15. Charles Brock "Beautiful Children"

14. Daniel Clowes "Ghost World"

13. Elaine Dundy "The Dud Avocado"

12. August Wilson "Gem of the Ocean"

11. Troy Jollimore "Tom Thomson In Purgatory"

10. Dawn Lundy Martin "A Gathering of Matter/A Matter of Gathering"

9. Alice Notley "In the Pines"

8. Dorothea Lasky "Awe"

7. Eileen Myles "Sorry, Tree"

6. Rae Armantrout "Next Life"

5. Sarah Manguso, Dave Eggers, and Deb Olin Unferth "One Hundred and Forty Five Stories in a Small Box"

4. Adrian Tomine "Shortcomings"

3. Graham Foust "Necessary Stranger"

2. Felix Feneon "Novels in Three Lines"

Best christmas present ever.

1. Jim Shepard "Like You'd Understand, Anyway"

(Belated) '07 Wrap up

Once again, instead of a top 10, I will say only that Junot Diaz's "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" was the best book I read last year. Thanks to the great city of New York and its absurd cost of living and the fact that I had to work way more than I did last year, I did not read nearly as many books as I would have liked. Which is not too say that Diaz's novel wouldn't have taken first place if I'd had time to read, say, "Tree of Smoke."

Other notable books of 2007: Miranda July's "No One Belongs Here More Than You," Lydia Davis' "Varieties of Disturbance," and Joshua Ferris' "Then We Came to the End."

63. Anne Enright "The Gathering"

62. Christian Hawkey "Citizen Of"

61. Jesse Ball "Samedi the Deafness"

60. Tom Perrotta "The Abstinence Teacher"

59. Ann Patchett "Run"

58. Michael Chabon "Wonder Boys"

57. Junot Diaz "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao"

56. Tracy K. Smith "Duende"

55. Courtney Queeney "Filibuster to Delay a Kiss"

54. Rick Moody "The Ice Storm"

53. Ian McEwan "On Chesil Beach"

52. Jess Walter "The Zero"

51. Philip Roth "Exit Ghost"

50. George Saunders "The Braindead Megaphone"

George Saunders on David Letterman

49. Joshua Ferris "Then We Came to the End"

48. Noelle Kocot "Poem for the End of Time and Other Poems"

47. Chelsey Minnis "Bad Bad"

46. Nick Flynn "Some Ether"

45. Ariana Reines "The Cow"

44. Eleni Sikelianos "The Monster Lives of Boys and Girls"

43. Vendela Vida "And Now You Can Go"

42. Prageeta Sharma "The Opening Question"

41. Rick Moody "Right Livelihoods"

40. Ben Lerner "Angle of Yaw"

39. Daniel Clowes "Ice Haven"

38. Darcy O'Brien "A Way of Life, Like Any Other"

37. Natasha Trethewey "Native Guard"

36. John Ashbery "A Worldly Country"

35. Donald Margulies "Dinner With Friends"

34. Adam Rapp "Red Light Winter"

33. Eleanor Lerman "Out Post-Soviet History Unfolds"

32. Lydia Davis "Varieties of Disturbance"

31. Michael Chabon "The Yiddish Policemen's Union"

30. Haruki Murakami "After Dark"

29. Miranda July "No One Belongs Here More Than You"