Best Read of 2008

I read a lot of books last year, and by far the best-written (and my favorite) was Nicholas Drayson's "A Guide to the Birds of East Africa," a quietly vivid and charming novel about love with an unlikely hero. It's really been too long since I read it to review it now, but I refer you to this blog entry by a birdwatcher who also dug it. I agree with his review wholeheartedly, except for the ornithological stuff, since I'm not a birder and couldn't comment one way or the other on that aspect of either the novel or his review. :)