The American Library Association (ALA)’s Reference and User Services Association (RUSA)’s Collection Development and Evaluation Section (CODES) established the Readling List Council in 2007 to “highlight outstanding genre fiction that merits special attention by general adult readers and the librarians who work with them.” They chose books in eight different categories: Adernaline Titles (suspense, thrillers, and action adventure); Fantasy; Historical Fiction; Horror; Mystery; Romance; Science Fiction; and Women’s Fiction. The books on the list were chosen “for at least one, and preferably more than one, of the following reasons:
* It is a pleasure to read.
* It embodies the standards of the genre, or conversely, it offers a new or unexpected take on those standards.
* It is will conceived in terms of story line, character, setting, language, dialogue, tone, pace, detail, description, learning/experiencing, and narrative structure.”
The top titles in each category are:
Adrenaline: The Second Objective by Mark Frost (published by Hyperion)
Fantasy: The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss (DAW)
Historical Fiction: The Religion by Tim Willocks (Farrar Straus and Giroux)
Horror: Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill (William Morrow)
Mystery: Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin (G.P. Putnam’s Sons)
Romance: Natural Born Charmer by Susan Elizabeth Phillips (William Morrow)
Science Fiction: In War Times by Kathleen Ann Goonan (Tor)
Women’s Fiction: Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen (Bantam)
The other fantasy nominees were:
Territory by Emma Bull (Tor)
White Night by Jim Butcher (Roc)
Kushiel’s Justice by Jacqueline Carey (Warner)
The Devil You Know by Mike Carey (Warner)
Acacia by David Durham (Doubleday)
Book of Joby by Mark Ferrari (Tor)
First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde (Viking)
Ysabel by Guy Gavriel Kay (Roc)
Daughter of Hounds by Caitlin Kiernan (Roc)
Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch (Bantam Spectra)
City of Dreaming Books by Walter Moers (Overlook)
A Companion to Wolves by Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear (Tor)
Empire of Ivory by Naomi Novik (Del Rey)
Making Money by Terry Pratchett (Harper)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling (Scholastic)
The Children of Hurín by J.R.R. Tolkien (Houghton Mifflin)
In the Cities of Coin and Spice by Catherynne Valente (Bantam Spectra)
The other horror nominees were:
Imago Sequence by Laird Barron (Nightshade)
Shadow Coast by Philip Haldeman (Hippocampus)
20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill (William Morrow)
The Missing by Sarah Langan (HarperCollins)
Baltimore, or the Steadfast Tin Soldier by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden (Bantam Spectra)
The Taken by Sarah Pinborough (Dorchester)
The Terror by Dan Simmons (Little Brown)
The other science fiction nominees were:
Spook Country by William Gibson (G.P. Putnam’s Sons)
Bright of Sky by Kay Kenyon (Pyr)
Phytosphere by Scott Mackay (New American Library)
Brasyl by Ian McDonald (Pyr)
Thirteen by Richard Morgan (Del Rey/Ballantine)
Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer (Tor)
The Last Colony by John Scalzi (Tor)
One Jump Ahead by Mark L. Van Name (Baen)
Axis by Robert Charles Wilson (Tor)
For more information on the RUSA subsection of the ALA, the selection process, and the complete list of nominees in all the categories, see this page.