My favorite book from this past year wasn't very hard to decide.  My favorite book this year was A Game of Thrones, by George R.R. Martin.  I chose this book because it was the longest book I've ever read in about a week, and the writing in it is amazing.

A Game of Thrones is mainly in the land of Westeros.  With a couple characters across the narrow sea in the free cities.  Westeros itself is then divided mainly into two main geographic regions the North and the South.  It starts with the main-est character,  Eddard (Ned) Stark, the lord of Winterfell, a great house in the north. Who is visited by his childhood friend and king Robert Baratheon.  Robert Baratheon comes to visit Ned because his Hand, full title is "The Kings Hand", has recently died, and Robert wishes for Ned to be his new hand.  Now the story is hard to tell without spoiling the book because it is so long and is written in a POV style, meaning that every chapter is written in a character's point of view, changing character every chapter.  But it seems that Jon Arryn's, the late Hand, death may not have been what it seems.  His wife who is Ned's wife's sister writes to her saying she thinks her husband was murdered by the Lannisters, Another great house that holds a lot of power in the south.  This is getting very close to spoilers so I'm gonna end it with this.  This book is a constant twist and turning story with death, backstabbing, bribing, and murder.  In short, no one is safe when they play the game of thrones.

One of the amazing things about the book is how much it pays attention to detail.  Every new setting will have at least a paragraph or two just describing everything from the drapes to the food, and many more with all the characters.

The thing that will always stick with me in this book is not a single scene in particular, though I could name a few but they would be massive spoilers, but its plot will always stick with me.  It is so in depth with so many different points of view that your given every chapter and how it refuses to follow a normal story.  Literally no character is safe from death in this book.  I'll leave it at that, because spoilers.

Details:  A Game of Thrones is the first book in the series, A Song of Ice and Fire, which has 6 books out now and I think 2 more still to be written.  It is also a VERY maturely written book, with a lot of bad language and "Adult Situations" that would give it and R ratting if it were a movie.