This week’s book (the TENTH in a series of reading the TEN Best Books of 2009 over the first TEN weeks of 2010) was A Short History of Women by Kate Walbert.

I loved this book. Though it sounds like it would be a non-fiction book, it’s actually a novel which tells the story of several generations of women, centering around the book’s main heroine, a suffragette who starved herself and died for women’s rights. The language of the book is very poetic and sometimes ethereal. But Walbert does an excellent job of telling the story of ‘the woman question’- how women handle motherhood and career throughout the generations. It’s a fascinating story, brilliantly told.

Tiny excerpt:

“Your great-grandmother starved to death on principle; she literally ate nothing.”

“I know, I know. I’ve seen the postage stamp,” Caroline said.

“I think it changed things then,” Dorothy said. “To do something. She made up her mind; she took a stand -”

“And look what happened to your dad? Anyway, you said she might have been unbalanced. A bit insane, wasn’t she? You’ve said that before. She might have been suffering from -”

“Hysteria?” Dorothy said, hearing her own tone of voice — hysterical. “The point is, she did something.”

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To celebrate the final week, I am doing a giveaway of the hardcover edition of The Short History of Women. If you’d like to read it, leave a comment saying so and I will pick a random comment number and announce next Sunday, when we will be discussing:

To summarize my opinions of the NYT’s ten best books of 2009, here’s a list of the order I’d choose to read them in (if I were you and hadn’t already read them all… which makes zero sense…). Let’s put it this way, if you were marooned on an island (lucky bitch) and there were exactly ten books to read, I’d read them in this order, SAVING THE BEST (#1) FOR LAST:

10. Lords of Finance by Liaquat Ahamed

9. The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes

8. Raymond Carver by Carol Sklenicka

7. Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem

6. A Gate at The Stairs by Lorrie Moore

5. The Good Soldiers by David Finkel

4. A Short History of Women by Kate Walbert

3. Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls

2. Both Ways is The Only Way I Want It by Maile Meloy

1. Lit by Mary Karr

So there you have it: my one person’s humble opinion/ranking of these books. I am sure everyone who read these ten books would have a different ranking, which is totally cool too. Reading preferences are very personal, and the opinions of the book reviewers at the New York Times differ greatly from the general population, I’d guess. It’s like the electoral college versus the popular vote in an election.

Which brings me to next week.

Many of you may remember when I started the book club challenge 10 weeks ago that if you didn’t want to read along, you could choose to read The Help (named Best Book of 2009 by USA Today and still topping the NYT bestseller list) and we’d discuss it in March.

NEXT SUNDAY we are discussing The Help! So please stop back next week.

Thanks for reading!