They Like These, They Really Like These

Well, it’s already begun, that annual ritual of critics selecting their favorite books published during the preceding 12 months. Australia’s Adelaide Advertiser broke the ice, choosing eight crime titles among its 100 top reads of the year. The New York Times weighs in its own blockbuster list of 100 “notable books,” including Julian Barnes’ Arthur and George, Stephen King’s Lisey’s Story, and Kate Atkinson’s One Good Turn. Meanwhile, the London Observer invited a “gallery of the great and good” to identify the titles that moved them most in ’06, a roster that features several crime-related works: Ian Rankin’s The Naming of the Dead, Maggie O’Farrell’s The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, John Updike’s Terrorist, and John Grisham’s The Innocent Man. (See here and here for all the Observer’s choices.) In that paper’s sister pub, The Guardian, more wordsmiths let their prejudices be known, though their list turns out to be painfully short of crime and mystery fiction.