Since friends usually share some of the same interests, I often ask my friends what good novels have they read recently. And, in turn, they want to know what I am reading and/or recommending. As this year comes to a close, my friend, Buck, asked me to name my top ten personal favorites for the year (2019).
Buck and anyone else who cares, I settled on these novels. I am not sure exactly when these novels were published, but they are ones that I read this year. If forced to defend the order in which I have listed them, I would not be able. It's just my gut instinct.*
1. Where the Crawdads Sing by Dalia Owens. This was an NYT's bestseller, deservedly so. You will not be disappointed. My nomination for the best of 2019.
2. The Paragon Hotel by Lindsay Faye. You may want to read a previous blog (3/2/19) with the title, "The Paragon Hotel: Nobody's Home."
3. The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead. I enjoyed this one even more than his previous, The Underground Railroad.
4. The Testaments by Margaret Atwood.** This is a sequel to her popular dystopian bestseller, A Handmaid's Tale. You may want to refer to a previous blog((/28/19) entitled The Testaments: Atwood Reveals the Future of Gilead.5. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. Although this novel has been around for some time, I just read it this year. The story is narrated by Death, the collector of souls, who tells the story of a girl coming of age during World War II in Europe.
6. A Better Man by Louise Penny. The fans of Inspector Gamache will not want to miss this one. Although each of these novels stands alone, newbies might want to start at the beginning of the Gamache saga.
7. The Huntress: A Novel by Kate Quinn. An English journalist and a Russian female bomber pilot search for "The Huntress," a Nazi war criminal. An interesting look at Russian women pilots in WW II.
8. Unto Us a Son Is Given by Donna Leon. This is the latest of Donna Leone's series about the doleful Comissario Guido Brunetti of the Venice Police Department. And of course, Venice has a starring role.
9. The Alice Network by Kate Quinn. A historical novel of two women and two timelines. In 1914 the one is recruited by the Alice Network -- a real female spy network that operated in France during WWI. The other is an American socialite searching for her cousin in 1947.
10. Lethal White by "Robert Galbraith" (J. R. Rowlings). The fourth in a series featuring private investigator, Cormoran Strike, and his partner, Robin Ellacott. A young man with a history of mental illness claims to have witnessed a murder some years before, and Coromoran can't let it go.
In creating this list, I gave consideration to recent works of Linda Costillo, John Grisham, Greg Iles, Laura Lippman, Leanne Moriarity, and John Sanford. Although I did not include them in the "top 10," I enjoyed reading their recent works and would definitely recommend their latest.
* I do, however, have some vague criteria. I like: 1) characters, good, bad, or ugly, whom I consider original; 2) a captivating story that makes me keep reading when I know I should be doing something else; 3) a distinct writing style; 4) content that forces me to think, perhaps in new ways; 5) realistic, but also clever, dialogue.
** A co-winner of the 2019 Booker Prize for Fiction.
