Marriage PlotIn a world of massive amounts of information, I am a sucker for top ten or best-of lists. I appreciate when someone else condenses something into a short and sweet list, something easy to scan and hopefully points you in the right direction.
November brings the earliest end-of-the-year best-of lists and both Amazon and Publisher's Weekly are some of the first to announce their top ten books of the year. Maybe not too shockingly, Amazon's list is pretty predictable with a lot of best sellers, or other books that got a lot of buzz, including debut-darling Téa Obreht, Erik Larson, and the new Steve Jobs bio.

This year Publisher's Weekly's list is a little more eclectic. Of course Tina Fey's Bossypants and my favorite pop-lit book of the year, State of Wonder by Ann Patchett made the PW list, but so did a lot of other books I haven't heard of. I am pleased to note that one of my favorite Russian historians, Robert K. Massie has a new book out. 600 pages of Catherine the Great? Yes, please.
The only book that made both lists? The Marriage Plot by Jeffery Eugenides.