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Post by windysisters on Dec 8, 2016 10:13:46 GMT
As longer-standing members will know, we have in past years asked everyone to nominate their Top Ten Favourite Reads (and their Five Worst Reads) and we’ve tallied up the nominations to get a Forum Top Ten.
As we are much smaller bunch over here in the new place, and in general books only get a handful of nominations each, this will be a pointless exercise this year.
However, we know how much members love lists and enjoy reading other people’s recommendations so we won’t deprive you of this!
There are still 23 reading days left so no rush, but any time between now and the 8 January, please list your Top Ten Favourite Books that you have read this year and also your Five Worst Reads of the year.
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 janetandjohn on Dec 10, 2016 17:25:36 GMT
I held off for a few days hoping someone else would get there before me, but sorry everyone, I seem to be first again Top ten 2016 (not all given10/10 but those, looking back I remember fondly and deserve their mention): The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers 8/10 Beloved - Toni Morrison 10/10 To Bed With Grand Music - Marghanita Laski 10/10 A Month in the Country - J L Carr 10/10 Something Missing - Matthew Dicks (Green in the UK) 9/10 All the Light We Cannot See - Anthony Duerr 10/10 The Master Butcher's Singing Club - Louise Erdrich 10/10 Cannery Row - John Steinbeck 10/10 (there is a companion volume with the same characters - Sweet Thursday) The Whistling Season - Ivan Doig 10/10 A God In Ruins - Kate Atkinson 10/10 (the companion volume to this is Life After Life) Five Worst Reads: Angel of Brooklyn - Janette Jenkins (no score, unfinished) Surfacing - Margaret Atwood 2/10 The Known World - Edward P Jones (no score, unfinished) Luck - Gert Hofmann (no score, unfinished) The London Pidgeon Wars (finished but no score) Save
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Post by shanzi on Dec 11, 2016 20:48:17 GMT
My Top 10 for this year has to be:
Where the Heart Is - Billie Letts Shadow - Michael Morpurgo Born to Run - Michael Morpurgo Run for your Life - James Patterson The Good Life - Martina Cole Tap on the Window - Linwood Barclay After - Francine Prose Intimate Kill - Margaret Yorke U for Underbeat - Sue Grafton - best to read the alphabet crime in order - I found she had aged and she had changed her car to a newer model, for example. D for Deadbeat - Sue Grafton
The worst were: The Blue Near Yonder - Alex Shearer (children's book) The Dirty Secrets Club - Meg Gardiner - the first in the series
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Post by janetandjohn on Dec 12, 2016 9:12:56 GMT
Where the Heart Is - Billie Letts Lovely book, Chrys, hope others will find and read this one. Save
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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 Dec 12, 2016 9:44:53 GMT
Here are my 5/5 reads of 2016
Field Service by Robert Edric The Blasphemer by Nigel Farndale Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know by Ranulph Fiennes Witch Light by Susan Fletcher Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes Chasing the Dead (1) by Tim Weaver Daniel O'Thunder by Ian Weir War of the Worlds by HG Wells
Those that scored 2/5 were... Murder for Christmas by Francis Duncan Arcadia Falls by Carol Goodman
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Post by rosemary3 on Dec 16, 2016 13:17:56 GMT
It was hard to pare these down - especially the top ten! Top Ten (all 5/5 stars, in no particular order)Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers L'Assomoir (The Dram Shop) by Emile Zola All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr Aristotle And Dante Discover The Secrets Of The Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry Brighton Rock by Graham Greene To Say Nothing Of The Dog by Connie Willis And an honourable mention to Milly-Molly-Mandy Stories by Joyce Lankester Brisley which was a lovely nostalgic read for me Bottom FiveIntimacy by Hanif Kureishi (hated the main character, 2 stars) The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie (too full of itself and went on and on, 2 stars) Veronika Decides To Die by Paulo Coelho (annoyed me in so many ways, 1 star) Zorba The Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis (hated Zorba, wanted to throw book across room, 1 star) Herding Hemingway's Cats by Kat Arney (popular science that jumped about far too much, did not finish, no rating)
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Post by pennyt on Dec 16, 2016 14:13:08 GMT
Here are my top ten for the year, in the order in which I read them:
Grief is the Thing with Feathers - Max Porter (sorry Mrs Mac, but I thought this was superb) A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon (6th in the Outlander series) Tuck Everlasting - Natalie Babbitt The Book of Strange New Things - Michel Faber Career of Evil - 'Robert Galbraith' (third of J K Rowling's Cormoran Strike books, of course) Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurtry Marjorie Morningstar - Herman Wouk Crossing to Safety - Wallace Stegner This Must Be the Place - Maggie O'Farrell Mothering Sunday - Graham Swift
As for stinkers, I don't think I read anything that bad. One or two that didn't live up to my expectations, but nothing I'd advise anyone to avoid!
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Post by polish6 on Dec 16, 2016 15:57:47 GMT
Dear All,
I would recommend the following books as the BEST of 2016:
"Chronicle of a Death Foretold" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. My book of 2016. I read this in the winter of 2016. It is only very short, at 122 pages, but is just as substantial as any novel at 3 times the number of pages. Some scenes are simply incredible. Written by a Nobel Prize winning author. Do read it. (9.5/10)
"The Comedy World of Stan Laurel", by John McCabe. A rather slim, and slightly insubstantial, autobiography, but none the worse for that. It concerns the life of one of the worlds great comics, Stan Laurel. Written by one of the world's most authoritative sources about Stan Laurel. (8/10)
"The Spy Who Came in From The Cold", by John le Carre. A book that I have read, and re-read, simply to feel the joy of unravelling one of the most complex plots I have ever come across. (8/10)
"So You Have Been Publicly Shamed", by Jon Ronson. An endlessly inventive writer, Ronson considers the way that shaming others in public works in our modern sociaty, in particular how social media reacts to shaming. (8/10)
"The Dark Box - A Secret History of Confession" by John Cornwell. This author seems to have a knack of writing interesting and thought-provoking books. Here, he handles the subject of the way that the Roman Catholic church practices one of its most important sacraments - that of confession. Confession is looked at from a historical standpoint. The author himself writes about his Seminary upbringing, which is a real eye-opener. (8/10)
I am also very sad to report that my book NOT to read is "The Establishment - How They Got Away With It" by Owen Jones. I say sad, because Owen Jones is one of my favourite newspaper columnists. Yet here, he basically recounts his own experiences. He is basically saying that Britain is run by an unelected, unaccountable, ever-changing elitel However, if you agree with him, the book becomes rather boring. If you do not agree with him, the book becomes an irrelevance. It does not challenge anybody. (5/10)
Yours Polish6/Marek
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Post by celia48 on Dec 17, 2016 15:30:54 GMT
My top 10 are: - Chemistry of Death by Simon Beckett (the first in the David Hunter series)
- A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson
- The Gravity of Birds by Tracy Guzeman
- Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith (the third in the Cormoran Strike series)
- Hunted by Carla Norton (No 2 in the Reeve Leclaire series)
- Foreign Bodies by Amanda Craig
- The Truth According to Us by Annie Barrows
- The House on Cold Hill by Peter James
- Love You Dead by Peter James (the latest in the Roy Grace series)
- Tea at Four o'clock by Janet McNeill
The 5 I liked the least are:
- How Will you Remember Me by Janine Cobain
- As the Crow Flies by Damien Boyd
- Surfacing by Margaret Attwood
- The October List by Jeffrey Deaver
- Nobody's Baby by Penny Kline
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Post by littlereader on Dec 19, 2016 12:26:30 GMT
Top reads:
A God in Ruins - Kate Atkinson Under the Skin - Michel Faber Fates and Furies - Lauren Groff The Muse - Jessie Burton This Must Be the Place - Maggie O'Farrell Ready Player One - Ernest Cline My Name is Lucy Barton - Elizabeth Strout Eligible - Curtis Sittenfeld Coffin Road - Peter May Truly Madly Guilty - Liane Moriarty The Red Notebook - Antoine Laurain
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Post by aileen11 on Dec 20, 2016 17:48:54 GMT
Top 10 reads
1 Dead Simple, Peter James 2 Wives and Daughters, Elizabeth Gaskell 3 Those Who Wish Me Dead, Michael Koryta 4 My Husband's Wife, Jane Cory 5 Why Did You Lie?, Yrsa Sigurdardottir 6 The Day is Dark, "" 7 Deeper than the Dead, Tami Hoag 8 The Crow Road, Iain Banks 9 The Liar, Nora Roberts 10 Red Sand, Ronan Cray
I can't honestly say I had a truly awful book this year, not even the one I gave 2* to.
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jobar
Novella
You will find me blogging about books at Jaffareadstoo..
Posts: 190
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Post by jobar on Dec 23, 2016 18:56:18 GMT
Here are my 12 favourite reads of the year:
The Ballroom by Anna Hope
In Her Wake by Amanda Jennings
Behind Closed Doors by B A Paris
Daisy in Chains by Sharon Bolton
The Unseeing by Anna Mazzola
The Farm at The Edge of the World by Sarah Vaughan
The Lonely Life of Biddy Weir by Lesley Allen
Orphans of the Carnival by Carol Birch
This Must Be The Place by Maggie O'Farrell
The Day I Lost You by Fionnuala Kearney
The Shadow Sister by Lucinda Riley
Valentina by S E Lynes
These have all been published in 2016 and have been reviewed my blog.
No really awful books this year, I've been lucky !
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Post by pennylane on Dec 28, 2016 16:27:14 GMT
In no particular order -
Pretty Girls - Karin Slaughter
Brother - Ania Alhborn
Cannery Row - John Steinbeck
The Book of Life - Deborah Harkness
The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet - Becky Chambers
Pride & Prejudice - Jane Austen
Dark Matter - Blake Crouch
Blood Lines - Angela Marsons
All The Ugly and Wonderful Things - Bryn Greenwood
The City of Mirrors - Justin Cronin
I could have added several more but these are the ones that have stuck in my mind the most or I've not been able to put down.
Worst read -
The Short Day Dying - Peter Hobbs
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Post by alison44 on Dec 29, 2016 15:22:32 GMT
In no particular order: The Girls - Lori Lansens Things We Have In Common - Tasha Kavanagh The Girl In The Red Coat - Kate Hamer The Valley - Richard Benson My Name Is Lucy Barton - Elizabeth Strout Paradise Lodge - Nina Stibbe He Wants - Alison Moore Mothers & Sons - Colm Toibin The Museum Of You - Carys Bray A Life Discarded - Alexander Masters
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Post by eightlegs on Dec 30, 2016 14:03:50 GMT
And mine:
A God in Ruins - Kate Atkinson Ship of Brides - Jojo Moyes I am Pilgrim - Terry Hayes The Paying Guests - Sarah Waters My Name is Leon - Kit de Waal Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt Last Rituals - Yrsa Sigurdoardottir Untying the Knot - Linda Gillard Hearts and Minds - Amanda Craig
No real stinkers, certainly nothing I'd discourage others from trying, as we all like different things
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