I can't necessarily describe these as compelling but each had it's own powerful charms. These were my top books for 2006 (in no particular order):

The Thin Place by Kathryn Davis
Merry Hall by Beverley Nichols
My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell
The Big House: A Century in the Life of an American Summer Home by George Howe Colt
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
A Writer's House in Wales by Jan Morris
She Got Up Off The Couch: And Other Heroic Acts from Mooreland, Indiana by Haven Kimmel

Ack! Its, its, its own powerful charms ... sorry ....

Three works of fiction for me were: Gone With the Windsors Laurie Graham Old Filth Jane Gardam and Frankie and Stankie Barbara Trapeido.
The best non-fiction was Nobody's Child by Kate Aide.

Hmm, I have trouble with that word compelling. The dictionary says it means forceful, demanding, urgent, irresistible, or convincing; and when applied to books many readers make it synonymous with "thought-provoking," in a sobering sense -- maybe poignant, or cynical, or gloomy and doomy. In my experience not very many pleasant, optimistic books are called "compelling."

Does my, perhaps confused, impression of the word apply to the books, Mary, you've identified as compelling to you in 2006? I read Undaunted Courage years ago, but I haven't gotten around to the others.

I'll have to think more about the books I've read this year -- not an outstanding-reading year overall, for me -- and consider which, if any, of them were compelling.

The Stolen Child, Shadow Divers, Alas Babylon

I loved looking over my list of books IÂve read this year. So many great reads. My favorite stories also turned out to be the most compelling (well, except for Jasper Fforde, but I couldnÂt leave him out). Anyway, I split them by category:

Fiction
The Road, Cormac McCarthy
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, Jonathan Foer
You Are Not a Stranger Here, Adam Haslett

Crime Fiction
SorrowÂs Anthem, Michael Koryta
The King of Lies, John Hart
All Mortal Flesh, Julia Spencer-Fleming

Fantasy
The Stolen Child, Keith Donahue
The Big Over Easy, Jasper Fforde
The Book of Lost Things, John Connelly

Since I don't think the book I am currently reading is going to make the list, I'll go ahead and list my top ten

Cloud Atlas David Mitchell

Birds Without Wings Louise de Benieres

House on the Strand Daphne du Murier

The March EL Doctorow

Corellis Mandolin Louis de Beneries

Small Island Andrea Levy

Music and Silence Rose Tremain

Hummingbird's Daughter Luis Urrea

Piano Man's Daughter Timothy Findley

Fingersmith Sarah Waters

NONFICTION (not as many as I usually read)

San Fransisco Traveler Tales

The Fracture Zone Simon Winchester

Almost French Sarah Turnbull

The most compelling read for me this year was Life at the Bottom by Theodore Dalrymple, nom-de-plume of Anthony Daniels. I'm not sure what to make of it. Daniels' time in the trenches gives him considerable credibility, but his observations are so uniformily negative that it makes one suspect that he's picking his anecdotes to support his thesis. Granted that Daniels didn't intend to write a sociological treatise - only a memoir of his experiences - but the book could have used some statistical support for his decline-of-western-civilization outlook. His ideology will probably limit his readership to those who agree with him. In the last essay of the book, he attends a dinner with BBC grandees and is accused of making up his observations.

Mary, I'm sorry I didn't take-in the compelling part of your question. The books I mentioned above were the ones I most enjoyed.
cjoseph, Theodore Dalrymple writes (or used to ) a column in The Times and the wonderful magazine The Oldie where he was taken to task not long ago for suggesting that socks made of a mixture of cotton and nylon were good for the feet.

Here is a link that might be useful: The Oldie Magazine

Blood Done Sign My Name, by Timothy Tyson,is a powerful, unforgettable non fiction book that is part personal memoir, part family memoir and part story of the murder of a black man by a white man in the south in the 1950s (I think--it's been a while since I read it.) As a child, the author lived in the town the murder took place in and his ear for dialog and turn of phrase is impeccable. A white man himself, he is now a professor of African-American studies.

My two favourite books read this year also fall conveniently in the 'compelling' category. Both are by Meg Rosoff, How I Live Now and Just in Case, and had me completely involved and occasionally in tears.

Shoot, just realized I posted this on the wrong thread (thats what I get for posted while sleepy!)

In another forum, a poster linked this article from her blog that might interest you. She lists the reasons that a book might make her top ten of the year. Many of those reasons, esp the first one, fit with my list as well.

Here is a link that might be useful: Why is it a best book?

That is an interesting list. I wish Clint had seen it after reading Flags of Our Fathers which was my favorite book from this past year.

Compelling? The Road.
Definitely.

"Why is it a best book?" (see above) is an excellent checklist, IMO. As I read through the items, I mentally checked off how each one perfectly fit my impressions of both "The Road" and "The Stolen Child."

Mary, my question to you wasn't rhetorical: I'm trying to get at what you mean by compelling. Since I've only read one book on your list, I need some more information to see if I've read anything this year that might apply.

Now, "Best Books" or favorites, as the writer of the blog does a good job of explaining the whys of, are a whole other kettle of fish. I can find a book compelling without really thinking it's one of the best books I've read -- or even liking it, for that matter. Though compelling and "liking" are sometimes simultaneous, only one is requisite for me to consider it for my "Best of the Year." Maybe I'm splitting hairs, though. I tend to overanalyze when I'm puzzled. :-(

Okay, I'll just list my favorites of the year, compelling or not. Birds Without Wings - I can't believe I read it way back in January!
The Wilderness Journals of Everett Ruess, edited by W.L. Rusho
Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War - Nathaniel Philbrick
Below the Convergence: Voyages Toward Antarctica, 1699-1839 by Alan Gurney

Vee, I read Frankie and Stankie back in June. I liked it quite a bit, perhaps because it had a more memoirish feel to it than most fiction. What about it appealed most to you?

Sheri, I was taken with The Big House, too. I wrote a review of it over at Bibliophil when it was still fresh on my mind. I reread what I wrote and now a couple of years later I'm delighted that I still remember it remarkably well.

Frieda, re Frankie and Stankie I had heard it recommended on the BBC radio prog. 'A Good Read' by the South African raised journalist, Sue MacGregor. I ordered it from the library and it took nearly 2 years to arrive.
I think it really is Trapeido's own life. Perhaps for political reasons she wrote it as 'fiction'.
Maybe I enjoyed it because she manages to give a light touch to the terrible problems that were taking place in her country as she grew up, the observation of the characters . . . rather as Frank McCourt did in Anglela's Ashes. Ok I realise that a poverty-stricken childhood in Limerick and growing up in sun-kissed Durban might seem quite different . . . but both these writers have the power to make ME laugh rather than cry and I cannot take dreadfully angst-ridden stories; I need something with an 'up-beat'.

Here is a link that might be useful: A Good Read

Philip Roth's The Plot Against America. I love a novel that makes me think, makes me feel, and, even better, makes me re-evaluate a writer.

Oh, I forgot I was planning to read Frankie and Stanky, back last summer when I read a bunch of her books. She is good. Need to be on the look out for it.