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Our special year-end episode is here! We announce the top 10 books of 2010, as voted by you, our listeners. Then Ann and I each pick 5 books we loved this year (plus one extra each for good measure!)

Your Top Ten

Thanks to everyone who took the time to vote in our Favorite Books of 2010 Listeners’ Poll. Without further ado, here are the top 10 vote-getters:

1. Room by Emma Donoghue
2. The Passage by Justin Cronin
3. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
4. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
5. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larsson
6. (tie) Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson
6. (tie) Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
8. Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
9. (tie) The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer
9. (tie) Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes

Michael’s Top Five (5:30)

The Bells by Richard Harvell

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Kings of the Earth by Jon Clinch

Let’s Take the Long Way Home by Gail Caldwell

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand

and a belated discovery: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

Ann’s Top Five (9:27)

How to Live by Sarah Bakewell

The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer

Mr. Peanut by Adam Ross

The Nobodies Album by Carolyn Parkhurst

Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly

and a belated discovery: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

Be sure to tune in next episode when we’ll be giving you a sneak peek of some of the books we’re looking forward to in the early part of 2011.

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It’s the last holiday-themed episode of the year! Before we head off to celebrate Christmas with our families, we share with you the books we’re hoping to receive as gifts, two books that surprised us, and two books that we’re wrapping up for family and friends.

Books we’re hoping to find under our respective Christmas trees:

We’ve given you holiday gift ideas, and told you about some books that we are giving as gifts, but we haven’t yet ‘fessed up on what books we’re hoping to find wrapped up for us. Michael is hoping for DC Super Heroes: The Ultimate Pop-Up Book by Matthew Reinhart.  I’m hoping that Santa brings me Skippy Dies: A Novel by Paul Murray or Faithful Place: A Novel by Tana French.

Books that surprised us:

I never thought it would be a book that I would want to read, but Decodedby Jay-Z is so powerful and cool, I haven’t been able to stop talking about it. I’m not a fan of rap or hip-hop, and barely knew who Jay-Z was, but the reviews were so strong that I had to check it out. It’s part memoir, part coffee table book, and a must for any music lover or person interested in cultural history.

Michael’s not a big sports fan, but found himself captivated by Ice Time: A Tale of Fathers, Sons, and Hometown Heroes by Jay Atkinson. He so loved this book that he also talked about it in BOTNS episode 23. The story of a high school hockey team goes well beyond the sports category.

Two books we’re gifting this year:

Michael loves to give his sons books for Christmas, and this year he is gifting Snowmen All Year by Carolyn Buehner. Buehner’s other books are already a hit with the family, and this should be no different.

I’m giving my friend Christine a copy of War and Peace (Vintage Classics)by Leo Tolstoy, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. I’m hoping that this will inspire her to join my War and Peace Read-Along. You are welcome to join in, too — see the Facebook page for more details. We kick it off in February.

We’ll be back next week with the books that you voted as the Best of 2010.  In the meantime, Merry Christmas!

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Thanks to McSweeney’s, we now have a chart on how to pronounce those pesky author names. We recommend a selection of beautiful books fit for any coffee table. Two books we’re gifting this holiday season.

It’s Lee-thum, not Leth-um

The fine folks at McSweeney’s put together a recent issue of their magazine and made it look like a newspaper facsimile. The book review section included this handy chart on how to pronounce some of the more difficult author names. There’s one on here that Ann and I have been mis-pronouncing all along. How have you been doing with these names?

Why We Still Have Coffee Tables (4:37)

Kristen called our voice mail line asking for recommendations of good coffee table books. Kristen had just purchased Where to Go When: Great Britain and Ireland, loved it, and wondered what else was out there. After a quick detour to Wikipedia for a little insight into the term “coffee table book,” Ann had the following books to recommend:

• Great Migrations by K. M. Kostyal (a book Ann has already blogged about – she included spreads to virtually flip through in that post)
• 40: A Doonesbury Retrospective by G. B.  Trudeau
• What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets by Peter Menzel and Faith D’ Aluisio

Of course, being the geek that I am, I chose to recommend some “nerdier” coffee table books:

• 75 Years of DC Comics:  The Art of Modern Mythmaking by Paul Levitz (check out this photo to see just how big this book is!)
• DC Comics Year by Year: A Visual Chronicle by Daniel Wallace, et al.
• Doctor Who: The Visual Dictionary by DK Publishing

Two Books We’re Gifting This Year (19:23)

My wife is a knitter, so when I heard about the children’s book Annie Hoot and the Knitting Extravaganza, I knew I had to get it. And, since it’s a picture book about a knitting owl who goes in search of animals who will appreciate her knitted creations, it’s also a gift for my kids! Ann found the perfect present for her daughter’s sixth-grade English teacher: The Book of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks by Bethany Keely. We’ve all seen the signs: “Fresh” Milk or “Thanks” for Shopping Here. This small hardcover is a hilarious photo collection of misused quotation marks. It’s a “perfect” gift!

For a huge selection of kid’s book gift recommendations, be sure to check out our friends at Random Acts of Reading, who have compiled a Holiday Gift Guide along with a wonderful list of Christmas Books to Read With Your Family.

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Everybody’s reading classics these days; we’ve got your next one! We help five listeners find the perfect books to give this holiday season. Two books we’re giving as gifts this year.

Twain. Dickens. Tolstoy?

A quick update to our recent eReader podcast. The long awaited Google eBooks launched on Monday, which means you can now order eBooks from approximately 100 independent bookstores around the country!

Mark Twain is on the bestseller list. Charles Dickens will soon be there, thanks to Oprah. And now, Ann has committed to reading War and Peace in 2011. No really. She’s serious this time. Ann and fellow book-lover Kalen have created a War and Peace Read-Along group on Facebook. They’re starting in February. Join them!

The end of the year always brings a plethora of “Best of” lists. Well, on December 29th, we’ll add to those by telling you some of our favorite books of the year. In the meantime, we’d love to hear from you. Tell us your 3 favorite books that were published this year, and we’ll compile a BOTNS Listener’s Top 10 of 2010 list and share it on that same show. Be sure to fill in the form by Sunday, December 19, so we’ll have time to tally the results!

BOTNS Book Elves, Reporting for Duty! (6:08)

Thanks so much to the five brave souls who left their gift-giving dilemmas in our hands. We think we came up with some good ideas and we’re eager to hear how we did!

Jane wanted some light reading for a 28 year old law student who will be on his holiday break. Ann recommended Star Island by Carl Hiaasen and Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart. For me, a great example of light, intelligent reading is The Book of Joe by Jonathan Tropper, and I also mention his newest book This is Where I Leave You.

Carol from Connecticut called in asking for a gift idea for a librarian who likes adventure nonfiction, travel writing, and true crime. I re-recommended a book from this summer called Blind Descent by James Tabor, along with an older book called In the Land of White Death by Valerian Albanov. Ann gave Carol plenty of choices with The Tiger by John Vaillant, The Wave by Susan Casey, Travels in Siberia by Ian Frazier and The Killer of Little Shepherds by Douglas Starr.

Barbara needed an idea for her 96 year-old father-in-law. Without conferring ahead of time Ann and I both suggested Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, a book that will surely be one of my Faves of 2010. Ann also mentioned Atlantic by Simon Winchester, an author we both enjoy.

Kate was looking for gift suggestion for her teen nephews and her 14 year-old son who loves military nonfiction but wants to branch out. I suggested branching him out into fiction with The Things a Brother Knows by Dana Reinhardt. Ann recommended Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brian and the companion book Patrick O’Brian’s Navy: The Illustrated Companion to Jack Aubrey’s World by Richard O’Neill. She also recommends Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin, and the YA steampunk series by Scott Westerfeld that begins with Leviathan and continues with Behemoth.

Karen wants to buy a book for her nephew-in-law, who’s pretty much a total stranger. He’s not much of a reader, but when he does read, it’s about computers and finance. This was the hardest one for me to solve, but I think he would enjoy The Snowball by Alice Schroeder, which is a biography of uber-successful businessman Warren Buffett. Ann suggests Fault Lines by Raghuram G. Rajan and The Master Switch by Tim Wu.

Finally, Ann recommends Potato Chip Science by Allen Kurzweil, ostensibly for Karen’s nephew-in-law, but really, it’s a quirky, perfect gift for so many different kinds of people!

Two Books We’re Gifting This Year (33:52)

I sure hope none of my siblings are listening to this episode, since they’re all getting How to Repair Food by Tanya Zeryck, John Bear and Marina Bear. It’s not that any of them are bad cooks (quite the opposite actually), it’s just that kitchen disasters happen to everyone, and no matter what goes wrong, chances are the fix can be found in this book. Ann’s in-laws regularly drive many hours to and from their vacation home. Ann’s giving them The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, in both print and audio formats, so it can be read or listened to in the car.