The Best of 2006: fiction

This was fun.
I sat in front of all the bookshelves in my house and made a note of every book I've read this year (admittedly my memory of books read in January/February/March is a little hazy, but I've done my best to include only novels I remember reading in 06).
I think I've read around 40 books this year. It sounds like a lot when I think of there being only 12 months in a year but it sounds less impressive when I think of all the books I want to read before I'm too old and crotchety to do anything but bitch at Deal or No Deal on the TV.
I digress...
Reading brought me untold joy this year, it always has and it will always be one of the great pleasures in my life. From the early days of the MS readathon to the last page of Joyce's Ulysses (finishing date TBD). There's not much in the world that I find more enjoyable than lying in bed on a stormy day with a good book and a cup of coffee.
Here are my top 10 tomes for 2006 (in no particular order):

A Secret River by Kate Grenville
Carry Me Down by M.J Hyland
How the Light Gets In by M.J Hyland
Digging to America by Anne Tyler
Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl
The Known World by Edward P. Jones
Independence Day by Richard Ford
Saturday Ian McKewen
Running with Scissors Augusten Burroughs
Arthur & George Julian Barnes

Ben bought me a book called 'You Remind Me of Me' by Dan Chaon for xmas which could easily have knocked Ian McKewen out of the top 10 but I feel like the list was made before this book became a contender. I stick by my nonsensical and arbitrary rules.