Books of 2008 – The Scribbler Readers’ Poll

Is Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk your book of the year?

As the 2008 slowly eases through its final chilly days and colder nights we wanted to ask you the question that has been on our lips since starting this humble blog.

What have been your books of 2008? As you hopefully saw earlier today, The Guardian has asked public figures but now we are asking you, the Great British fiction fan.

This year has been a healthy one for releases of great fiction but which have particularly enchanted you? Have there been any that have prompted moments of deep thought, a revelation, a tear, a smile, a giggle, a spell of nausea or, more interestingly, a great deal of self-reflection?

We’ve listed 2008’s most notable new novels (disclaimer: it’s not necessarily what we’ve enjoyed) to provide you with some inspiration. It’s out hope that this feature will generate lots of debate and discussion not only about the books of the year but also what makes a good piece of fiction. Uses the comments box accordingly.

So, come on then, what will it be?

The year in literature:

• The Painter of Battles by Arturo Perez-Reverte
• The Delivery Man by Joe McGinniss Jr.
• The Expeditions by Karl Iagnemma
• Beautiful Children by Charles Bock
• How the Dead Dream by Lydia Millet
• Song Yet Sung by James McBride
• The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff
• The Invention of Everything Else by Samantha Hunt
• Feuchtgebiete by Charlotte Roche
• Lush Life by Richard Price
• Change of Heart by Jodi Picoult
• Our Story Begins by Tobias Wolff
• The Sorrows of an American by Siri Hustvedt
• Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
• All the Sad Young Literary Men by Keith Gessen
• Deaf Sentence by David Lodge
• Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk
• The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie
• My Sister, My Love by Joyce Carol Oates
• Home by Marilynne Robinson
• American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld
• Supreme Courtship by Christopher Buckley
• Indignation by Philip Roth
• The Believers by Zoë Heller
• Le violoncelliste sourd by Francis Malka
• Pretty Monsters by Kelly Link
• The Widows of Eastwick by John Updike
• Between the Assassinations by Aravind Adiga
• A Mercy by Toni Morrison
• Ralph Ellison‘s posthumously published manuscript Three Days Before the Shooting, edited by John F. Callahan

Watch Chuck Palahniuk interview the protagonist of his book Snuff, porn priestess Cassie Wright below:

Discussion:
Come on then? What was your favourite book of 2008 and why? Why that book and not another? We want a full blown discussion going on.

Words: Dean Samways