Critics' Top Books of 2019

Last year I wrote a post looking at various critics' top 5 or 10 books of 2019.  It was interesting and definitely gave me a few more books to add to my never ending to-read list.  So I thought I'd do it again this year.  So, while you await my picks for my favorite books of 2019 (which I don't create until January though believe me I'm thinking about it all year long), here's a look at what some of the critics have to say about the best books published in 2019.

Top 20 Books of 20 Years - The Best of the Best!

Since I started the blog, I've been periodically looking back at my ten favorite books which I read in each year since I started making top 10 lists.  I finally caught up to the present - and it just so happens that those lists cover 20 years of my reading - my top 10 lists so far stretch from 1999-2018!  So, I thought it would be fun to try to figure out my 20 favorite books of those 20 years of lists!  And yes, it's been a little while since I've posted anything - but part of the reason is that it has taken me a long time to narrow down the selections and then write this long post!

Gothic fiction

With Halloween coming up soon, thought it would be as good a time as any to look at some of my favorite modern Gothic fiction.  To me, Gothic in large part refers to the atmosphere of a book - it's often set at some kind of crumbling mansion, there's generally a hint of the supernatural (anything from implied but not real to actual creepy haunting), and there's often some kind of mystery involving a dead person in the present or past too.

I actually didn't know what the official definition of the genre was so I looked it up - here's what Goodreads had to say:  "Making its debut in the late 18th century, Gothic fiction was a branch of the larger Romantic movement that sought to stimulate strong emotions in the reader - fear and apprehension in this case. Gothic fiction places heavy emphasis on atmosphere, using setting and diction to build suspense and a sense of unease in the reader. Common subject matter includes the supernatural, family curses, mystery, and madness."

From the Top 10 Archives - Jen's 10 Favorite Books of 2016

Ever since I began this blog, I have been periodically looking back at one of my old top 10 favorite book lists.  As a reminder, these are lists I made contemporaneously at the end of the respective years, made up of books I read in that particular year, not necessarily books published that year.  And with today's post looking back at my favorite books of 2016, I've now got all my top 10 lists on this blog in some form, since one of my very first posts on this blog was my ten favorite books of 2017.  Stay tuned for a future post with a special look back at 20 years of my lists!

Here's my list from 2016, in alphabetical order by author's last name:

Black Rabbit Hall - Eve Chase
The City of Mirrors - Justin Cronin
The Trespasser - Tana French
Monsters - Liz Kay
The Expatriates - Janice Y.K. Lee
The Last One - Alexandra Oliva
Harmony - Carolyn Parkhurst
Missing, Presumed - Susie Steiner
Kitchens of the Great Midwest - J. Ryan Stradal
Modern Lovers - Emma Straub


For more random details about these books, keep reading!

Anticipated books of fall

Even though I have a to-read list that could keep me busy for years, for some reason I also absolutely love looking ahead to new books coming out that I want to read!  Thank goodness there are less books announced so far for fall that I am dying to read than there were for summer - when there were so many books I had to break them into two posts, one for May and June and one for July and August.  Though I did a pretty amazing job getting through those lists - of the 24 books I listed between those two posts which I hadn't read yet, I've read all but 2!  Go me!  And most of them were very good.

Anyway, here are some of the books announced as coming out this fall which I'm most excited about.

5 Star Review - Things You Save in a Fire by Katherine Center

I'm excited to share with you the latest 5 star book I read - "Things You Save in a Fire" by Katherine Center.  It's the best contemporary women's novel I've read in quite a while, hitting that sweet spot I love so much of a book that is written in a relatively light fashion but with deep emotions.

From the Top 10 Archives - Jen's 10 Favorite Books of 2015

Since I started this blog, I've been periodically looking back at my old top 10 favorite book lists, starting with 1999 when I first started compiling a list each year and working my way up towards the present.   If you don't remember the details, these are lists I made contemporaneously at the end of the respective years, made up of books I read in that particular year, not necessarily books published that year.  I started out sharing these lists with just a small group of people, and over the years started sharing with more and more people, and through more and more different means, including this blog!  One of my first posts on the blog was my top 10 books of 2017, so after today's post that means I have just one more to go!  (Unless I keep this blog going for so many more years that enough time goes by that I want to look back on 2017 and after, ha ha.)

Here's my list from 2015, in alphabetical order by author's last name:

The Visitors - Sally Beauman
The One That Got Away - Bethany Chase
The Nightingale - Kristin Hannah
The Last Camellia - Sarah Jio
Station Eleven - Emily St. John Mandel
The Lake House - Kate Morton
The Children's Crusade - Ann Packer
The Midnight Rose - Lucinda Riley
Who Do You Love? - Jennifer Weiner
Walking on Trampolines - Frances Whiting

For more random details about these books, keep reading!

Books About Animals

With "The Art of Racing in the Rain" movie adaptation coming out this week, I was thinking about books either told from the perspective of, or primarily about, animals.  Personally, I think these work much better as books than movies, especially if told from the perspective of an animal - a voice-over meant to represent a movie animal can just be cheesy, whereas reading a scene told from an animal's perspective is totally different.  So, color me skeptical of the movie, but here are some books you should check out if this genre is of interest to you.  I'm going to stick with books that are realistic, rather than more fantastical in nature.

From the Top 10 Archives- Jen's 10 Favorite Books of 2014

Ever since I started this blog, I've been occasionally (and chronologically) looking back at my old top 10 favorite book lists, starting with 1999 when I first started compiling my lists and working my way up towards the present.   If you don't remember the details, these are lists I made contemporaneously at the end of the respective years, made up of books I read in that particular year, not necessarily books published that year.  I started out sharing these lists with just a small group of people, and over the years started sharing with more and more people, and through more and more different means, including this blog!

Here's my list from 2014, in alphabetical order by author's last name:

The Smart One - Jennifer Close
The Secret Place - Tana French
Big Little Lies - Liane Moriarty
The Rise and Fall of Great Powers - Tom Rachman
Fangirl - Rainbow Rowell
Counting by 7s - Holly Goldberg Sloan
The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
The Martian - Andy Weir
The Interestings - Meg Wolitzer
The Storied Life of AJ Fikry - Gabrielle Zevin


For more random details about these books, keep reading!

Q&A with Karen Dukess, author of "The Last Book Party"

Yesterday was the publication day for "The Last Book Party," one of my favorite reads of the year so far since I was lucky enough to get an advanced copy.  Plus, is that a gorgeous cover for a summer book or what?

If you missed my review of this book in my post on anticipated books of July and August, I'll repeat it for you here.  The protagonist of this novel is a young woman named Eve who works in publishing and then becomes the assistant to a semi-famous writer, and it's set during one summer in 1987 in Manhattan and Cape Cod. The characters all felt like such real people, and there is a strong sense of time and place while at the same time the book feels very timeless, like the story could happen today too. There's also a lot of discussion of writing, reading, and books, which gives the book a pleasantly intellectual feel without being pretentious or heavy. So it's light enough to be a perfect summer book, while still just so smart. If you're a fan of smart insightful authors like Curtis Sittenfeld and Meg Wolitzer, I think you would like this too. 

And don't just take my word for it - it's also an Amazon Best Book of July, an Indie Next Pick and on O Magazine's Best Beach Read list for 2019, among others. 

And, I'm super-excited to bring you a Q&A with the author - no spoilers, so you can safely read this interview even if you haven't read the book yet.

Anticipated books of summer 2019 part 2 - July and August

There are so many great books coming out this summer that I had to split my anticipated books of summer into two separate posts.  If you missed it, I already covered  the books I was excited about which were coming out in May and June, so today I'll tell you about books coming out in July and August.  (And I'm happy to say that since I wrote that first post, I've read 6 of the 12 books I listed there - not too shabby!)  So if your summer reading list isn't already long enough, here are some more books for your consideration!

From the Top 10 Archives - Jen's 10 Favorite Books of 2013

Since I started this blog, I've been periodically looking back at my old top 10 lists from years past and seeing how I feel about them today and other random things about them - and I'm getting close to catching up!  If you don't remember the details, I've kept lists each year of my ten favorite books all the way back to 1999.  In the early days I only shared the list with a small group, but over the years the distribution list got larger, plus I started sharing first on Facebook and then on this blog.  The lists comprise books I read in a particular year, not necessarily books published that year.

Here's my list from 2013, in alphabetical order by author's last name:

Life After Life - Kate Atkinson
Bitterblue - Kristen Cashore
Wonder - R.J. Palacio
Night Film - Marisha Pessl
Eleanor & Park - Rainbow Rowell
The Song Remains the Same - Allison Winn Scotch
The Rosie Project - Graeme Simsion
The Lotus Eaters - Tatjana Soli
The Age of Miracles - Karen Thompson Walker
The 5th Wave - Rick Yancey

For more about these books, read on!

Light fiction/vacation reads, volume 2

Both before and since I've had a blog, people ask me for book recommendations all the time.  I'd say the category of books I'm asked to recommend most often is light fiction, often to read on vacation.  Early on I wrote posts on both what to read on vacation and on light fiction, and I've also written about summer-themed books.  Since it has been a while, and since Memorial Day weekend is about to come kick off the summer season, seemed like a good time to suggest a few more books for your light vacation reading consideration!

Here are my latest recommendations:

Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld - This modern day re-telling of "Pride and Prejudice" was one of my top 10 books of 2018.  It combined Curtis Sittenfeld's knack for bringing flawed yet sympathetic characters to life with Jane Austen's proto-chick lit plot.  So much fun to read!  (Bonus recommendation - if this book spurs your interest in reading more "Pride and Prejudice" re-tellings, you can also check out Unmarriageable by Soniah Kamal which sets the P&P story in present day Pakistan; I started reading it on my winter vacation this year.  Not as good as "Eligible" but it was a fun read.)

The Royal We by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgenstern - Another book from my top 10 books of 2018, and I actually read this one on my 2018 summer vacation.  This is one of those chick lit books with heart, about an American college student abroad who falls in love with the fictional prince of England.  It was a perfect vacation read, light and fun and I couldn't put it down.  And I'm super-excited that apparently a sequel to it will be coming out in 2020!

Class Mom by Laurie Gelman - This was such a funny book, kind of a comedic satire of modern mom life about a mother of two older kids who reluctantly becomes the class mother for her youngest's kindergarten class, and it includes her snarky e-mails to the class.  If you've ever been a class mom or PTA volunteer, and/or rolled your eyes at overenthusiastic e-mails from those people, you will relate to this one!  A sequel to this one, "You've Been Volunteered," comes out in July and I can't wait to read it!

Daisy Jones & the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid - Not sure this one exactly fits the "light fiction" bill - Taylor Jenkins Reid's excellent earlier chick lit books really are lighter than this one.  But it is  definitely a book that benefits from reading it quickly and  therefore would make a good vacation book since you're more likely to have time to read it!  Plus it's my number one book so far of 2019.  It's written in the unusual format of an oral history, but of a totally fictitious 1970s band.  I absolutely adored it - you can read my 5 star review for more.

Charlotte Walsh Likes to Win by Jo Piazza - I read this novel last summer and really enjoyed it.  It's about a well-off female executive from humble beginnings who leaves her Silicon Valley life behind to move back with her husband and small kids to the small town in Pennsylvania where she grew up and run for Senate against the racist, sexist good old boy who has held that Senate seat for many years. Although it's written in a breezy, almost chick-lit style, it's actually a thought-provoking book with a lot to say about politics, marriage, and feminism. 

***

That being said, I know not everyone wants to read contemporary women's fiction on vacation.  I personally like to read a mix of genres on my vacations, and I've written several posts on what I read on various of my vacations since starting this blog (see here, here, here, and here.)  You can also check out my top 10 lists both past and present, and my posts on various specific genres that interest you.  Or hit me up for a personalized book recommendation!

Must Read Authors Part 2 - Authors I'm Still Catching Up On

Last month, I wrote a post on some of my most favorite, must read authors.  Just to make the list a little shorter, since there are so darn many authors that I follow avidly, I set the condition for myself that to be included on the list, I had to have read ALL of the books published by that particular author.  But making this condition left out some authors who are really quite dear to me, so today I'll share with you another list of must read authors!  This time, it's authors who I love but I'm still working on reading all of their books.  These are authors whose new books will pretty much automatically go on my to read list - either ones I absolutely can't wait to read, or in some cases definitely plan to read sooner rather than later - but I'm still working on catching up on their back catalog.  So let's dive in!

Anticipated books of late spring/ early summer 2019 (May/June)

I know that technically summer doesn't begin until June 21st.  But just like summer movie season started last weekend with Avengers: Endgame (awesome movie!), I feel like summer reading season kind of starts early too.  As the weather starts getting warmer, it seems like the publishing world just explodes with books.  And since there are an absolutely ridiculous number of books coming out between May and August that I want to read, I thought I'd start with a post just covering the early ones - May and June - and then in a few months I'll update you on books coming out in July and August!  Some of these I already discussed in my blog post on anticipated books of 2019, others you might be hearing about here for the first time.

From the Top 10 Archives - Jen's 10 Favorite Books of 2012

Continuing my look back at my old top 10 lists, today I'm going to re-visit my ten favorite books of 2012.  If you haven't followed all of my other posts, for many years I've been making lists at the end of each year of the ten favorite books I read that year - not necessarily published that year - and sharing them with my friends.  Since I started the blog, I've been periodically looking back at my old top 10 lists and seeing what I think of them today!

Here's my list from 2012, in alphabetical order by author's last name:

The Twelve - Justin Cronin
Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn
The Fault in Our Stars - John Green
The Kitchen House - Kathleen Grissom
When She Woke - Hilary Jordan
The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern
What Alice Forgot - Liane Moriarty
State of Wonder - Ann Patchett
The Lost Wife - Alyson Richman
Beautiful Ruins - Jess Walters


For more about these books, read on!

Must Read Authors

As befits someone who reads a lot and is constantly amassing new books to read, I have a long, long list of must read authors.  I thought it would be fun to try to narrow it down to not just authors I love, but authors who I anticipate their books with great interest and try to read them ASAP when they come out.  Since there are actually a pretty enormous group of authors for whom that is true, to narrow it down, I'm going to give myself a few parameters:  (1)  they have to have written at least 3 books, and (2) I have to have read all of their books.  There are other authors who I love but I'm still working on catching up on all of their books - I'll cover those in a future post.

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you'll probably recognize most of these names as I've discussed them in my posts on various genres, among other things.  A few I even talk about enough that I've already given them their own tag, so I'll start with those and go roughly in order from there.

From the Top 10 Archives - Jen's 10 Favorite Books of 2011

If you've been following this blog for a while, then you'll know that I contemporaneously made a top 10 list of my favorite books I read each year for many years, all the way back to 1999 when the internet barely existed!  But since I started this blog, I've been slowly re-visiting my top 10 ten lists from years past, both to share them with those who weren't original recipients of those lists, and out of curiosity to see how the lists hold up over time.   Today I'll be looking at 2011.  As a reminder, these are books that I read in 2011, not necessarily books that were published in 2011.

Here is my 2011 list, listed in alphabetical order by author's last name.

A Dog's Purpose - W. Bruce Cameron
America, America - Ethan Canin
The Passage - Justin Cronin
Room - Emma Donoghue
A Visit From the Goon Squad - Jennifer Egan
Faithful Place - Tana French
The Wrong Mother - Sophie Hannah
Roses - Leila Meacham
The Art of Racing in the Rain - Garth Stein
The Help - Kathryn Stockett

5 Star Review: One Night at the Lake by Bethany Chase

Less than a month after my last 5 star review, I've got another one for you!  Bethany Chase was already one of my favorite authors of chick lit/contemporary women's fiction after just two novels.  Her first book, "The One That Got Away," was a 5 star book on my 2015 10 favorites list, and her second book, "Results May Vary," was a 4.5 star book that just missed my list for 2016.  Her latest, "One Night at the Lake," comes out on June 18, 2019.  So when I got an early copy from Netgalley, I just couldn't wait to read it!  And I've been waiting a long time - it was originally slated to be published in 2018 under a slightly different title, so it was one my anticipated books of 2018 and then  after being pushed back, again on my list of anticipated books of 2019.  I'm happy to say it didn't disappoint, and only affirms her place as one of my favorite authors.

Books with "Girl" in the Title

I'm currently reading a historical novel called "The Girls in the Picture" by Melanie Benjamin, and it got me thinking about how there are just so many books with the word "girl" or "girls" in the title.  And ironically pretty much all of them are referring to women, not girls!

Presumably publishers do this because it draws people's attention to books?  I've previously written about how book marketing should refrain from calling books "the next 'Gone Girl'".  And it certainly seems like after "Gone Girl" was published, not only were authors trying to write in the same unreliable narrator style, but also to give their thrillers a name with the word "girl" in it too.   In a book I recently read and enjoyed, "The Banker's Wife" by Christina Alger, the author even gets a little dig in at those books, describing the main character as reading "the kind of book she’d read a million times before, a book with ‘Girl’ in the title and an unreliable narrator."  Which was on point, but also funny to me as there are also a lot of books with "wife" in the title!

Anyway, I thought it would be fun to take a look at some other books I've read with the word "girl" in the title and see how they stack up.  This isn't even all of them, as I've left of some of the less memorable ones, and there are also tons of books with the word "girl" in the title on my to read list too.  It turns out that in addition to thrillers, there are a lot of historical novels with "girl" in the title too, plus a smattering of contemporary fiction, and a lot of forgettable chick lit too.  I'll try to put them roughly in order of how much I liked them (high to low) within each genre.

5 Star Review: Daisy Jones & the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Two months into the year, I have my first 5 star book to share with you!  It's a novel called "Daisy Jones & the Six" by Taylor Jenkins Reid, and I loved it - a real wow book!  It comes out this Tuesday, March 5th, and I highly recommend you add it to your list!

Don't you love that cover?  It just has such a 70s album cover vibe!  Which is appropriate since this book is about a fictional singer and band in the late 1970s with lots of turmoil - think the movie "Almost Famous" crossed with Fleetwood Mac, though with plenty of original elements too.  (In fact, I had the Fleetwood Mac song "The Chain" stuck in my head while reading it!)  Lyrucs are included for some of the fictional songs - I only wish I could hear them for real.

What I Read On My Winter Vacation

I came back yesterday from a wonderful week in the Bahamas with my family and our close family friends.  And, as has become a tradition on the blog, I'm going to share with you what I read while we were on vacation!

Me reading poolside

From the Top 10 Archives: Jen's 10 Favorite Books of 2010

Since I started this blog, I've been periodically looking back at my top 10 favorites lists of years past.  Each list consists of my favorite books I read in a particular year, not necessarily books published that year.  Today, I'll look at my list from 2010.  Full disclosure, I actually cheated in 2010 and put 11 books on the list!  😉 It's often a challenge to narrow my lists down to 10, but this is the only year I did it - made an exception because I read two books by the same author that I loved so much I just decided to list them as one entry!

Here's my list from 2010, in alphabetical order by author's last name:

When Will There Be Good News? - Kate Atkinson
After You - Julie Buxbaum
Little Bee - Chris Cleave
The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins
In the Woods - Tana French AND The Likeness - Tana French
The Host - Stephenie Meyer
The Forgotten Garden - Kate Morton
One Day - David Nicholls
The Thirteenth Tale - Diane Setterfield
Lottery - Patricia Wood

For more about these books, read on!

Short Story Collections

One genre I haven't discussed that much on this blog is short story collections.  In the early years of my top 10 lists, there often were multiple short story collections, but that seems to have trailed off in recent years, and I know in part it's because while I started reading more books, at the same time it seems I seemed to start reading fewer short story collections.  Maybe because short stories are good for when you are pressed for time/are reading in short bursts?  But in the last year or two I've gotten more interested in short stories, especially because these days I often like to have a second book going that I'm reading on my phone, and short story collections seem to be a good choice for that. (I've been reading more memoirs for the same reason.)

Here are some of my favorite short story collections of recent years:

Books Being Adapted Into Movies Coming Out in 2019

I'm always interested in what movies are coming out based on books - whether it is books I have already read and am curious to see how they are adapted, or books I've heard of and want to read before I see the movie.  Yes, I'm generally a firm believer in reading the book before seeing the movie - and also for the most part tend to find that the book version is better than the movie version.

Interestingly, of the books being adapted into movies that I included in my 2018 post on the same subject, I only ended up seeing two of the movies.  "Ready Player One" was an entertaining enough movie, but nowhere near as good as the book.  "Crazy Rich Asians," on the other hand, I was lukewarm on the book but loved the movie.  Go figure.  I did end up reading all the books I hadn't read that I mentioned in the post, but didn't end up seeing the other three movies - "Annihilation" because I hated the book, and "Red Sparrow" and "Love Simon" because I just didn't get around to seeing them.

Without further ado, here are some more books that are coming out as movies this year!  Like last year, I'm not going to include every single adaptation, just those that sound interesting to me  - and I'll separate the below list into books I've already read, and other books/movies I'm potentially interested in.

2018, The Best of the Rest, Part 2

I've already shared my Top 10 books of 2018, and, if you missed it, part 1 of my "best of the rest" covering realistic contemporary and historical fiction. Since I still have yet more books to recommend, today's post covers other genres, including mysteries and thrillers, science fiction and fantasy, and memoirs.  These are not necessarily books published in 2018, but books I read in 2018.

2018 - The Best of the Rest, Part 1

Back when I used to read a lot fewer books a year, my top 10 list pretty much encapsulated the books from the year that I would really recommend, give or take a few.  But now that I read SO many books a year, I have a lot more than 10 books which I would heartily recommend.  So in addition to my Top 10 books of 2018, I wanted to share with you many more books that I read last year which I would recommend!  So if you read all the books on my top 10 list you're interested in and are looking for more, you can hone in on the categories that interest you.  There are way too many books for me to blurb them all without this post taking forever to write (and read!), so I'm just going to list titles and authors.

And because I have SO many books to recommend, I'm going to break this post into two parts.  This one will cover realistic contemporary fiction and historical fiction; more other genres will be covered in the next post.

Books are listed below by genre.

Jen's Top 10 Books of 2018

I'm very excited to share with you my 10 favorite books that I read in 2018!  I read a record amount of books in 2018, so this really is the cream of the crop - and it was SO hard to narrow this list down!  The top 5 were pretty easy, but narrowing down to the remaining 5 was a real challenge.  So I'm also happy to tell you that in the coming weeks you can look for "best of the rest" post(s) highlighting some of the other books I loved in 2018!

Anyway, for many many years - dating back to a time when I barely used the internet (1999!) - I have been compiling a list of my ten favorite books read in the year just ended and sharing with my friends, first by e-mail, then by facebook, and starting last year, on this blog.  It's not necessarily books published in the year I make the list, just books I read that year.  Here's my list for 2018, in alphabetical order by author's last name:

The Royal We - Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan
This Is How It Always Is - Laurie Frankel
Force of Nature - Jane Harper
Queen of Shadows - Sarah J. Maas
The Clockmaker's Daughter - Kate Morton
Eligible - Curtis Sittenfeld
What You Don't Know About Charlie Outlaw - Leah Stewart
Other People's Houses - Abbi Waxman
Code Name Verity - Elizabeth Wein
The Female Persuasion - Meg Wolitzer


Traditionally, I used to just send around a list with no further comment on the books.  But now that I have more space, I want to tell you more about the books - first a little bit about each book itself, and then some general comments on the list as a whole.  Though if you've been reading this blog regularly, I think you have actually heard about most of these books in one post or another.  And I would love to hear what everyone else thought of these books, and what your favorite books of 2018 were!

Read on for more: