My Favorite

So I've been thinking about all the reading I've done this year, and decided that I should choose a favorite for 2007. There were many great candidates, such as the book I've been keeping secret so my mom wouldn't buy it herself before opening her Christmas presents, A Field Guide to the North American Family by Garth Risk Hallberg. Other contenders were Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder, This is Your Brain on Music by Daniel J. Levitin, This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Grief by Andrew Holleran, and Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami.

In the end, though, there was one book with a story that is never far from my thoughts. It's a short, but great book by Ben Rice called Pobby and Dingan. A girl's father takes her two imaginary friends to work and somehow manages not to bring them back. The family and most of the town searches for the two imaginary creatures. Ben Rice tells the story beautifully, illuminating the characters of the family as well as the town. If you are the kind of person to make resolutions for the New Year, then one of them should definitely be to pick this book up.