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Post by windysisters on Jan 2, 2022 15:27:50 GMT
Post by windysisters on <abbr title="Fri Jan 01 2021 09:02:48 GMT+0000 (Greenwich Mean Time)" data-timestamp="1609491768000" class="o-timestamp time" style="max-height: 1e+06px; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: italic; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 19.278px; line-height: normal; background: 0px 0px; text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-style: initial;">1 Jan 2021 at 9:02am</abbr>It's time to ask everyone to nominate their TopTen Favourite Reads (and their Five Worst Reads) of 2021.
Any time between now and 16 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 during the following week
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 alison44 on Jan 3, 2022 10:32:25 GMT
Not in any order
1. When The Lights Go Out by Carys Bray
2. The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters
3. Greengates by R C Sherriff
4. Red Comet the short life and blazing art of Sylvia Plath by Heather Clarke
5. Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
6. High Wages by Dorothy Whipple
7. Olive Again by Elizabeth Strout
8. Because Of The Lockwoods by Dorothy Whipple
9. Hungry by Grace Dent
10. All The Rage by Cara Hunter (no 3 in Adam Fawley series. 4 & 5 also excellent!)
I'm not a fan of listing books I haven't enjoyed. There's enough negativity in the world as it is.
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Post by adelynechan on Jan 3, 2022 10:48:07 GMT
Blimey, this was difficult!
Top 10:
The Miracles Of The Namiya General Store by Keigo Higashino
The Girl With the Louding Voice by Abi Dare
The Island by C.L. Taylor
The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey
Moonwalking With Einstein by Joshua Foer
Memoirs Of An Imaginary Friend by Matthew Dicks
The Death Sculptor by Chris Carter (Robert Hunter #4)
The Mountains Sing by Nguyen Phan Que Mai
The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz
Dead Ground by M.W. Craven (Poe & Tilly #4)
I realised when making this list that, for each of the bottom 5, I had a very specific reason for not liking the book. I've included said reason, because if it is something that doesn't bother you, then the book is probably actually quite good.
Bottom 5: The End Of Everything by Megan Abbott - beautifully written, but there was no plot
Some Kids I Taught And What They Taught Me by Kate Clanchy - hypocritical and written with a condescending tone
Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo - couldn't warm to the verse structure
Leave The World Behind by Rumaan Alam - the ending made me want to throw the book out the window
The Night Bus Hero by Onjali Q. Rauf - the school bully got away with a lot, bullying is a very sore spot for me
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Post by sarita on Jan 3, 2022 11:15:11 GMT
Top 10 English books in no particular order
1. The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin
2. A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra
3. Starve Acre by Andrew Michael Hurley
4. This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El Mohtar
5. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
6. The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World by Laura Imai Messina
7. Tin Man by Sarah Winman
8. Silent Parade by Keigo Higashino
9. Mockingbird Songs by R.J. Ellory
10. The Golem and the Jinni by Helen Wecker
Top 3 French
1. La plus secrète mémoire des hommes by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr
2. Que sur toi se lamente le Tigre by Emilienne Malfatto
3. Changer l'eau des fleurs by Valérie Perrin ( translated)
I can't do the bottom 5 as I Dnf when I don't like a book.
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Post by celia48 on Jan 3, 2022 12:52:34 GMT
These are the books I gave 10/10. - Sealskin by Sue Bristow
- Fair Warning by Michael Connelly. The main character Jack McEvoy has appeared in other books but I don't think it is part of a series.
- Enough Rope by Barbara Nadel. Part of the Hakim and Arnold series.
- The Law of Innocence by Michael Connelly. Part of the Mickey Haller series.
- Down to the Woods by MJ Arlidge. Part of the Helen Grace series.
- Fifty-Fifty by Steve Cavanagh. Part of the Eddie Flynn series.
- The Wreckage by Michael Rowbotham. Part of the Joe O'Loughlin series.
- Say You're Sorry also by Michael Rowbotham.
These were my least favourite. - Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss
- Sam's Letters to Jennifer by James Patterson
- Girl A by Abigail Dean
- Bombproof by Michael Rowbotham
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Post by natsplatt on Jan 3, 2022 13:56:24 GMT
My top ten (I had to narrow this down from about 15!)
The devil and the dark water by Stuart Turton
American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
Becoming by Michelle Obama
The Duke and I by Julia Quinn (no 1 in the Bridgerton series)
Ready Player one by Ernest Cline
The left handed booksellers of London by Garth Nix
Us by David Nicholls
The ballad of songbirds and snakes by Suzanne Collins (prequel to The Hunger Games)
The Sanatorium by Sarah Pearse
Only 2 that I really disliked
Some kids I taught and what they taught me by Kate Clanchy (for pretty much the same reasons as Adelyne)
And Leonard by William Shatner, which (admittedly should have predicted) was more about Shatner than Nimoy!
Nat
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Post by rosemary3 on Jan 3, 2022 21:57:19 GMT
Top 10:
The Puppet Show - M W Craven
The Mirror & the Light - Hilary Mantel
Alone in Berlin - Hans Fallada
Daisy Jones and the Six - Taylor Jenkins Reid
All Systems Red - Martha Wells
Sunset Song - Lewis Grassic Gibbon
Convenience Store Woman - Sayaka Murata
The House in the Cerulean Sea - T J Klune
Schindler's List/Ark - Thomas Keneally
The Thursday Murder Club - Richard Osman
Only 3 stinkers:
Story of the Eye - Georges Bataille, nasty sadism, the pits
Kismetology - Jaimie Admans, 1 star, very repetitive
Becoming a Londoner - David Plante, DNF, couldn't get interested
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Post by pennylane on Jan 4, 2022 19:26:19 GMT
This was so hard but I went with the ones that have stuck in my head for one reason or another.
Top 10
The Exorcist by William Peter Blaty
The Stranding by Kate Sawyer
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier
Tin Man by Sarah Winman
The House on the Cerulean Sea by T J Klune
The Galaxy and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers
The Doors of Eden by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Exit by Belinda Bauer
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Honourable mention
A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers
Pax by Sara Pennypacker
The Binding by Bridget Collins
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen
Dead Ground by M W Craven
Least Favourite
Missing Pieces by Tim Weaver (dnf)
The Resident by David Jackson
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Post by windysisters on Jan 5, 2022 11:22:37 GMT
In no particular order:
The Stranding by Kate Sawyer
The Damage by Caitlin Wahrer
Summer of ’76 by Isabel Ashdown
Truth or Date by MJ Arlidge (Helen Grace #10)
99 Red Balloons by Elisabeth Carpenter
Transcription by Kate Atkinson
Fragile by Sarah Hilary
The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward
The Curator by MW Craven (Washington Poe #3)
The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes
I gave up on all of the following:
Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead (I tried really hard with this one)
The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex (just didn’t like the style)
The Defence by Steve Cavanagh
The Alchemist’s Secret by Scott Mariani
End of Summer by Anders de la Motte
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Post by windysisters on Jan 14, 2022 16:12:18 GMT
Just giving this a bump in case anyone has missed it
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Post by geminii on Jan 14, 2022 19:01:13 GMT
Yes, thank you - I've missed this ..
Working extra days, so I keep running out of time for the Forum
Please wait for me - will try to add my list on Sunday (working yet another Sat !!)
Thanks Wendy x
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Post by geminii on Jan 16, 2022 18:30:33 GMT
Here are my favourite 10 reads of 2021 :
Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen
Exit by Belinda Bauer
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier
Dead Ground by M. W Craven (Poe & Tilly #4)
Because of You by Dawn French
Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen
Killing Stone by Angela Marsons (Kim Stone #12)
The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes
Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell
Honourable mentions to :
A Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
Land of the Living by Nicci French
Afterwards by Rosamund Lupton
Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield
PLUS : Alice in Wonderland & The Diary of Ann Frank (both re-reads)
My least enjoyed reads were :
Nutshell by Ian McEwan
Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
I did DNF about 5 Kindle 'freebies' for being 'utter rubbish' .. lol
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Post by sarita on Jan 16, 2022 18:46:01 GMT
My least enjoyed reads were : Nutshell by Ian McEwan Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart I did DNF about 5 Kindle 'freebies' for being 'utter rubbish' .. lol So I'm not the only one 😅 |
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Post by windysisters on Jan 21, 2022 15:46:19 GMT
Ok so the results from the RiSi Jury are in…………….
Of our favourites, 4 books got two votes each:
Dead Ground by M. W Craven (Poe & Tilly #4)
The House in the Cerulean Sea by T J Klune
The Stranding by Kate Sawyer
Tin Man by Sarah Winman
3 authors had more than one book in the list (all crime writers):
MJ Arlidge, Michael Connelly; MW Craven
And with regard to stinkers, just one of them got two votes: Some kids I taught and what they taught me by Kate Clanchy
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Post by rosemary3 on Jan 23, 2022 22:15:19 GMT
And with regard to stinkers, just one of them got two votes: Some kids I taught and what they taught me by Kate Clanchy
Sounds like a good reason to expunge it from my TBR. Out it goes  |
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