best books I read in 2008

*I've affixed asterisks to the best titles.*

Mysteries: These were good but not great. I'm still looking for a great new mystery author, and have high hopes for Donald Westlake.
Elizabeth Ironside: Death in the Garden and The Accomplice
Barbara Vine: Anna's Book
Ian Rankin: Knots and Crosses

Sea books: Patrick O'Brian is the best, followed by CS Forester. Ramage will suffice if you need a fix of salt air and a couple of broadsides.
Dudley Pope: Ramage series
Nordhoff and Hall: Mutiny on the Bounty

Classics:
CS Lewis: Till We Have Faces, The Screwtape Letters*
Anthony Hope: The Prisoner of Zenda and sequel

Best-kept secret:
Louis Hemon: Maria Chapdelaine*

Baseball:
Rind Lardner: You Know Me Al*

Politics:
Mark Steyn: America Alone*

Parenting:
Neufeld and Mata: Hold On To Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More than Peers*
Robert Karen: Becoming Attached*

the screwtape letters

by CS Lewis















I read this classic about 25 years ago, long enough to forget everything about it except that it deserves its reputation.

Here's an excerpt on the gift of free will:

"Merely to override a human will (as His felt presence in any but the faintest and most mitigated degree would certainly do) would be for Him useless. He cannot ravish. He can only woo. For His ignoble idea is to eat the cake and have it; the creatures are to be one with Him, but yet themselves; merely to cancel them, or assimilate them, will not serve." (from chapter 8)

till we have faces

by CS Lewis

Set in primitive pagan times, the book is a retelling of the myth of Psyche.

About love, how love of self and love of others can be confused for one another. A compelling and unsettling book.