1. Highest Duty: My Quest for What Really Matters by Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger
2. Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls
3. The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan
4. The Story of a Marriage by Andrew Sean Greer
5. The City of Thieves by David Benioff

6. The Magicians by Lev Grossman
7. The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff
8. Lidia Cooks from the Heart of Italy by Lidia Bastianich
9. Either You're In or You're In the Way by Logan and Noah Miller
10. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba
    and Bryan Mealer

One of the great pleasures of working in a bookshop is people coming in saying how much they adored a particular book. Or hated it. Talking about books. Responding to books. The books that make people care, sometimes passionately.

Out of these enthusiasms come our selections for Books of the Year. These are the books that most often began conversations in 2009. We feel that each is worthy of inclusion in your permanent library.

Caroline's Book of the Year
The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (Doubleday, $26.95). From master storyteller Carlos Ruiz Zafon, author of the international phenomenon The Shadow of the Wind, comes The Angel's Game — a dazzling new page-turner about the perilous nature of obsession, in love and in literature. It's big and dramatic and exciting and romantic and Caroline has been saying that it's the book of this past year that she'd most like to read over again for the first time.

Tinkers by Paul Turner (Bellevue Literary Press, $14.95). This small book by a first-time novelist (and the tiniest literary press imaginable) was the first bestseller of 2009. Marilynne Robinson's cover blurb was the first indication of exactly how good this book is, "Tinkers is truly remarkable. It achieves and sustains a unique fusion of language and perception. Its fine touch plays over the textured richness of very modest lives, evoking again and again a frisson of deep recognition, a sense of primal encounter with the brilliant, elusive of deep recognition, a sense of primal encounter with the brilliant, elusive world of the senses. It confers on the reader the best privilege fiction can afford, the illusion of ghostly proximity to other human souls."

Drew's Book of the Year
Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby (Riverhead, $25.95). In a dreary seaside town in England, Annie loves Duncan — or thinks she does, because she always has. Duncan loves Annie, but then, all of a sudden, he doesn't anymore. So Annie stops loving Duncan, and starts getting her own life. Few contemporary novelists are as well-able to capture the nuanced subtleties of relationships between men and women. As in his earlier novel, High Fidelity, Hornby's deep love of and appreciation of music underpins the story. And, no contemporary writer, so well understands the nature of fan-dom and the role it can play in people's lives. Richly funny and terribly perceptive: this is one that will have you reading the best bits aloud to whomever you're with, just to share the laugh. *Signed copies available.*

Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer by Novella Carpenter (The Penguin Press, $25.95). When Novella Carpenter and her boyfriend rented an apartment in West Oakland several years ago, Novella promptly started growing food and raising chickens on the vacant lot next to the building. Gradually she moved on to rabbits and, eventually, to the traumas and joys of raising a pig. If the eating local and organic movement has ever seemed precious to you, Novella will counter that impression. She's smart, funny, and, well, earthy. A trip to have lunch with Novella and some other booksellers at the farm inspired one of our best author events this year: a farm dinner with Novella in late July. I've heard from more customers that they are planning on keeping chickens after reading this book. If one of you starts raising a pig, you need to share! *Signed copies available.*

Julie's Book of the Year
The Help by Kathryn Stockett (Amy Tinhorn Books, $24.95). It's 1962, Mississippi, and three women — one white, two African American — are on the verge of making a series of decisions that will change their world. Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffering within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed. Readers across the country have made this first novel one of the year's surprise bestsellers. Julie has quirked that it's quite something to read an historical fiction set in a time that one remembers oneself.

The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire That Saved America by Timothy Egan (HMH, $27). In The Worst Hard Time, Timothy Egan put the environmental disaster of the Dust Bowl at the center of a rich history, told through the characters he brought to indelible life. Now he performs the same alchemy with The Big Burn, the largest-ever forest fire in America and the tragedy that cemented Teddy Roosevelt's legacy as the president who saved our wild places. In The Big Burn, Egan tells an epic story, paints a moving portrait of the people who lived it, and offers a critical cautionary tale. This fine book belongs on the same shelf as Into the Wild and A River Runs Through It — an extraordinary tale of the American West. *Signed copies available.*

Kelly's Book of the Year
Either You're In or You're the Way: Two Brothers, Twelve Months, and One Filmmaking Hell-Ride to Keep a Promise to Their Father by Logan and Noah Miller (Harper, $26.99). Logan and Noah Miller grew up in west Marin, the other Marin, the working class, rough-edged Marin. Divorced parents, dad an alcoholic, it was a tough way to grow up. But through it all, they loved their dad and he loved them. If he wasn't the best father, he was the best one he could be. When he died, the brothers set out to make a movie to honor his life and memory. With no skills, connections, or money, they made a feature-length film starring Ed Harris. It's a story that rollicks along — it's as inspiring, loving, and just plain fun as any we have read this year. In someone else's inimitable phrase: "Thumbs up!"

The New Valley by Josh Weil (Grove, $22). Set in the hardscrabble hill country between West Virginia and Virginia, The New Valley is populated by characters striving to forge new independent lives in the absence of those they have loved. Told in three varied and distinct voices — from a soft-spoken middle-aged beef farmer struggling to hold himself together after his dad's sudden death; to a health-obsessed single father desperate to control his reckless, overweight daughter; to a mildly retarded man who falls in love with a married woman and into a scheme that will wound them both. Each novella is a vivid, stand-alone examination of Weil's uniquely romanticized relationships. As the men battle against grief and solitude, their heartache slowly leads them all to commit acts that will bring both ruin and salvation. These stories have the feel of handmade furniture, all stark beauty and simplicity, clean lines and the slight roughness of hand planing. This may be the year's most impressive debut.

Cameron's Book of the Year
The Magicians by Lev Grossman (Viking, $26.95). We have been saying since mid-summer that The Magicians is the only book that all of us on staff have read that we all agree is fantastic, that we all loved. It starts out in contemporary Brooklyn on a day as gray and dark and cold as, well, today: three teenagers walking together bonded by proximity and their shared teenage sense of isolation, just on the verge of everything changing. And, it ends someplace wonderful indeed. The Magicians is at once a loving homage to the Harry Potter books and a dark and smart satire of them as well. Eleven years ago we sold you Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone to give as Christmas gifts to all the best young readers in your life. Today that reader is all grown up and just the right age for The Magicians. It's that good.

Zeitoun by Dave Eggers (McSweeney's Books, $24). I admit that I put off reading Zeitoun for as long as I could. I admire Dave's work tremendously, even love it but this story of one American family and Hurricane Katrina just sounded too hard. I finally gave in in late August when I took a couple days off at the Russian River. It turned out to be all I could do to tear myself away long enough to order another cocktail. It's enthralling and gripping and almost impossible to put down. In the sparest, most stripped down prose Eggers relates the story of Abdulraman and Kathy Zeitoun and their lives before, during, and after the worst natural disaster in American history. Eggers never passes judgement on his characters' choices or the situations in which they find themselves. But it is impossible not to consider this to be the most searing indictment. An incredible read.

Michael's Book of the Year
The Children's Book by A. S. Byatt (Knopf, $26.95). It is both a sweeping epic saga: the story of the British Empire at its golden perfect late nineteenth/early twentieth century height. But it also an intimate family piece: the story of one family and the perfect golden world that one mother has created for her children. If it begins in 1890 in deep summer, then it ends in 1920 in the bleak post-World War I winter. The innocence of the Empire turns out to be no less fragile than the innocence of one family, than that of childhood. Byatt's writing here is stunning. Where Eggers is spare and almost austere, Byatt is lush and rich. And yet, so perfect is her control that it never veers over the top. The effect is perfect and balanced. And, I loved these characters . . . .

Half Broke Horses: A True Life Life Novel by Jeannette Walls (Scribner, $26). Lily Casey Smith was born in a dugout in west Texas in 1901, the year after her dad got out of prison, where he'd been serving time on a trumped-up murder charge. Her life never quite lets up after that. She's a vivid, intelligent, tough-minded character who pushes herself to become the person she wants to be, the person she is meant to be. This book was one of the two that dominated the fall season for us. A "Little House on the Prairie" for grown-ups that had the whole community talking. If you loved The Glass Castle, then you must read Half Broke Horses. *Signed copies available.*

Sense & Sensibility by Jane Austen (Penguin Classics, $20). This lovely edition of Jane Austen's beloved novel is part of a beautiful set of classics produced by Penguin. Whatever your feelings about high school English class, these reissued volumes, with gorgeous foil-stamped linen covers, created by acclaimed designer Coralie Bickford-Smith, are reason enough to go back to the classics. Get one for your teen, get one for yourself. Buy the full 8 copy set and we'll take off 10%. Other titles include: Pride and Prejudice; Wuthering Heights; Great Expectations; and Jane Eyre.

You're a Genius All the Time: Belief and Techniques for Modern Prose by Jack Kerouac (Chronicle, $12.95). Jack Kerouac exploded literary conventions. His unique style of "spontaneous prose" defied the rules of literature and came to define a generations. Asked by his friend Allen Ginsberg to describe his strange new style, Kerouac penned the thirty maxims contained in this book. Sublime, humorous, and authentic, these words speak straight to the heart of the human experience.

Lives of the Trees: An Uncommon History by Diana Wells (Algonquin Books, $19.95). From the origins of their names to their use in sacred rituals, from their medicinal properties to their place in art and literature — an original look at our deep-rooted connections to trees. These biographies of one hundred trees — from the common oak to the rarer baobab, from the handkerchief tree to the welwitschia — add up to a one-of-a-kind compendium of what trees have meant in our culture throughout time and how they continue to protect our planet to this day.

The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt by T. J. Stiles (Knopf, $37.50). Founder of a dynasty, builder of the original Grand Central Station, creator of an impossibly vast, Cornelius "Commodore" Vanderbilt is an American icon. In The First Tycoon, Stiles offers the first complete, authoritative biography of this titan, and these first comprehensive of the personal life that drove the man. It is an exhilarating account of a man and a nation maturing together: the powerful account of a man whose life was an epic and complex as American history itself. Winner of the 2009 National Book Award. T. J. Stiles will be speaking at Rakestraw Books in January 2010.

Lost Lore: A Celebration of Traditional Wisdom from Foraging and Festivals to Seafaring and Smoke Signals by Una McGovern and Paul Jenner (Chambers, $24.95). Lost Lore takes a nostalgic look back at traditional customs and skills, reminding us of the knowledge and wisdom that once underpinned our daily lives. Discover things that our ancestors instinctively just knew, from forecasting the weather to how to use an abacus, from identifying birds to polishing furniture, not forgetting how to count sheep.

The Metamorphosis of Plants by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (The MIT Press, $21.95). This little book has a rather ambitious goal — to promote not only greater but also deeper knowledge of the natural world. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe envisioned a fuller integration of poetic and scientific sensibilities that would provide a way of experiencing nature both scientificially and symbolically, simultaneously. And, I have to say, the photographs in this new edition are just beautiful.

Tiepolo Pink by Roberto Calasso (Knopf, $40). The eighteenth-century Venetian painter Giambattista Tiepolo spent his life executing commissions in churches, palaces, and villas, often covering vast ceilings like those at the Wurzburg Residenz in Germany and the Royal Palace in Madrid with frescoes that are among the glories of Western art. The life of an epoch swirled around him — but though his contemporaries appreciated and admired him, they failed to understand him. Robert Calasso rises to the challenge: positioning Tiepolo as far more than a dazzling intermezzo in the history of painting. Tiepolo may just have been the last incarnation of that peculiar Italian virtue sprezzatura, the art of not seeming artful.

The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and the Terror of Science by Richard Holmes (Random House, $40). A riveting history of the men and women whose discoveries and inventions at the end of the eighteenth century gave birth to the Romantic Age of Science. Holmes's extraordinary evocation of this age of wonder shows how great ideas and experiments — both successes and failures — were born of singular and often lonely dedication, and how religious faith and scientific truth collide. He has written a book breathtaking in its originality, its storytelling energy, and its intellectual significance.

Building Up and Tearing Down: Reflections on the Age of Architecture by Paul Goldberger (Monacelli, $35). In this collection of fifty essays, the critic Tracy Kidder called "America's foremost interpreter of public architecture" moves from Havanna to Beijing, from Chicago to Las Vegas, dissecting everything from skyscrapers by Norman Foster and museums by Tadao Ando to airports, monuments, suburban shopping malls, and white-brick apartment buildings. This is a comprehensive account of the best — and the worst — of the "age of architecture."

Unpacking My Library: Architects and Their Book ed. by Jo Steffans (Yale, $20). How do books map the intellectual curiosities, tastes, and personalities of their readers? What does the collecting of books have in common with the practice of architecture? A celebration of the arts of reading and collecting, this beautiful book provides an intimate look at the personal libraries of twelve of the world's leading architects, alongside conversations about the significance of books to their careers and their lives. A beautiful gift for the book-lover in your life.

The Sisters Who Would be Queen: Mary, Katherine, and and Lady Jane Grey - A Tudor Tragedy by Leanda de Lisle (Ballantine Books, $30). Mary, Katherine, and Jane Grey — sisters whose mere existence nearly toppled a kingdom and altered a nation's destiny — are the captivating subjects of Leanda de Lisle's new book. The Sisters Who Would be Queen breathes fresh life into these three young women who were victims of the notoriously vicious Tudor power struggles and whose heirs would otherwise probably be ruling England today.

Rules for My Unborn Son by Walker Lamond (St. Martin's Griffin, $14.99). A boy needs rules. One man's instructions for raising a thoughtful, adventurous, honest, hardworking, self-reliant, well-dressed, well-read, well-mannered young gentleman.

Brooklyn by Colm Toibin (Scribner, $25). Hauntingly beautiful and heartbreaking, Colm Toibin's sixth novel, Brooklyn, is set in Brooklyn and Ireland in the early 1950s, when one young woman crosses the ocean to make a new life for herself. By far Toibin's most instantly engaging and emotionally resonant novel, Brooklyn, will make readers fall in love with his gorgeous writing and spellbinding characters. Both Julie and Caroline loved this fine book and recommend it highly.

The Life and Love of Trees by Lewis Blackwell (Chronicle, $50). To plant a tree is to live in hope. To plant a tree is to give to everyone. Through breathtaking photographs and stories we are taken on a journey from the boreal forest at the edge of the Artic to the rainforest girdling the planet; from ancient bristlecones to fresh-leaved seedlings; from the charming and familiar to the scary and rare; and from giant, unseen, underground life forms to the possibility of life-saving, unknown treasures in the high canopies. A beauitful book for your coffee table, yes, but also one to mull over and consider at length.