Library: Best of the best — in books

Among the many rituals that mark the end of the calendar year are the various “best of” lists that proliferate like fruitcake in December. The best new restaurants? The best red carpet looks? The best movies, courtesy of the Golden Globes and Oscars. And then there are the best new cars, electronic gadgets, websites, CDs, DVDs and so on and so forth … the list is endless, and for the average person, there are not always a lot of picks that are either relevant or obtainable.

But the best books — that’s something we can get excited about. No matter what your interests or demographics, this is a list that has something for everyone.

Three weeks ago, the New York Times published its “100 Notable Books of 2010.” The following week, the editors of the Book Review winnowed that list down to the 10 Best Books of 2010. Like any such compilation, the lists contain some predictable choices and some surprises.

Jonathan Franzen, he who kissed and made up with Oprah Winfrey and who has been collecting accolades as the year’s great American novelist, is, not surprisingly, in the top 10 with “Freedom.” But among the bold-face names like Stieg Larsson, Ann Beattie, Cynthia Ozik and Ian McEwen is Sam Lipsyte, son of Shelter Island author Bob Lipsyte, and one of the authors who participated in the library’s first annual Authors Festival this summer. “The Ask,” Sam’s third novel, is described by the Times as a “darkly humorous satire, a witty paean to white-collar loserdom.” Congratulations, Sam!

Among the non-fiction picks, there are a significant number of biographies and memoirs this year and, for some reason, baseball heroes abound, with “notable” new books about Hank Aaron (“The Last Hero”), Mickey Mantle (“The Last Boy”) and Willie Mays (“The Life, The Legend”).

Among entertainers we have Keith Richards’ “Life” and “Pops, The Life of Louis Armstrong.” Under the category of “can there really be anything new?” comes “Washington, A Life” about our first president. There is also the final volume in a trilogy about Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris and a biography of Pearl Buck.

The surprise subject of the year is “Cleopatra, A Life,” which purports to correct the misrepresentations that have haunted the Egyptian monarch for 2,000 years. Written by Stacy Schiff, who won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for her biography of Vera Nabokov, wife and muse of “Lolita” and “Pale Fire” author Vladimir Nabokov, it has made it onto the “top books” lists across the country.

While a number of the “notable” books are available at the Shelter Island Library, all of them can be obtained through the Inter-Library Loan program. You can request any item from the combined catalog of all of the libraries in Suffolk County either by making a request at the front desk or by logging into your account on the library’s website and placing the hold there for whatever items you desire. A phone call and/or an email will alert you that the book is available for pick up at our library. If you are using either the Nook or the Barnes & Noble eReader, free downloads of these titles are also available through the Live-brary system, which can be accessed via the library’s website at readshelterisland.org.

Happy holidays and a wonderful new year of reading to all. See you at the library!

NEW FICTION

“American Assassin,” Vince Flynn*

“The Fast Friend,” Myra Goldberg

“Full Dark, No Stars,” Stephen King*

“Hell’s Corner,” David Baldacci*

“The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey,” Walter Mosley

“The Long Way Home,” Robin Pilcher

“The Lotus Eaters,” Tatjana Soli (N)

“Luka and the Fire of Life,” Salman Rushdie

“An Object of Beauty,” Steve Martin*

“Of Love and Evil: The Songs of the Seraphim,” Anne Rice

“Parrot and Olivier in America,” Peter Carey

“The Privileges,” Jonathan Dee (N)

“Saving CeeCee Honeycutt,” Beth Hoffman

“Sunset Park,” Paul Auster

“Trespass,” Rose Tremain

“Valley Forge: George Washington and the Crucible of Victory,” Newt Gingrich, William R. Forstchen and Albert S. Hanser

“Rescue,” Anita Shreve

“Whisper My Name,” Fern Michaels

“Crescent Dawn,” Clive Cussler and Dirk Cussler*

“Dead or Alive,” Tom Clancy with Grant Blackwood

“The Distant Hours,” Kate Morton

“Her Daughter’s Dream,” Francine Rivers

“I Hotel,” Karen Tei Yamashita

“The Lonely Polygamist,” Brady Udall

New non-fiction

“As Always, Julia: The Letters of Julia Child and Avis DeVoto,” Joan Reardon

“Bloody Crimes,” James L. Swanson

“Broke, The Plan to Restore Our Trust, Truth and Treasure,” Glenn Beck and Kevin Balfe*

“The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer,” Siddhartha Mukherjee (N)

“Every Man in this Village is a Liar,” Megan K. Stack

“Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954-1981,” Stephen Sondheim (N)

“Half Empty,” David Rakoff

“I Remember Nothing,” Nora Ephron*

“Is It Just Me or Is It Nuts Out There?” Whoopi Goldberg

“The Kennedy Detail: JFK’s Secret Service Agents Break Their Silence,” Gerald Blaine with Lisa McCubbin

“The Killer of Little Shepherds,” Douglas Starr

“Making Sense of Autistic Spectrum Disorders,” James Coplan

“The Moral Landscape,” Sam Harris

“Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR’s Great Supreme Court Justices,” Noah Feldman (N)

“Travels in Siberia,” Ian Frazier (N)

NEW AUDIO BOOKS

“Bad Blood,” John Sandford

“Djibouti,” Elmore Leonard

“Don’t Blink,” James Patterson and Howard Roughan

“Happy Ever After,” Nora Roberts

“The Heroes of Olympus, Book One,” Rick Riordan

“Painted Ladies,” Robert B. Parker

“The Rembrandt Affair,” Daniel Silva

“The Reversal,” Michael Connelly

“We Have Always Lived in the Castle,” Shirley Jackson

“Beezus and Ramona,” Beverly Cleary

“Maniac Magee,” Jerry Spinelli

(N) New York Times Notable Book of 2010

* New York Times bestseller