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!

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!

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

Supernatural Fiction

With Halloween tomorrow, I thought it would be fun to do a post with a theme that relates to the holiday.  I don't read horror novels (or watch horror movies for that matter) because they're too scary for me!  But I do enjoy not-too-scary supernatural fiction.  So today, I'll share with you some recommendations for books about witches, vampires, and ghosts!

The Passage TV show trailer

Regular readers of this blog will know that I'm totally obsessed with the book trilogy "The Passage" by Justin Cronin.  When I first heard that it had been optioned for a TV show, I was pretty excited, especially because originally it was going to be adapted for a movie and I knew there was just no way to cram that whole book into a movie.  Then I heard the TV show was going to be on Fox, and I started to worry.  Because this really is a show that screams for premium cable or a streaming network.

Best series

Recently, I asked for suggestions of what genres/topics related to books people wanted to hear about next.  My friend and fellow book-lover Sarah suggested "best overall series of books."  That was definitely not something I had ever thought about before, but it seemed like an interesting - if daunting - topic.

In order to figure out what series to include, I decided I needed to set some parameters.  These are the ones I decided on:

• There have to be at least three books to qualify as a series.  Otherwise, it's just a book with a sequel, not a series.
• I have to have read all of the books in the series to include it on the list; or, if it is a series still in progress, I have to have read all of the books published to date.
• Not every book in the series has to be amazing, but they all need to be of sufficient quality to make it worthy of embarking on the series, and if the series has come to an end, the ending has to be satisfying.
• The series has to be memorable, can't just be books that I remember that I enjoyed but can't really remember anything about.

Once I figured that out, it became abundantly clear to me that though I had many, many series which I had enjoyed, I had a clear top 3 favorite series ever.

Dystopian fiction

Last night, my friend Becca asked for a recommendation of a book in the dystopian/post-apocalyptic fiction category.   This happens to be one of my many favorite genres, so I had a lot of suggestions for her, and I figured it would make a good post too.  I'll be covering other genres in future posts, so if you have any specific requests, let me know!

5 Books That Have Stayed With You

If you had to name 5 books that you have read that have really stayed with you over the years, what would they be?  Not necessarily your top 5 favorite books of all time (I could never pick!), but just the first 5 books that come to mind that have really stuck in your mind for one reason or another.  Here's what came to mind for me today:

1.  The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin

Probably the reason this middle grade book has stayed with me over the years is because it is likely the book I have read the most times in my life!  I used to read it all the time as a kid, and have read it a few times as an adult.  Just a really great kids' book with an interesting mystery, quirky characters, and lots of surprises.  I volunteer in the school library at my son's elementary school, and I love recommending this book to the older kids.

2.  A Widow For One Year by John Irving

I don't think I can remember the last sentence of any other book, including the book I finished reading yesterday - but more than 18 years after reading "A Widow For One Year," I still vividly recall the last sentence of this book and just the thought of it brings tears to my eyes. John Irving's books vary wildly in quality, and some of his more recent books seem almost like a parody of a John Irving book.  This one isn't his most famous, but is my favorite of his.  Somewhat less weirdness than his other books and just really indelible characters.

3.  The Passage by Justin Cronin

This book (and the subsequent 2 books in the trilogy) are among my favorites of all time.  I read it six and a half years ago and when my daughter read it earlier this year I could discuss it with her for the most part as if I had just read it - I can still name pretty much every character in the book and most of the plot points.  Long and totally crazy hard to describe plot that veers from government conspiracy to vampires to post-apocalyptic craziness, but written in a very literary style.  Just an amazing, can't put-it-down read.

4. Wonder by R.J. Palacio

Another middle grade book, but this one I read for the first time as an adult.  And it is one of the best books I have ever read, better than most adult fiction.  If you somehow never have heard of the book (or the movie adaptation currently in theaters), it's about a boy born with severe facial disfiguration who has been homeschooled and goes to school for the first time in fifth grade, and is just a beautiful story about compassion, friendship, and seeing beyond the surface.

5.  Dark Places by Gillian Flynn and Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter

Ok, I'm cheating with this one by naming two books,
but they both fall into the same category - books which are good and well-written but which I wish I could forget because they're so disturbing!  "Dark Places" is about a woman whose family was murdered when she was a girl, and goes back and forth in time between her adult attempts to investigate what really happened, and flashbacks to the time just before - culminating in a description of the massacre of the family that was just so gory and upsetting.  I lent this one to my friend Sarah and when she tried to give it back to me, I refused because I didn't want to have the book in my house!  "Pretty Girls" was picked by my friend Laurie for our book club and while it was a good book, the rest of this in the book club still some times give her grief for picking such a creepy book.  It's a novel about torture porn and murder and still freaks me out every time I think about it.

So those are my 5 (well 6) that sprang to mind today, I'm sure I could easily come up with more!  What books stand out in your mind as those that have stayed with you?