A year of reading the best

As 2009 neared its final moments, The Washington Post's Book World listed the best books of the past year -- and not one of them was by John Grisham or Dan Brown. In fact, I hadn't heard of many of them. But as I went through the list, I was intrigued. Here were invitations to visit Stalin's Soviet Union, to walk with roommates in love with the same woman, to meet Charles Dickens not once, but in two different books. (And I thought I knew him pretty well, already.)

There are 80 fiction books listed in this supplement. (I'm skipping the non-fiction for now. I just may have to get Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong, though....) No, I don't think I can read them all in the coming months. But I'm going to see how many I can read, how many I consider the best, and which ones force me to wonder what makes a good novel.

As an unpublished novelist (raise your hand if you're with me), I never fail to marvel at creative prose, glossy descriptions, dialogue that snaps and plot lines that leave me breathless.

I started with a trip to the local public library -- which had two of the 10 Best Books of the Year. The Stalin Epigram by Robert Littell (Simon & Schuster) is up first. Poets, Stalin, Soviet Russia, already I'm intrigued.