The Top 10 Best Reads of 2008 is now officially over, and I declare Hierophant the winner (I'll pass you the choccy when I next see you). In choosing the books for this not-so-illustrious list I had a few select criteria; 1) attractiveness of plot 2) style of writing 3) the rapport I had with the characterisations of the characters 4) how much the story haunted me afterward. had Now let me continue with the list itself:

1. "It seems increasingly likely that I really will undertake the expedition that has been preoccupying my imagination now for some days. An expedition, I should say, which I will undertake alone, in the comfort of Mr Farraday's Ford; an expedition which, as I forsee it, will take me through much of the finest countryside of England to the West Country, and may keep me away from Darlington Hall for as much as five or six days."

Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day

This book almost did not make my list for the reason that as well as it was written, I didn't readily take to the character of Stevens. However the saving grace that led it to finally appearing on this list (which is not in any numerical order whatsoever) was how much it haunted me afterward, from the missed connection between Steven and Miss Kenton to the overall sense of loss that I associate with the book.

2. "In the corner of a first-class smoking carriage, Mr Justice Wargrave, lately retired from the bench, puffed at a cigar and ran an interested eye through the political news in The Times."

Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None/Ten Little Indians/Ten Little Niggers

This was another book I had trouble with not because it didn't 100% fill out the criteria above but more because I was afraid whether such a book belonged on this list of mine since it was effectively a child's book. Eventually however the sheer superiority of her writing could not be denied entry to this list - it is truly the most well crafted and suspenseful mystery I have read in my life.

3. "My legal name is Alexander Perchov. But all of my friends dub me Alex, because that is a more flaccid-to-utter version of my legal name. Mother dubs me Alexi-stop-spleening-me!, because I am always spleening her. If you want to know why I am always spleening her, it is because I am always elsewhere with friends, and disseminating so much currency, and performing so many things that can spleen a mother."

Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything is Illuminated

Initially amusing and highly irrelevant, I thought this would be one of many impactless books. However the stunning climax (if I can call it one) where the nature of the title is revealed - everything is illuminated - completely won me over. The use of 'illuminated', such a happy word being cruelly subverted into the cause of such abject horror completely won me over. There were many times I felt like crying when I read the book. That and heavy doses of magic realism.

4. "The madness of an autumn prairie cold front coming through. You could feel it: something terrible was going to happen. The sun low in the sky, a minor light, a cooling star. Gust after gust of disorder. Trees restless, temperatures falling, the whole northern religion of things coming to an end. No children in the yards here. Shadows lengthened on yellowing zoysia. Red oaks and pin oaks and swamp white oaks rained acorns on houses with no mortgage. Storm windows shuddered in the empty bedrooms."

Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections

I haven't actually finished reading this book yet. However the half that I've read has quite blown me away and captivated my imagination. The characterisations of the Lambert family are done splendidly, the depth and breath of them allowing them to be painted as a group of sympathetic characters who are all in conflict with one another.

5. "The pubs, likesay, dead busy, full ay loco-locals and festival types, having a wee snort before heading off tae the next show. Some ay they looks okay... a bit heavy oan the hirays though, likesay."

Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting

Never before have I felt such rapport and sympathy for a bunch of ne'er do wells. From straight out loud laughing at the predicaments of Davie at his girlfriend's house, to cringing at Kelly's actions in Eating Out and the wtf/omg/lol/wtf happenings of Renton's drug filled world, this book is a masterpiece of imagination and style put together in a nice controversial package.

6. "Dad always said a person must have a magnificent reason for writing out his or her Life Story and expecting anyone to read it."

"Unless your name is something along the lines of Mozart, Matisse, Churchill, Che Guevara or Bond - James Bond - you best spend your free time finger painting or playing shuffleboard, for no one, with the exception of your flabby-armed mother with stiff hair and a mashed-potatoes way of looking at you, will want to hear the particulars of your pitiable existence, which doubtlessly will end as it began - with a wheeze.""

Marisha Pessl's Special Topics in Calamity Physics

One night I stayed up till almost 4am reading this in bed. It is that good. One part literary and pop reference orgasm and other part fantastical mystery, this book blew me away in the middle of IOC season (I think, can't remember exactly when I read it, but I recall being distraught that I left it under my desk in school and asked Arjun to take it for me after Guitar Ensemble's FOA). The quirkiness of the illustrations in the book was also a nice touch which I really liked. The ending of the book make me all heart melt-ey too, in more ways than one.

7. "I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January 1960; and then again as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August 1974. Specialised readers may have come across me in Dr. Peter Luce's study, "Gender Identitiy in 5-Alpha-Reductase Pseudohermaphrodites," published in the journal of Pediatric Endocrinology in 1975. Or maybe you've seen my photograph in chapter sixteen of the now sadly outdated Genetics and Heredity. That's me on page 578, standing naked beside a height chart with a black box covering my eyes."

Jeffery Eugenides's Middlesex

This book was first recommended to me by Xian Yi, followed by Daryl. Again another magic realism filled story that is large parts Heartbreaking, the epic nature of this storyline won me over easily (I'm such a sucker for those kinds of novels). I especially appreciated the part about Calliope and her longing for The Obscure Object because it reminded me of my own experiences (albeit less happening). The language of this book actually reminds me of The Corrections now, come to think of it.

8. "The train was late. Under the dim lamplight, the platform was cast in half shadow. As Meng left the train, a snowflake floated down and landed on his neck. The wind was blowing open his coat at the bottom. It produced a whistling sound which reminded him that the weather here in Tiancheng was colder than he'd expected. Bag in hand, he walked with the throng towards the station exit, and though he kept looking about him, he couldn't spot the Song Dynasty tower that he remembered. Besides the darkness and the lamplight, he saw nothing but the ungainly contours of the high-rises, which looked the same here as everywhere else. No doubt the buildings had blocked his view of the tower."

Su Tong's Madwoman on the Bridge

This was the main reason I chose to not use the opening paragraphs from short stories, simply because it would have been too easy to guess. The short stories in this novel run the gamut, from commentaries on the changing effervescent nature of China's culture nowadays to horror stories (think Stephen King) of rural China. Su Tong perfectly encapsulates modern day developing China with the excesses of the liberated city dwellers to the slow decay of rural urban centres - all with an underlying sense of increasing loss. Perfect.

9. "Whenever I meet a man, I catch myself wondering what our child would look life if we were to make a baby. It's practically second nature to me now. Whether he's handsome or ugly, old or young, a picture of our child flashes across our mind. My hair is light brown and feathery fine, and if his is jet black and coarse, then I predict our child's hair will be the perfect texture and colour. Wouldn't it? I always start out imaging the best possible scenarios for these children, but before long I've conjured up horrific versions from the very opposite ends of the spectrum."

Natsuo Kirino's Grotesque

The above is an example of why I love this book. The characterisations are stark, odd, disturbing and oh-so-mindblowingly-well-done. They just blew me away. The characters are all dark and unsympathetic, all unreliable narrators with faults teeming from every page which made them so haunting in my mind. The prose flows beautifully as well, another stark juxtaposition adding to the overall creepy nature of the book. This book is darkly beautiful and truly lives up to it's name - Grotesque.

10. "It was a queer, sultry summer they executed the Rosenbergs, and I don't know what I was doing in New York. I'm stupid about executions. The idea of being electrocuted makes me sick, and that's all there was to read about in the papers - goggle-eyed headlines staring up at me on every street corner and at the fusty, peanut-smelling mouth of every subway. It had nothing to do with me, but I couldn't help wondering what it would be like, being burned alive all along your nerves."

Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar

Another author with a style of prose I am decidedly in love with, Plath's thinly veiled autobiography was simply the best book I read of 2008. Her depictions of a young woman's life being wrecked by depression were simultaneously horrifying and captivating. This novel has turned her into my favourite writer/poet. I even bought a biography about her I have yet to read.

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Honourable Mentions:

Yoko Ogawa's The Swimming Pool
David Guterson's Snow Falling on Cedars

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Thus this ends my list for 2008. Whether this will turn into a yearly thing remains to be seen. Happy Boxing Day (it's 1:12 am now)!