...an obese Dominican-American geek living in New Jersey, with a baleful, dying mother, a devoted punkette sister and a heart full of thwarted romance. With grace and brio, Díaz conjures a world that encompasses everything from streetwise Spanglish to Dungeons and Dragons, campus politics to immigrant family saga.

Why does this type of book completely turn me off? Is it age? Has a new style of fiction come into play and I am missing the point ?

It just seems that writers/authors were replaced by a randomizer that creates characters in odd situations and tries to either shock or surprise me, the reader, as to how what a clever conjurer the writer is. There is a similar indie film style that creates the same reaction. Royal Tanebaums, Malkovich etc.

Unfortunately, your list of recommendations is filled with "whacky" character books, getting whacky with each other.

They're about soap operas with a checklist of au courant types and odd strange characters.

And I'm sorry but what's the deal with Chabon? He's unreadable. And not in a good way either.

What about Naomi Klein's THE SHOCK DOCTRINE. I think the absence of her book is a glaring omission. I would go as far to say as its some of the best non-fiction I've read in years. Urgent as well. . .

I think Diaz is very talented but I couldn't get into Oscar Wao. The narrator has this style that is hipper-than-hip, oh so Now and Cool that I got immediately annoyed. But I know people who got past that and really liked it. Diaz certainly can write.

Cheating a bit -- the paperback came out in 2007 -- but Sean Carroll's The Making of the Fittest is one of the best science books I have ever read -- clear, beautifully written, and full of astounding information about the maps in our genetic heritage. It edges out Jessica Snyder Sachs' also excellent book Good Germs, Bad Germs (2007).

I was disappointed with Alex Ross' The Rest is Noise -- it is just a long survey with a few hundred names: nice, but nothing special. There is really no in depth analysis of any work. There is more real analysis in (for example) Eric Salzman's standard 20th Century Music.

Toronto

The Terror by Dan Simmons

Divisadero by Michael Andaatje

Just curious. Was poetry even considered as a "pleasurable reading experience" (i.e. book) ?

I can't remember when a book has impacted my thinking so profoundly. Not happier but far wiser, I face the current political situation with a sanguine disposition. I have a depth of understanding about the misdirection of this country, the why and when we went off track and the impossible task of attempting to right the course, that I would never have had without this terribly disturbing masterpiece of journalism.

I'm disappointed in the lack of genre fiction, some of which deals directly and in ways very well-suited to your criteria with the sorts of issues that Salon regularly discusses.

2007 saw the publication of Jo Walton's Ha'penny, a spectacular alternate history that touches on terrorism, loyalty, the rule of law, whether killing someone truly can change the direction of politics, and the clash between pragmatism and ideals. It's compulsively readable, the sort of book that you can't put down, with memorable characters and ideas that are stronger the more you think about them.

It's a sequel (that can be read stand-alone) of the earlier Farthing, which was sadly overlooked and uses alternate history to look at the tactics people such as Bush use to undermine civil liberty. But Ha'penny is even stronger.

Highly recommended.

"Dies the Fire" by S.M. Stirling

My husband and I have very different tastes in books (he likes thrillers and I like SF), and this is one of the few novels that we've both really enjoyed. It has plenty of action and suspense (good for the thriller fan), but Stirling also does an excellent job envisioning how society would transform itself if all of a sudden our energy technology (electricity and internal combustion) stopped working.

"I Am David" by Anne Holme

A young adult novel that I read at the beginning of the year that still very much sticks in my memory. The story of a 12 year old boy (David) who escapes from an Eastern European prison camp.

"Feed" by M.T. Anderson

Another young adult novel (really, I don't usually read young adult fiction). Apropos of the NEA study, this book is set in an anti-utopian future where people don't need to read as entertainment, news and consumer info is instead fed directly into people's brains. Theo and his friends love their internet/television "Feed", but Theo slowly starts to see the dark side of his society.

"Deep Economy" by Bill McKibben

Usually books on how to save the environment and the economy and how we got into the mess we are in, are pretty dry. But "Deep Economy" is compelling and easy to read. It wasn't a chore at all to read this very eye-opening book.

"Salon Book Awards 2007"

I hope Salon will do more book reviews. I especially like the short review format (so many books, so little time).

I highly recommend Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson. It is the most personally in depth book on Albert Einstein that I have read. It also explains the trials and tribulations of his various family members and associates. The science was well explained also.