Books of the Year 2019

My top rated books of 2019.

After the shocking discovery yesterday of just how many books I've read in the past decade it is time to look more closely at the list from 2019 and pick my top reads from this smaller set.

It was an interesting book year, I am by no means back to where I was for reading stamina and plot retention and so to be honest looking over the past 12 months worth of books I was very thankful for the one line synopsis I do write for each one as an aide memoir.

The books on these two lists (fiction and non-fiction) needed no prompts for me to remember how much I enjoyed them!

Fiction (in no particular order)

• If I Could Tell You by Hannah Beckerman
• A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes
• Those Who are Loved by Victoria Hislop
• Vintage 1954 by Antoine Laurain(trans. Jane Aitkin)
• Finding Dorothy by Elizabeth Letts
• Umbrella Mouse by Anna Fargher
• A Single Thread by Tracy Chevalier
• The Flat Share by Beth O'Leary
• Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi (trans. Geoffrey Trousselot)
• After the End by Clare Mackintosh

Nonfiction (in no particular order)

• The Eastern Most House by Juliet Blaxland
• Chasing the Sun by Linda Geddes
• Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez
• The Cut Out Girl by Bart van Es
• Between the Stops by Sandi Toksvig

Somewhat unusually for me I think that the majority of the these books were published (in English at least) during 2019. I know that I read a lot of them through Net Galley or thanks to projects with the Reading Agency or of not that they came from the library.

I read a lot of nature writing books/memoirs in 2019 but it was the Easternmost House that has remained lodged the strongest in my memory - not least for the sad, newsworthy end it had in real life. 

A friend challenged me last night to whittle this list down to just my top books but even though I gave her three titles (kidlit/fiction/non fiction) under 24 hours ago this has already changed and in all honesty I don't think that I can get it any lower than these 15 titles.

Here's to another year/decade of reading pleasure!