As has become tradition (I am now at the end of my fourth year of running this blog) I enjoy looking back on my year of reading to remember and recommend my favorite books of the year. To keep my process consistent from year to year I only consider books published within the past year.
My five favorite books of 2019:
Clicking on titles & pictures will take you to Amazon. Links to my previous posts contain no spoilers just more on why I loved the book.
This Tender Land: A Novel by William Kent Krueger
I’ve talked about this book a lot already. I bought it for my mother-in-law for Christmas and have been recommending it to everyone else.
The Things We Cannot Say: A Novel by Kelly Rimmer
I read a lot of WWII historical fiction. This one brought more to my reading experience than many of them do.
When We Left Cuba by Chanel Cleeton
I loved this book and its prequel; this setting is special to me.
Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love by Dani Shapiro
The story this book tells is still one of the craziest things I have read. It just blew me away!!
Underland: A Deep Time Journey by Robert MacFarlane
I am still reading this book but already know it belongs in this list. This book would not be for everyone. It is a more of a challenging read because it goes so deep, figuratively, as the author literally goes into the depths of this earth to make me/us think about places generally ignored. I’m both excited and nervous to confront the rest of this book.
Treasured Lands: A Photographic Odyssey Through America’s National Parks, Second Expanded Edition by QT Luong
Disclaimer: I haven’t actually read or looked at this book too much yet, but I love the concept and gave it to my parents for Christmas. They were really excited about it. Updated this year, it’s won several awards for its photography. As most of us can’t capture the beauty of our treasured lands adequately this book does just that plus entices us to travel more to these beautiful places and inspires us to better appreciate them as treasures.
Another thing I like to do at the end of the year is look at my most popular posts:
1. New Books to Read this Fall & Winter
2. This is Us & Poem Counterpoem.
5. My Favorite 5 Books since Starting this blog
Happy new year to all my fellow readers. May 2020 bring you many more good books and lots of time to spend reading them.