Your BEST BOOKS of 2013

For the 8th year in a row, here is the thread to tell us about your best reads of the year.

What were the 10 best books you read this year? Are you going to struggle to get your list down to 10? Are you going to struggle to come up with 10?

Tell us your best reads of the year, and perhaps one line of why they made the list.

Best of 2006

Best of 2007

Best of 2008

Best of 2009

Best of 2010

Best of 2011

Best of 2012

Happy list making!

This was a very good year of reading for me. Very few clunkers (see clunker thread). My favourites for 2013:

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Moab is my Washpot by Stephen Fry
The Children's Hour by Lilian Hellman
Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power by Rachel Maddow
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
The Children of Henry VIII by Alison Weir
Laura by Vera Caspary
Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose
Eight Men and a Duck: An Improbable Voyage by Reed Boat to Easter Island by Nick Thorpe
Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith
The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing

I started the year reading a lot of political books which were pretty negative and ended up reading far more fiction than I normally do.

My favourites this year:

Blackout and All Clear by Connie Willis
Standing in another man's grave by Ian Rankin (Out of pure excitement to have Rebus back)
The name of the wind by Patrick Rothfuss
Strange shores by Arnaldur Indridason
Vanity fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
The wee free men and A hat full of sky by Terry Pratchett
The children's book by A. S. Byatt
The secret keeper by Kate Morton

I haven't read many of the classics this year, a lot of fantasy and crime fiction instead.

My tops for 2013
Fiction:
Nightrise by Jim Kelly
The First Rule of Ten by Gay Hendricks
The Frozen Shroud by Martin Edwards
Let it Burn by Steve Hamilton
Touching Distance by Graham Hurley

Non-fiction:
The International Bank of Bob by Bob Harris
Help by Oliver Burkeman
Waterlog by Roger Deakin
A Skeptic’s Guide to the Mind by Robert Burton
The Old Ways by Robert MacFarlane

It was a good reading year, filled with 4.5s and 5s. Since there are too many of them, I have to weed out by new/re-read and those which left such an imprint that I can still feel them: My favorites of 2013:

No Ordinary Time by Doris Kearns Goodwin (5)
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver
True Notebooks, a Writer's Year at Juvenile Hall by Mark Salzman
The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng
The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt
The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly
In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner
The Buddha in the Attic by Julia Otsuka
Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell

Honorable Mention:

The Man Who Loved China by Simon Winchester
The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester

I can't do just ten...but I can tell you the absolute best NEW read of 2013 is Bella Poldark by Winston Graham.

And the other eleven "best":
Doc by Mary Doria Russell
Exodus by Leon Uris
*On the Road with Charles Kuralt (non fiction)
The War Within These Walls by Aline Sax (Early Reviewer book)
*Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand
*For His Pleasure by Samuel Gipp
Longbourn by Jo Baker
Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy
*Homer's Odyssey by Gwen Cooper
*More Anti-Inflammation Diet Tips and Recipes: by Jessica K. Black (Early Reviewer book)
The Faded Sun: Kutath by CJ Cherryh
Escape From Berlin by Irene N. Watts (Early Reviewer book)

*=non-fiction

In no particular order these were my favorite books of 2013:
Tiny Sunbirds Fly Away by Christine Watson;
The Fault In Our Stars by John Green;
The Lost Husband by Katherine Center;
TransAtlantic by Colum McCann;
Loteris by Mario Alberto Zambiano;
The Last Runaway by Tracy Chavalier;
The Care and Handling of Roses with a thorns by M Dilloway;
Good Luck Girls of Shipwreck Lane by K harms;
Whistling Padt the Graveyard by S Crandall;
Return from Gap Creek by Robert Morgan; and
Where'd You Go Bernadette by Marie Semple

How the Light Gets In: Penny's series just keeps getting better.
Crossing to Safety: my first Stegner won't be my last.
Benny Carter: A Life in American Music: fascinating scholarship on jazz, race.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane: surprised at how this one grabbed me.
Thursday Next: First among Sequels: excellent continuation of a favorite series.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks: thought-provoking discussion.
Sister: very well written mystery.
27 Views of Durham: interesting takes on my home city.
All the King's Men: not sure why I'd never read it.
The Other Woman: Hank Ryan takes a step up from her previous series.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett
The Preservationist by Justin Kramon
The Gods of Guilt by Michael Connelly
Doctor Sleep by Stephen King
The Amateurs by Marcus Sakey
The Cloud of Unknowing by Thomas H. Cook
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
The Kill Room by Jeffrey Deaver
The Blade Itself by Marcus Sakey
Blood Money by James Grippando

• Salinger by Shane Salerno and David Shields
• Ambition by Joseph Epstein
• Essays in Biography by Joseph Epstein
• Walker Percy Remembered ed. by David Horace Harwell
• Sting and I by James Berryman
• Perfecting Sound Forever by Greg Milner
• The One World Schoolhouse by Salman Khan
• Chronicles: Volume One by Bob Dylan
• A Cure for Gravity by Joe Jackson
• David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell
• Eminent Hipsters by Donald Fagen

The Sound of Waves by Yukio Mishima
The Toilers of the Sea by Victor Hugo
Child of God by Cormac McCarthy
TransAtlantic by Colum McCann
Miss Macintosh, My Darling by Marguerite Young
How The Light Gets In by Louise Penny
Clarissa Or The History of A Young Lady by Samuel Richardson
Billy Watson's Croker Sack by Franklin Burroughs
The Ballad of Barnabas Pierkiel by Magdalena Zyzak
Andrew's Brain by E.L. Doctorow

Here are my top-rated reads for 2013.

Fiction: 4 1/2 and 5 stars

• The Bride of Lammermoor, by Sir Walter Scott (4.5); review.
• House of Leaves, by Mark Z. Danielewski (5); review.
• Pale Fire, by Vladimir Nabokov (5); review.
• The Tragedy of Arthur, by Arthur Phillips (5); review.
• The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea, by Yukio Mishima (4.5); review.
• May We Be Forgiven, by A.M. Homes (4.5); review.
• The Lowland, by Jhumpa Lahiri (5); review.

Nonfiction: 4 stars and up

Nonfiction works seldom get more than four stars from me because they rarely have the literary quality that places them in my top ranks. But there are always a few that seem remarkable enough to me to set and even exceed their own standards.

• What Makes You Not a Buddhist, by Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse (4); review.
• Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea, by Barbara Demick (4); review.
• The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, by David Grann (4); review.
• Dry Storeroom No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum, by Richard Fortey (4); review.
• Spy the Lie: Former CIA Officers Teach You How to Detect Deception, by Philip Houston et al. (4); review.
• Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature, by Espen J. Aarseth (4); review.
• A Hundred Years of Japanese Film: A Concise History, with a Selective Guide to DVDs and Videos, by Donald Richie (4); review.
• English Eccentrics, by Edith Sitwell (4); review.
• At Home, by Bill Bryson, 10/8/13 (4); review.
• God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, by Christopher Hitchens (4.5); review.
• The Hero with a Thousand Faces, by Joseph Campbell (5); review.
• The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century, by Ian Mortimer (4.5).

In a class by itself:

• The Maniac: A Realistic Study of Madness from the Maniac's Point of View, by E. Thelmar (5).

I'm not sure about "best" -- these are the books that seem to stand out when I look down the list. Perhaps they're the ones that have left the deepest impression on me.

Fiction: (listed in the order in which I read them)

A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage by Marly Youmans
TransAtlantic by Colum McCann
Turtle Diary by Russell Hoban
Jacob's Room by Virginia Woolf
Wish You Were Here and Emily, Alone by Stewart O'Nan

I cheated a bit on the two O'Nan books, but I read them back-to-back and they are of a piece to me.

Nonfiction: (listed in the order in which I read them)

All We Know: Three Lives by Lisa Cohen
One Green Field by Edward Thomas
I Hate to Leave This Beautiful Place by Howard Norman
A Journey with Two Maps by Eavan Boland
Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin by Jill Lepore

Great lists everyone! Thanks for sharing!

Here are mine in the order I read them within categories:

fiction
The Painted Girls by Cathy Marie Buchanan
Dragons of Winter Night by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
The Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
If Jack's In Love by Stephen Wetta
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

nonfiction
Satchmo: The Wonderful World and Art of Louis Armstrong by Steven Brower
Pussy Riot!: A Punk Prayer For Freedom by Pussy Riot
The Lost Dogs: Michael Vick's Dogs and Their Tale of Rescue and Redemption by Jim Gorant

Here are my top 10 of 2013, in reading order within categories, with my top 5 starred.

Children's
The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore by William Joyce
The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt & illustrated by Oliver Jeffers

Fiction
The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
*Mr. Penumbra's 24-hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
*Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
The Daylight Gate by Jeanette Winterson
*A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra

Nonfiction
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan
*Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
*Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain

My 2013 favorites in the order I read them:

Fiction
1. The Paris Wife
2. The Big Rock Candy Mountain
3. Benediction
4. Life After Life
5. How the Light Gets In
6. Doctor Sleep
7. Let Him Go
8. Snapper
9. Someone
10. The Given Day

Favorite audios, both memoirs:
1. My Beloved World
2. Still Foolin' 'Em

Favorite memoir not on audio:
1. When We Were the Kennedys

Favorite non-fiction:
1. Salt, Sugar, Fat
2. Last Train to Paradise
3. Lost Cat

Making a 'Best of...' list is hard! But like every year here around LT, it had to be done.

1. English Country House Murders. Thomas Godfrey. - I love the British Golden Age mysteries. This book is a collection of English Country House mysteries, where the guests convene for a relaxing weekend but end up getting entangled in blood curdling misadventures. Need I say more?

2. The Room in the Tower and Other Stories. E. F. Benson. - E. F. Benson was better known for his Mapp & Lucia series but his horror stories are so good! The story The Room in the Tower gave me chills!

3. All My Sons. Arthur Miller. - I stayed up til 5 in the morning to finish All My Sons. It was so worth it! Death of a Salesman, All My Sons & A View from the Bridge. Plays which made Arthur Miller one of my favourite playwrights.

4. Crooks Tour. Jane Shaw. - Crooks Tour, I admit, I bought only because of the cover. I am greatly attracted to anything vintage and the Retro Press covers are just so prettily ‘retro’! The story nothing deep, rather silly at times but kind of funny too.

5. The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. E. T. A. Hoffmann. - Read this classic for this festive season. The clunky translation was throwing me off at first but I am glad I stuck to it.

2013 was a good reading year for me so I have a hard time to pick out the absolutely best book of the year. Among the best are 1q84 by Haruki Murakami, all three parts, and The Christmas Oratorio by Göran Tunström.

My 10 best? Hmmmm . . .

Fiction

The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon *
Officers and Gentlemen by Evelyn Waugh
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien - (reread)
The Good German by Joseph Kanon *
Selected Short Stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer Modern Library Edition *
One Very Hot Day by David Halberstam *
The Tenor Saxophonist's Story by Josef Skvorecky

Non-fiction

Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power by Steve Coll
The Southern Journey of Alan Lomax: Words, Photographs, and Music by Tom Piazza
The War in Eastern Europe by John Reed *

* Top five

In order of enjoyment; most favorable on top:

Replay by Ken Grimwood
A great time-travel story.

Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse by Lee Goldberg
I loved this show, AND this book. In my mind Tony Shaloub was doing and saying all those funny things.

True Grit by Charles Portis,
The end turned into a slap stick comedy for me, as the lead character got stuck "like a cork in a bottle" (page 204), and had to deal with a corpse, bats, snakes, and eventually a body falling towards her. However, I'm not sure if the author intended it to be slap stick or thrilling. The snakes scared the crap out of me.

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
This was an interesting story about how to become a Geisha until romantic triangles started to be the main focus. That was not as enjoyable to me, but still one of my favorites of the year.

Playing for Pizza by John Grisham
I'm a big football fan, and that helped me enjoy this book. Surprisingly, and very favorable to this book, my wife liked it even though she hates football. She said football was just a small part. I think she was wrong - the whole thing was about football.

Threat Vector by Tom Clancy
When reading this book, I kept thinking, "this is a good yarn." Tom Clancy was a favorite, and I was saddened when he passed away.

The Appeal by John Grisham
Like most Grisham books, I enjoyed this one: looking forward to getting back to it, and not wanting to stop while reading, but have already forgotten the characters and plot.

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
This is funny in places, but it made me feel guilty that I thought that way.

The Giver by Lois Lowry
I would have enjoyed it more if I read it in middle or high school.

The Company of the Dead by David Kowalski
An unnecessarily complex time travel story. This book would be better the second time reading because you would know what's what.

REDEMPTION: The Further Adventures of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer by Andrew Joyce
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Winner by David Baldacci
The Black Box by Michael Connolly
The Brass Verdict by Michael Connolly

Well, I just realized that I hadn't posted to this thread, so, out of the 111 books I read in 2013, my favorites were:

New (To Me)

The Night Fairy by Laura Amy Schlitz. Enchanting story of a young night fairy who loses her wings. Going to buy this one to read to my great-niece when she gets a little older.
Splendors and Glooms by Laura Amy Schlitz. Children's fantasy
The Nonesuch by Georgette Heyer. Delightful Regency romance
Sound and the Furry by Spencer Quinn. Latest Chet & Bernie mystery
Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler. A unique take on the vampire mythos.
Beggar's Opera by Peggy Blaire, Early Reviewer first novel, a mystery series set in modern day Havana, Cuba
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, the devil wreaks havoc in Moscow
Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch, book one of the Rivers of London fantasy-mystery series
The Demon in the Freezer by Richard Preston, non-fiction story of the conquering of smallpox and the potential of biowarfare. Not as well-written as I'd have liked, but the subject matter is chilling.

Rereads

Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay
Doc by Mary Doria Russell (audio)

Series

The John Ceepak mystery series, beginning with Tilt A Whirl, by Chris Grabenstein