bad Science by Ben Goldacre (I've already read it twice and it's really good--and funny; perhaps I only chose it because I couldn't be arsed to differentiate between all of those books of the Long Tail/Everything is Miscellaneous/Wikinomics/Wisdom of the Crowds ilk).
Honourable mention: Against the Day by Thomas Pynchon (I sustained severe wrist injuries as a result of it but was surprised to find that I actually understood parts of it and that there were some semblances of a plot, although I was less surprised to discover how hilarious parts of it are and how many great sentences it contains).
The full library of 2008:
Mind Hacks--Tom Stafford and Matt Webb Monarchy--David Starkey The Six Wives of Henry VIII--David Starkey The Norton Psychology Reader--Gary Marcus On Chesil Beach--Ian McEwan Great Movies--Roger Ebert The Black Swan--Nassim Nicholas Taleb Elizabeth and Leicester--Elizabeth Jenkins The Diving-Bell and the Butterfly-Jean-Dominique Baubin The Dreamers--Gilbert Adair What Good Are the Arts?--John Carey 1066 and All That--W.C. Sellar & R.J. Yeatman Empire of the Sun--J.G. Ballard Inversions--Iain M. Banks The Quickie--James Patterson Your Brain Is Almost Perfect--Read Montague Everything Is Miscellaneous--David Weinberger Kluge--Gary Marcus The Economic Naturalist--Robert H. Frank Super Crunchers--Ian Ayres An Utterly Impartial History of Britain--John O'Farrell Holidays in Hell--P.J. O'Rourke Dissolution--C.J. Sansom The English Patient--Michael Ondaatje Microtrends--Mark J. Penn The Alchemist--Paulo Coelho Notes on a Scandal--Zoe Heller Mergers & Acquisitions--Dana Vachon Love Falls--Esther Freud Ghostwalk--Rebecca Stott The Long Tail--Chris Anderson How To Lie with Statistics--Darrel Huff The End of Mr Y--Scarlett Thomas Bad Science--Ben Goldacre Mind Performance Hacks--Ron Hale-Evans The Hottest State--Ethan Hawke Less Than Zero--Bret Easton Ellis Against the Day--Thomas Pynchon The Silence of the Lambs--Thomas Harris Posh--Lucy Jackson The Accidental Tourist--Anne Tyler The Duchess--Amanda Foreman A Sport and a Pastime--James Salter Liar's Poker--Michael Lewis The Tropic of Cancer--Henry Miller The Cement Garden--Ian McEwan Making Money--Terry Pratchett The Hotel New Hampshire--John Irving Service Included--Phoebe Damrosch Queen of the Road--Doreen Orion The Fountainhead--Ayn Rand The Ghost--Robert Harris Payback--Margaret Atwood Glamorama--Bret Easton Ellis A Prisoner of Birth--Jeffrey Archer Why Not Catch-21?--Gary Dexter Use of Weapons--Iain M. Banks La Bella Figura--Beppe Severigni The Appeal--John Grisham The Business--Iain Banks Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy--John Le Carre The Player of Games--Iain M. Banks Revolutionary Road--Richard Yates Never Let Me Go--Kazuo Ishiguro Choke--Chuck Palahniuk Ulysses--James Joyce Birdsong--Sebastian Faulks High Fidelity--Nick Hornby The Remains of the Day--Kazuo Ishiguro The French Lieutenant's Woman--John Fowles Charlotte Gray--Sebastian Faulks Disgrace--J.M. Coetzee The Quiet American--Graham Greene Letting Go--Philip Roth
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