I’m not prepared to write my best of 2019 list yet (that’s coming at you tomorrow), although when I do, I suspect it’ll be different from the lists floating around, simply due to the fact that I have not kept up with the hype this year. There have been too many behind the scenes happenings to devote a lot of time to my favorite hobby.
Now that I have been blogging for so many years, I thought it would be fun to take a look back on my favorite books over the last decade – the ones that have truly stood out above the rest. Most of these books contain characters and events that still cross my mind, even years later, or writing so beautiful that it’s really stuck with me.
Without further delay, here are 30 (!!) books over that last decade that have left a significant impression on me.
2019: (1) The River // Peter Heller. (2) Daisy Jones and the Six // Taylor Jenkins Reid (on audio, specifically). More to be determined once the year wraps up.
2018: (1) The Line That Held Us // David Joy. (2) Spinning Silver // Naomi Novik. (3) West // Carys Davies. (4) Foundryside // Robert Jackson Bennett.
2017: (1) My Absolute Darling // Gabriel Tallant. (2) The Bear and the Nightingale // Katherine Arden. (3) The Rules of Magic // Alice Hoffman. (4) The Heart’s Invisible Furies // John Boyne.
2016: (1) All the Ugly and Wonderful Things // Bryn Greenwood. (2) Sweetgirl // Travis Mulhauser. (3) The Girls // Emma Cline.
2015: (1) Get in Trouble // Kelly Link. (2) Kitchens of the Great Midwest // J. Ryan Stradel. (3) The Library at Mount Char // Scott Hawkins.
2014: (1) Shotgun Lovesongs // Nickolas Butler. (2) The Ploughmen // Kim Zupan. (3) Burial Rites // Hannah Kent. (4) Euphoria // Lily King.
2013: (1) The Good Lord Bird // James McBride. (2) Donnybrook // Frank Bill. (3) Fortune’s Pawn // Rachel Bach.
2012: (1) Tell the Wolves I’m Home // Carol Rifka Brunt. (2) Tigers in Red Weather // Liza Klaussman. (3) Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk // Ben Fountain.
2011: (1) The Devil All the Time // Donald Ray Pollock. (2) A Discovery of Witches // Deborah Harkness. (3) The Sisters Brothers // Patrick DeWitt.
2010: (1) Under the Dome // Stephen King? I wasn’t tracking my reading in 2010. I had toddler, ended the year very pregnant with my next (he was born January 2011) and we moved into a fixer-upper. Come to think of it, I probably didn’t even read…
flannel and folklore 