The SALS staff is surrounded by books. There are new books being processed, books being sorted for the delivery and Advanced Reader Copies.  I asked the SALS staff to share with me their favorite book, their worst book and their guilty pleasure book read this year. The question that seemed to be the easiest to answer was worst book.  Included in this category: “Lost Symbol” by Dan Brown, “Fool” by Christopher Moore and the refrain - life is too short to finish reading a bad book.
The other quick response was the guilty pleasure question. Vampires seemed to be the theme with any book in the Twilight series and Shannon Butcher’s “Burning Alive”.   “My Valentine” and “Big Stone Gap” both by Adriana Trigiani were included as guilty pleasures. Other staff suggested “Mistress of the Game” by Sidney Sheldon and books in the Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series.  Â
As to best books read this year – that was harder for most of the staff. After a little cajoling, these titles came forth: “Daemon” by Daniel Suarez, “Beautiful Creatures” by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, “Pillars of the Earth” by Ken Follett, “Book of the Dun Cow” by Walter Wangerin, “Look Again” by Lisa Scottoline, “Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins, “The Lacuna” by Barbara Kingsolver, “The English Major” by Jim Harrison and “The Memoirs of Mary Queen of Scots” by Carolly Erickson.
Have any of your books made the list? Care to share?