Years-End Best Books Awards from Hearts & Minds: Break Out the Spinny Tin Things

It was just a few posts ago that we referred you to the recent Hearts & Minds website that listed, in our November monthly column, our description of the best of the landslide of Narnia-related books. I have no cynicism about this recent publishing trend and many of these Lewis bios and Narnia studies are really quite good. We hope that we helped renew your interest in Kilny stuff and trust it was worth reading. Maybe your gang should host some post-movie LWW discussion groups or book clubs, using one or two of these as a resource.

NOW, we are very pleased to announce the Hearts & Minds End of the Year Best Book Awards. Check it out to see our website's December column and see my picks for everything from the Best Really Big Fat Book I Read This Year (and it wasn't 1776 which was almost fat enough to count, but I haven't read yet anyway) to a celebration of the year's best re-issues; I awarded some odd little picks about good books with bad covers, and named some of our favorite novels. Of course, there is "the" best book of the year; couldn't name just one, natch, so there are a couple of runners up (or should that be runner-ups?) There's even an Half-hearted Award for a popular topic about which I had huge ambivalence.

It is almost time to break out the spinny tin things you swing around and shake on New Year's eve, or those little horns that uncurl those annoying paper tongues. You can warm 'em up here by tooting along for these H & M award winners. It may not be the New York Times or Christianity Today, but we are confident we have honored some truly important books. Anybody find any glaring misses? Want to add your favs? Come on, readers! What would you list?