by Dan Gibson

Sure, Dan Brown's book is the bestselling book of the year, the newest Wimpy Kid volume was the must have book for kids, and the Twilight series kept flying off shelves.  However, tell us a story of a best selling book by a first time author who put five years into writing her book and was rejected by 45 publishers, and that's the sort of thing that brings us joy.  If that book was championed by indie bookstores before becoming the summer's must have purchase, you have our fiction title of the year, Kathryn Stockett's The Help.

If you read, you've probably had The Help recommended to you at some point this year, either by a bookstore employee or by another reader.  Although recommendations are a funny business, The Help is actually that good, telling a story of 1960's Mississippi and race relations during that immensely complicated time.  In the spirit of Sue Monk Kidd's Secret Life of Bees, Kathryn Stockett manages to find the authentic voice of an era gone by, but what makes the story of The Help interesting is the work Stockett and her publisher, Putnam, put into turning a first printing of 40,000 into over a half million copies sold.  Stockett appeared via phone at dozens of book clubs and Putnam worked hard to get the book in the hands of tastemakers who would be "evangelistic" about a title they were proud of.  First, the book topped the indie bookseller bestseller list, then started to rise up the New York Times list and staying there for the rest of the year.  Good books sometimes come from nowhere, but they need people to believe in them, and The Help is a publishing success story when there aren't many for underdogs.  The Help is already being fast-tracked for adaptation as a film, and when the book hits shelves as a paperback in February of 2010, a new wave of fans should emerge.