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Post by windysisters on Jan 2, 2020 10:44:01 GMT
It's time to ask everyone to nominate their Top Ten Favourite Reads (and their Five Worst Reads)
of 2019
Any time between now and 10 January, please list your Top Ten Favourite Books that you have read this year and also your Five Worst Reads of the year.
I'll post a summary over the weekend of 11/12 January.
Guidelines:
• Please also put the authors’ names with the titles
• The books don’t need to have been published this year, you just need to have read them this year
• If the book is part of a series or trilogy, please put a note to indicate this (just in case anyone wants to read on your recommendation but doesn’t want to come in part way through a series)
Looking forward to the lists!
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Post by windysisters on Jan 2, 2020 11:10:53 GMT
Looking back through my records, not many scored a full 10 out of 10 but there were plenty of 9s. Out of those, I’ve selected the ones which I can still remember the plot of!
The Night Visitor by Patrick Redmond
Three Hours by Rosamund Lupton
The Toymaker by Robert Dinsdale
The Apothecary’s Daughter by Patricia Schonstein
The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah
The Strawberry Thief by Joanne Harris
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
The Hours Before Dawn by Celia Fremlin
The Journal of Dora Damage by Belinda Starling
Set in Stone by Robert Goddard
My least favourite books were:
Foreign Fruit by Jojo Moyes
Prince of the Clouds by Gianii Riotta
No Turning Back by Sam Blake
Local Girl Missing by Claire Douglas
Pharoah by David Gibbons
Worth mentioning that I was also disappointed by: The Secret Commonwealth by Philip Pullman and The Stranger from the Sea by Winston Graham. Both authors I have really enjoyed before but both of these books were full of boring detail……
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Post by janetandjohn on Jan 2, 2020 12:20:35 GMT
Thanks, Wendy - this is the list I really loving doing (and seeing others' choices).
So, in no particular order, these are the 10 books that stayed with me this year, the ones I closed with a sigh and a smile:
The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet - Becky Chambers
Song of the Sea Maid - Rebecca Mascull Tomorrow - Damian Dibben We Hope for Better Things - Erin Bartels Daisy May and the Miracle Man - Fanny Flagg The Speckled People - Hugo Hamilton High Wages - Dorothy Whipple The Toymaker - Robert Dinsdale The Trick to Time - Kit de Waal When the Floods Came - Clare Morrall
and a special mention goes to (sorry, but found it hard to reduce list this year, again!)
The Care and Management of Lies - Jacqueline Winspear White Houses - Amy Bloom The Good Soldier - For Madox Ford The Conditions of Love - Dale M Kushner The Boy at the Back of the Class - Onjali Q Rauf Bageye at the Wheel – Colin Grant
As for books I didn't like - 3 were DNF!:
By Grand Central Station I Sat Down And Wept - Elizabeth Smart Taking Apart The Poco Poco - Richard Francis
Pretty Girl - Thirteen - Liz Coley
Mrs Jeffries Rocks the Boat - Emily Brightwell Netherland – Joseph O’Neil
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Post by sarita on Jan 3, 2020 19:16:36 GMT
The favourites are:
Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk
The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino
Mystic River by Dennis Lehane
LaRose by Louise Erdrich
A Higher Loyalty by James Comey NF
The Toymakers by Robert Dinsdale
The Last Dog on Earth by Adrian Walker
La Vraie Vie by Adeline Dieudonné
The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry
Des marchés et des dieux by Stéphane Foucart NF
The least favourites:
The Pilgrimage by Paulo Coelho
The Collectors by David Baldacci
Our Child of the Stars by Stephen Cox
Ghost Girl by Torey Hayden
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peppercricket
Book Assistant
Batley Townswoman's Guild presents the Battle of Pearl Harbour
Posts: 7,075 
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Post by peppercricket on Jan 3, 2020 20:15:10 GMT
I've 5* about 20 books, but pared it down. I read quite a bit of N/F and a few classics!
The Bounty N/F by Caroline Alexander
The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair by Joel Dicker
Jamaica Inn by Daphne Du Maurier
The Man Who Would be King by Rudyard Kipling
The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin
D-Day Minute by Minute N/F by Jonathan Mayo
The Terror by Dan Simmons
Indianapolis N/F by Lynn Vincent
The Golem & the Djinni by Helen Wecker
The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
These ones I gave 2 or 2.5* to
Hekla's Children by James Brogden
Little Boy Found by LK Fox (oh, the irony... this is Christopher Fowler who writes one of my favourite series!)
The Amber Shadows by Lucy Ribchester
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Post by adelynechan on Jan 4, 2020 0:13:39 GMT
Instead of going through my Goodreads scores, I instead looked through my list and just picked the ones that I remember enjoying. That way, I'm more likely to choose the ones I enjoyed and stayed with me, rather than those that I liked at the time but probably forgot 3 books later.
Favourites list was about 15 to begin with, which I reduced to 10 plus a special mention:
Outliers: The Story Of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
A Midsummer's Equation by Keigo Higashino (Part of the "Galileo" series, but can be read as standalone, not all translated)
The Master Key by Masako Togawa
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
The Toy Makers by Robert Dinsdale
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Painted Doll by Jonelle Patrick (#4 of a fantastic "Only in Tokyo" series, best read in order)
The Devotion Of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino (Part of the "Galileo" series, but can be read as standalone, not all translated)
We Hope For Better Things by Erin Bartels Skin In The Game: Hidden Asymmetries In Daily Life by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Part of a series but more like a thread of similar ideas, can be read independently of one another. This is by far the best IMO)
with special mention to Lab Girl by Hope Jahren
Least favourite (of the ones I finished): The Good Girl's Guide To Being A D*ck by Alexandra Reinworth
The Good Son by You Jeong Jeong
Immigrant, Montana by Amitava Kumar
The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas
The AI Does Not Hate You by Tom Chivers
Notably, my 10 favourites included 2 of the 4 RISI book club choices. Of the other 2, Where the Crawdads Sing made the initial list of 15 and Homegoing I'd read prior to 2019 so wasn't included in the candidates. Just wanted to say great choices, ladies!
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Post by adelynechan on Jan 4, 2020 0:17:48 GMT
Also looks like unless more (very different) lists appear soon there's going to be a clear winner for the book of the year...
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Post by geminii on Jan 4, 2020 15:22:26 GMT
Like most of us, I've managed to reduce my favourites to 10 .. The Puppet Show by M. W. Craven (you could tag the follow up Black Summer into here too) Fatal Promise by Angela Marsons (I've read 8 of the Kim Stone Series this year, simply picked out Book #8) The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley Hunting Evil by Chris Carter Where The Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens Becoming by Michelle Obama 11/22/63 by Stephen King The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini Schindler's List by Thomas Keneally A Redbird Christmas by Fannie Flagg My least favourite : I Am, I Am, I Am by Maggie O'Farrell The Year of Living Danishly by Helen Russell (a DNF) Moon Palace by Paul Auster These were my lowest scorers .. should I point out that they all IRL Book Club reads ??   |
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Post by celia48 on Jan 4, 2020 18:14:23 GMT
My favourites were:
The Dark Angel by Elly Griffiths (part of the Ruth Galloway series)
The Killing Habit by Mark Billingham (part of the Tom Thorne series)
Dark Sacred Night by Michael Connolly (part of the Harry Bosch series and joined by Renee Ballard)
The Toy Makers by Robert Dinsdale
Dead at First Sight by Peter James (part of the Roy Grace series)
Lethal White by Robert Galbraith (part of the Cormoran Strike series)
Land of the Blind by Barbara Nadel (part of Cetin Ikman series set in Turkey)
Smoke and Mirrors by Elly Griffiths (part of the Stephens and Mephisto series)
An Episode of Sparrows by Rumer Godden
Wildfire by Ann Cleeves (last of the Shetland series)
The ones that made the least impression were:
Year One by Norah Roberts (not my sort of genre)
The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler
Transcription by Kate Atkinson
Pitch Black by Alex Gray (part of the DCI Bill Lorimer series)
Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
Too Many Murders by Colleen McCullough (did not finish)
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Post by janetandjohn on Jan 4, 2020 18:32:38 GMT
An Episode of Sparrows by Rumer Godden
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Post by pennylane on Jan 4, 2020 21:10:51 GMT
This is soooo hard -
Top Ten -
The Toymakers by Robert Dinsdale
Where the Crawdads Sing by Celia Owens
Hunting Evil (10) by Chris Carter
The Puppet Show (1) by M W Craven (also Black Summer (2))
Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant
The Companions by Laura Purcell
The Familiars by Stacey Halls
Sleeping Beauties by Stephen King
Child's Play (11) by Angela Marsons (also Dead Memories (10))
Record of a Spaceborn Few (3) by Becky Chambers
Special mention to - (these nearly made it my actual best of 2019 contains 20 books)
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
My Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
The Grace Year by Kim Liggett
The Taking of Annie Thorne by C J Tudor
The Murder of Harriet Monkton by Elizabeth Haynes
Least Favourite -
Little Eygpt by Leslie Glaister
Blink by K L Slater
My Lovely Wife by Samantha Dowling
Britt-Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman
The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay
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Post by littlereader on Jan 5, 2020 11:20:20 GMT
Favourites reads of 2019...
Leonard and Hungry Paul - Ronan Hession
Bodies of Light - Sarah Moss
Signs for Lost Children - Sarah Moss
The Illumination of Ursula Flight - Anna-Marie Crowhurst
Big Sky - Kate Atkinson
Diary of a Somebody - Brian Bilston
Book Love - Debbie Tung
The House Between Tides - Sarah Maine
Women of the Dunes - Sarah Maine
The Lie of the Land - Amanda Craig
The Confession - Jessie Burton
The Murder of Harriet Monckton - Elizabeth Haynes
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Post by freerange on Jan 5, 2020 16:31:16 GMT
I re-read alot of books this year, so there weren't many new ones to choose from.
Top Ten: The Sisters Brothers - Patrick DeWitt
The Ionian Mission (no 8 Master & Commander series) - Patrick O'Brian
The Letter of Marque (no 12 Master & Commander series) - Patrick O'Brian The Colour of Bee Larkham's Murder - Sarah J Harris Harvest - Jim Crace The Twits - Roald Dahl
American Gods - Neil Gaiman The Rosie Project - Graeme Simison Now We Shall be Entirely Free - Andrew Miller The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen - Hendrik Groen
Bottom Five Four: The Lazarus Effect - Frank Herbert & Bill Ransom The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey (no 21 Master & Commander series) - Patrick O'Brian Polar Shift - Clive Cussler Rainbow Days - Josephine Cox
I really enjoyed all the Master & Commander series, even the ones with major sad events, but the Final Unfinished Voyage was just that, unfinished. The previous book (Blue at the Mizzen) didn't end on a cliffhanger so I could have happily left it there, without getting that tantalising glimpse.
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