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!

Books of the Year 2013

Top Titles

In 2013 my reading slowed down towards the end of the year as my studies started, sure I am still reading but now it is a lot of chapters from books or article journals rather than whole books from cover to cover.

That being said in 2013 I did still manage to read 218 books, a fair chunk of these were non-fiction and very few were re-reads. I think I read the least children's books ever this year too!

Picking my top reads was actually very hard - the top two came easily but after that I had to pour over my reading journal to narrow it down, and even then I had to cheat!  Please note that these lists are simply the best books I read this year and *not* the best books published this year!

Top 10 Fiction:

1. The President's Hat by Antoine Laurain
2. The Yohnalasse Riding Camp for Girls by Anton Disclafani
3. Wars of the Roses: Stormbird by Conn Iggulden
4. The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer
5. The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey
6. Austerlitz by W G Sebald
7. The Marlowe Papers by Ros Barber
8. Longbourn by Jo Baker
9. Fortunately the Milk by Neil Gaiman
10. Stoner by John Williams

Some of these choices surprise even me...I read Disclafani's book back in January and thought it was brilliant, but never expected it to stay in my top 10 let alone in my top 2 - it set the bar very high for all other books this year!

The Marlowe Papers is a book in verse and about the idea that Shakespeare's plays were written by Marlowe, I should have loathed it but instead found it gripping.  Equally I've not got on that well with many of Neil Gaiman's books (to the horror of my reading group) but yet this deceptively simple book has really stuck with me.

Top 5 Non Fiction:

1. An Astronaut's Guide to Life of Earth by Commander Chris Hadfield
2. A Time of Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor
3. The Old Ways by Robert MacFarlane
4. One Summer: 1927 by Bill Bryson
5. White Hart, Red Lion by Nick Asbury

Honorable mentions in the non fiction category have to go to the 12 short books published by Penguin to celebrate the 150th birthday of the Tube especially 32 Stops by Danny Dorling about the Central Line which was a real eye-opener.

So far I've not seen many lists of books that are to be published in 2014 and so I don't know what to expect - I'm just hoping that the next Conn Iggulden book will be out soon, but as yet there is nothing on his website.