Christian Science Monitor Best Books of 2009

Each year, the Christian Science Monitor posts it best novels of the year. Here are the picks for 2009:

Lark and Termite
By Jayne Anne Phillips
Knopf
72 pp

The Help
By Kathryn Stockett
Putnam
453 pp

The Weight of Heaven
By Thrity Umrigar
HarperCollins
365 pp

Woodsburner
By John Pipkin
Doubleday, 366 pp.

The Thing Around Your Neck
By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Knopf
218 pp.

Let the Great World Spin
By Colum McCann
Random House
349 pp.

The Anthologist
By Nicholson Baker
Simon & Schuster
245 pp.

Love and Summer
By William Trevor
Penguin Group
212 pp.

A Gate at the Stairs
By Lorrie Moore
Knopf
336 pp.

Mathilda Savitch
By Victor Lodato
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
304 pp.

The Children’s Book
By A.S. Byatt
Knopf
688 pp.

Wolf Hall
By Hilary Mantel
Henry Holt
532 pp.

They also list their Best Books of 2009: Nonfiction:

A World of Trouble:
The White House and the Middle East – from the Cold War to the War on Terror
By Patrick Tyler
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
628 pp

The Ascent of Money:
A Financial History of the World
By Niall Ferguson
Penguin
442 pp.

The Somme:
The Darkest Hour on the Western Front
By Peter Hart
Pegasus Books/Norton
624 pp.

A. Lincoln:
A Biography
By Ronald C. White Jr.
Random House
816 pp.

The Lost City of Z:
A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon
By David Grann
Doubleday
352 pp.

Cheever:
A Life
By Blake Bailey
Knopf
784 pp.

The Third Reich at War
By Richard J. Evans
Penguin Press
926 pp.

The First Tycoon:
The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt
By T.J. Stiles
Knopf
736 pp.

Fingerprints of God:
The Search for the Science of Spirituality
By Barbara Bradley Hagerty
Riverhead Books
323 pp.

Shop Class as Soulcraft:
An Inquiry Into the Value of Work
By Matthew B. Crawford
Penguin Press
246 pp.

Tears in the Darkness:
The Story of the Bataan Death March and Its Aftermath
By Michael Norman and Elizabeth M. Norman
Farrar, Staus and Giroux
464 pp.

Provenance:
How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art
By Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo
Penguin Press
352 pp.

The Age of Wonder:
How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and the Terror of Science
By Richard Holmes
Pantheon
576 pp.

Strength in What Remains:
A Journey of Remembrance and Forgiveness
By Tracy Kidder
Random House
277 pp.

The Snakehead:
An Epic Tale of the Chinatown Underworld and the American Dream
By Patrick Radden Keefe
Doubleday
432 pp.

The Sisters of Sinai:
How Two Lady Adventurers Discovered the Hidden Gospels
By Janet Soskice
Knopf
304 pp.

Horse Soldiers:
The Extraordinary Story of a Band of U.S. Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan
By Doug Stanton
Scribner
416 pp.

A Paradise Built in Hell:
The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster
By Rebecca Solnit
Viking
353 pp.

Green Metropolis:
Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, and Driving Less Are the Keys to Sustainability
By David Owen
Riverhead Books
357 pp.

The Good Soldiers
By David Finkel
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
285 pp.

The Clinton Tapes:
Wrestling History with the President
By Taylor Branch
Simon & Schuster
720 pp.

The Big Burn:
Teddy Roosevelt & the Fire That Saved America
By Timothy Egan
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
324 pp.

The Boy Who Harnassed the Wind
By William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer
William Morrow
288 pp.

Lit:
A Memoir
By Mary Karr
Harper
386 pp