Best of What I Read 2010

This survey is from The Perpetual Page-Turner:

I've created a little survey for 2010 that you can fill out about your 2010 reading experience whenever you want until the beginning of January. Feel free to link up with Mr. Linky and share your "Best of What I Read 2010" lists and visit others on the list.

1. Best book of 2010? Hey, guess what? THIS IS AN IMPOSSIBLE QUESTION. Children’s: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman or The Grey King by Susan Cooper. YA: Paranormalcy by Kiersten White. Adult: A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens or The Blue Castle by Lucy Maud Montgomery. Nonfiction: The Monsters and The Critics by JRR Tolkien. There are MANY MANY OTHERS but those are the ones that popped to mind first.

2. Worst book of 2010? The Line by Teri Hall. I’m astonished by how easy this question is to answer, except that this book was really bad. Really bad. This book was BADLY written and I can’t believe it managed to get published.

3. Most Disappointing Book of 2010? M is For Magic by Neil Gaiman or Gifts by Ursula K Leguin. Both books were fairly okay, but I was expecting EXCELLENT or BRILLIANT, since we’re talking about Gaiman and Leguin, but I was left feeling meh about both of them.

4. Most surprising (in a good way!) book of 2010? Probably The Sound and The Fury, or possibly Giovanni’s Room. I expected the worst from both books, and reading them was varying degrees of painful, but after reading them, I realized that they were pretty fantastic, and they stick with you (even when you kinda wish they would leave).

5. Book you recommended to people most in 2010? I’m not the best recommender in the world, mostly because I have like two IRL friends that actually read. I remember recommending Clockwork Angel, Albatross, and Paranormalcy though. Oh, and I definitely gushed about Henry James all year.

6. Best series you discovered in 2010? How To Train Your Dragon (Cressida Cowell), or The Dark is Rising (Susan Cooper), or Dragonback (Timothy Zahn). I devoured the first two series and I am waiting to devour the third one. :D They are all MG series, strangely. I also discovered The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins) and Percy Jackson (Rick Riordan) this year, but while I love them, I’m not a raving fan.

7. Favorite new authors you discovered in 2010? Let’s go down the list, shall we? Cressida Cowell, Susan Cooper, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Josie Bloss, Kiersten White, Robin McKinley, Patricia McKillip, Tasha Alexander, Julie Kagawa, Chelsea Campbell, Wilkie Collins, Erin Bow, and James Baldwin. Homer (don’t judge me, at least I READ the entire Iliad, okay?), Kristin Cashore, Cassandra Clare, and Caragh O’Brien are runner-ups. I’m also a little confused about when I read Dracula. I guess it was last year. Crazy.

8. Most hilarious read of 2010? Probably Clockwork Angel, strangely enough. I think there were a bunch of other books I read that I laughed a lot, but it was mostly because I was laughing at awkwardness and subtext, which I don’t think really count.

9. Most thrilling, unputdownable book in 2010? Paranormalcy, Clockwork Angel, and The Iron King. Did you notice that ALL THREE OF THOSE are paranormal romances? I might cry. Paranormalcy is superb, though.

10. Book you most anticipated in 2010? Probably Tongues of Serpents, honestly, cuz I had been waiting for that since I read Victory of Eagles the year before. But I also got pretty hot and bothered over Mockingjay.

11. Favorite cover of a book you read in 2010? SO MANY BEAUTIFUL COVERS. Well, I bought Leviathan almost entirely because of the cover, and the same with Clockwork Angel. Plain Kate, Sisters Red, and The Rise of Renegade X also made me very happy.

12. Most memorable character in 2010? Possibly Silas from The Graveyard Book, possibly my beautiful Bran from The Dark Is Rising sequence. Runners up are Magnus Bane (City of Bones), Sherlock Holmes (A Study in Scarlet), and Puck (The Iron King). I would read an entire series on Silas, and Bran deserved a better ending.

13. Most beautifully written book in 2010? Plain Kate by Erin Bow, The Bostonians by Henry James, and Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin. Delicious.

14. Book that had the greatest impact on you in 2010? Orthodoxy by GK Chesterton, Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, and The Blue Castle by Lucy Maud Montgomery. The first just reminded me why God is a genius and how Christianity really is the answer, and the latter two had heroines that I really related to.

15. Book you can't believe you waited UNTIL 2010 to finally read? A Study in Scarlet, aka The Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I read every single novel and story in a matter of weeks.

Book Blogging in 2010 (optional)

1. New favorite book blog you discovered in 2010? The Lost Entwife and In The Forest.

2. Favorite review that you wrote in 2010? The Sherlockian by Graham Moore, because it was an ARC that I was reviewing before its release, and also because I got a little cheeky with that book because it made me laugh so much.

3. Best discussion you had on your blog? N/A. LOL.

4. Most thought-provoking review or discussion you read on somebody else's blog? I read a lot of really good blogs about Speak, and a lot that I thought got a little carried away with rage.

5. Best event that you participated in (author signings, festivals, virtual events, memes, etc.)? vvb32 reads had a really fun fairy tale event. Also, Dewey’s Read-a-thon in October was fantastic.

6. Best moment of book blogging in 2010? Probably the whole Speak Loud thing. That was kinda incredible to watch and be a tiny part of.

7. Best bookish discover (book related sites, book stores, etc.)? This site is pretty amazing: http://awfullibrarybooks.net/