This is my third year of blogging on “Leslie’s Bookcase” and my year-end tradition is to announce my favorite five books of the year. To keep this process consistent from year to year, I only consider books published within the past year. And I can’t read ALL the books so this honor is obviously limited to the books I have read and posted about.

And here are my favorite books of 2018:

These are in no particular order because it is way too stressful to think about ranking them. You can click on the titles or pictures to purchase on Amazon. And my posts for each book are listed under the pictures (no spoilers – just more info I why I loved these books and why you may as well.)

CIRCE by Madeline Miller

I loved how this mythology read like real family drama with life lessons and humor. Read my post on CIRCE here.

The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row by Anthony Ray Hinton

This is non-fiction I felt so passionately about that I gave a book away just because I wanted to buy it for someone. Read my post here.

Love and Ruin by Paula McLain

Although I enjoyed a few books similar to this during the year (historical fiction about famous writer and society people) this one about Hemingway’s third wife was I *think* my favorite of the bunch. I just loved it. Read my post here.

The Red Sparrow Trilogy by Jason Matthews (3 Book Series)

The third book in this series came out this year so I feel I can include the entire trilogy in my 2018 favorites. I feel like I talked about this trilogy all year. It was so entertaining. I loved the experience of reading these books. Read my post here.

A Ladder to the Sky by John Boyne: A Novel

This book is about writing and books using intertextuality; I just thought it was a masterpiece and the most “literary” on this year’s list. Read my post here. A novel by this author made my 2016 list!

This year’s decision to narrow it down to five books was so difficult I want to include these books as my honorable mentions, and I am rethinking some of their rankings as I type this!!

As is also my year-end tradition I like to include links to my most popular posts of the year; these are not limited to being published this year. It is so interesting to me to see what people are still reading and stumbling upon from search engines etc. and these are in order with most views at top:

I want to wish all my readers a Happy New Year and thank you for reading and supporting Leslie’s Bookcase. It really was an amazing year of books and reading. I can’t imagine 2019 could be better but I suppose I hope so!!

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