Favorite Books of 2007

Favorite Books of 2007

Presented here you will find my favorite books that I read in 2007 (the year isn’t quite over and I’ll finish up Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West by Cormac McCarthy by then). I spend time figuring out whether I want to read a book or not, so about half the books I read this year made my ‘favorites’ list – not terribly selective. I did choose the top 4 in fiction and nonfiction and am posting my reviews separately. (I reviewed all of the books listed here on Amazon and you can find them by clicking on the hyperlink.)

While I am selective in my reading I tend not to plan it very far ahead. Rather, an author or, more often, a topic will catch my interest and away for the next several books. The year 2007 was notable for an interest in the Roman Republic and its downfall, the 17th century English Civil War, India, and finally the Old West. I’m always interested in a good book about World War Two and the American Civil War and a couple books on each of those topics is found here as well.

Perhaps the most enjoyable aspect of my reading in 2007 was the discovery of new authors (often through the recommendations of other regular Amazon reviewers like Len Fleisig (Leonard Fleisig ) and ‘Giordano Bruno’ (Giordano Bruno uhh, not his real name). John Biggins, Arturo Perez-Reverte, Boris Akunin, and Jason Goodwin are not only ‘new’, but also each have a main protagonist who inhabits a series. I’ve been a fan of George MacDonald Fraser’s Flashman: A Novel (Flashman) series, but only discovered his McAuslan stories about demobbed Scottish Highlanders at the close of WWII in ’07. Artemus Ward, the pen name of Charles Browne, merits special mention; he was an American original.

My nonfiction reading tracked the topics in fiction, but I also read several science books, quite a departure for me. I can’t recommend The Big Bang highly enough. Marcus Chown explained both quantum physics and the general theory of relativity so that you almost think you understand it! Another one that I haven’t finished yet is The Scientists: A History of Science Told Through the Lives of Its Greatest Inventors by John Gribbin.

Fiction - Top Four

McAuslan in the Rough by George MacDonald Fraser

A Sailor of Austria: In Which, Without Really Intending to, Otto Prohaska Becomes Official War Hero No. 27 of the Habsburg Empire (The Otto Prohaska Novels) by John Biggins

Augustus: A Novel by John Edward Williams
The Singapore Grip (New York Review Books Classics) by J.G. Farrell


Fiction - Special Mention

Roman Blood: A Novel of Ancient Rome (Novels of Ancient Rome) by Steven Saylor

True Grit by Charles Portis

Rumpole Misbehaves: A Novel (Rumpole Novels) by John Mortimer

Artemus Ward, his book. With many comic illustrations. by Michigan Historical Reprint Series

Flashman and the Mountain of Light (Flashman) by George MacDonald Fraser

Burmese Days by George Orwell

Captain Alatriste by Arturo Perez-Reverte

Lincoln: A Novel by Gore Vidal

The Winter Queen: A Novel (Erast Fandorin Mysteries) by Boris Akunin

The Janissary Tree: A Novel by Jason Goodwin


Nonfiction - Top Four

Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power by Robert Dallek

The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty: Delhi, 1857 by William Dalrymple

Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe (P.S.) by Simon Singh

Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self by Claire Tomalin


Nonfiction - Special Mention

German Generals Talk by Basil H. Liddell Hart

Moral Minority: Our Skeptical Founding Fathers by Brooke Allen

Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change by Elizabeth Kolbert

The Quantum Zoo: A Tourist's Guide to the Never-Ending Universe by Marcus Chown

History and Hope: The Collected Essays of C.V. Wedgwood by C. V. Wedgwood

Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic by Tom Holland

Caesar: Life of a Colossus by Adrian Goldsworthy