2010 Tournament of Books Long List

Each year The Morning News posts its short lists for the best books of that year - there is then a run-off to determine which book is THE BEST. This year is the first year they have released a long list. They write:

Our criteria for selecting the titles on the long list were the same as we normally adhere to. Books must be novels (for the most part), and must have been published for the first time in English in 2009 (for the most part). Considerations included: our own reading experiences; recommendations from family and friends, readers, publishing folk, and TMN staff; critics’ opinions, from internet shoppers to prestigious names; prize-winners; other media groups’ best-of lists; sales records, high and low; too much hype or too little hype; independent publisher versus big bad media; authors’ reputations; authors’ previous participation in previous Tournaments; blurb quantity and quality; etc. So yes, pretty much everything except the cover art. Of the following 50 titles, we doubt you’ll have a bad time reading any of them. Only 16, however, will we consider strong enough to withstand blood sport in March.

In January, the 16 finalists will be announced.

The Year of the Flood, Margaret Atwood
The Anthologist, Nicholson Baker
Rage, Sergio Bizzio
The Women, T.C. Boyle
Await Your Reply, Dan Chaon
Trouble, Kate Christensen
Little Bee, Chris Cleave
Fever Chart, Bill Cotter
Four Freedoms, John Crowley
Everything Matters!, Ron Currie Jr.
Spooner, Pete Dexter
Homer & Langley, E.L. Doctorow
Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth, Apostolos Doxiadis
The Believers, Zoe Heller
Last Night in Twisted River, John Irving
The Book of Night Women, Marlon James
Under the Dome, Stephen King
The Lacuna, Barbara Kingsolver
Big Machine, Victor Lavalle
Chronic City, Jonathan Lethem
The Golden Mean, Annabel Lyon
Let the Great World Spin, Colum McCann
Ransom, David Malouf
Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel
The City & The City, China Mieville
Manituana, Wu Ming
A Gate at the Stairs, Lorrie Moore
Miles from Nowhere, Nami Mun
Once a Runner, John Parker
Lark and Termite, Jayne Anne Phillips
Generosity, Richard Powers
Inherent Vice, Thomas Pynchon
Wetlands, Charlotte Roche
My Abandonment, Peter Rock
That Old Cape Magic, Richard Russo
Burnt Shadows, Kamila Shamsie
The Help, Kathryn Stockett
Far North, Marcel Theroux
The Alternative Hero, Tim Thornton
Brooklyn, Colm Toibin
Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned, Wells Tower
This Is Where I Leave You, Jonathan Tropper
My Bird, Fariba Vafi
The Book of Fathers, Miklos Vamos
The Informers, Juan Gabriel Vasquez
A Short History of Women, Kate Walbert
Half Broke Horses, Jeannette Walls
The Little Stranger, Sarah Waters
Sag Harbor, Colson Whitehead
Lowboy, John Wray