25th Anniversary
DDG's 25th Anniversary 25 Books of the Year - 1991-2015
DDG turned 25 on May 1st 2016! Here are our book of the year picks starting from 1991.
This was a store favorite and when it went out of print I lobbied the publisher to see it come back into print. One other store was lobbying too, The Flying Pig in Shelburne Vermont.The reprint happened in 2006 and it is still in print. Also, though I didn't know the Flying Pig owners at the time we later become big pals and still are!
We loved the Bad Beginning right from the beginning. Here is a review I did For the Franklin journal back in 2000. A Series of Unfortunate Events.
What a book! Here is my Franklin Journal review from 2003.The Thief Lord
Still a store favorite. Here is my review from 2001. River Town.
An all time DDG favorite! Here is my reivew from back in the day. Utterly Me Clarice Bean!
An all time DDG Bestseller, set one town over, and written by Old Store Pal Bill Roorbach.
A magnificient book! Here is the write up I did for the local newspaper holiday gift guide.
Ellis Island is at once a firm piece of history and a beguiling metaphor. The sense of passage, the struggle for entry, the strangeness and immersion, the aspirations and complex realities which mark Ellis Island, make for both compelling history and a dramatic representation of many aspects of the human experience.
It is perhaps fitting, given all the holiday bustle, not to mention the struggle among book titles to be a popular choice during the holiday season, that a story whose tale is rooted in the immigration experience, by a relatively unknown Australian author, should be the finest gift book of the year. The Arrival, by Shaun Tan, is a story told entirely through sequential pictures. Several of the drawings are based upon turn of the century historical photographs, rooting the book in the Ellis Island period. The brilliance and the wonder of the book, apart from the truly exquisite drawings, is the element of the fantastic which Tan inserts. The marvel of The Arrival is that its readers are placed inside the story. We too cannot read the signs and billboards written in a strange language. The odd animals and unknown machines are, at first, as bewildering to us as they are to the immigrants. As the story progresses, we move along with it, gaining at first a foothold, and then a steadily building comprehension of the world through which we are traveling.
The Arrival is a truly exceptional book. To read it is to enjoy a unique, wondrous, and satisfying experience. Giving it as a gift this holiday season isn’t a bad idea either.
Where is book three of The Kingkiller trilogy> No idea. But here is my review of book one from The Daily Bulldog in 2007. The Name of the Wind.
The Angel's game, which was our pick for Best Fiction Title of 2009 as well as having been the subject of The False Opinion Corrector,
If you're a fiction lover you want a big book that's big fun, and The Passage is both of those things. A calamitous future, fascinatingly developed over a broad span of time, characters you grow attached to, lots of unexpected twists and turns, and flashes of grand style set amidst a hurtling pace is just the thing to spend some time hunkered down with.
Huge store favorite here. Speaking of Night Circus here is my interview with its author Erin Morgenstern!
Every great story is an enchanted mirror, reflecting both the nature and action of its creation, and the varied experiences of its audience. The Night Circus, warm, brilliantly original, exciting and romantic, is such a book. Some follow the Night Circus as it travels from city to city, experiencing it many times. Others enter its gates only when the Circus appears in their neighborhood, while still others never seek admission. Anyone who does not enter the pages of this novel will be much the poorer for it. This magnificent tale of tales, of passionate contests, of adjoining rooms of wonder and intimacy is itself a wonder and a challenge to all who enter. Whether you call it magic or manipulation Morgenstern has employed her art to put on a literary spectacle from whose pages you will not wish to escape. If you missed it in hardcover take the plunge now.
A wonderful memoir from store favorite Monica Wood. You can read more about the book here in my interview with the author.
There are successful works of non-fiction that take a mediocre story and live on the strength of their author. There are stories of such strength that they hold up some mediocre storytelling. Boys in the Boat is that rare and exceptional combination of a great story told by a masterful storyteller. As moving as it is compelling, this tale of the 1936 American Olympian rowing team is the perfect read for pretty much anyone.
The Glass Sentence is a marvelous work of imaginative fantasy and adventure for all ages. Here is my interview with it's delightful author, S.E. Grove
Here is my full review of Seveneves in the Daily Bulldog
Seveneves is so grounded in good science, solid sociology and astute psychology, that it is an absolute pleasure to be immersed in. Humanity has two years before the fragmentation rate of the moon accelerates exponentially to the point of becoming an apocalyptic event rendering the surface of the planet uninhabitable for 5,000 years. Billions are going to die, but to prevent total extinction a sudden and quantum effort involving both technology and psychology will be required.
At 861 pages, Seveneves is a commitment to be sure. This is no time to be commitment averse, however. First of all the book is only dense in the sense that it hurtles along at enormous speed like an accelerating bolide fragment. In fact, it is such an unusually satisfying reading experience that, if the world were going to end in two years, I would still recommend spending a chunk of your remaining time reading it.
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