SATURDAY December 28th, will be a special edition of the Saturday Review of Books especially for booklists. You can link to a list of your favorite books read in 2013, a list of all the books you read in 2013, a list of the books you plan to read in 2014, or any other end of the year or beginning of the year list of books. Whatever your list, it’s time for book lists. So come back on Saturday the 28th to link to yours, especially if I missed it and it’s not already here.
However, I’ve spent the past couple of weeks gathering up all the lists I could find and linking to them here. I’ll be posting off and on between now and the 28th a selection of end-of-the-year lists with my own comments. I’m also trying my hand at (unsolicited) book advisory by suggesting some possibilities for 2014 reading for each blogger whose list I link. I did this last year, and I don’t really know if anyone paid attention or not. If you did read a book I suggested for you last year, please leave a comment, either negative or positive, so that I’ll know how well I did. I do know that I enjoy exercising my book-recommending brain.
If I didn’t get your list linked ahead of time and if you leave your list in the linky on Saturday, December 28th, I’ll try to advise you, too, in a separate post.
Here are few early booklists I found while looking around the book blogs.
Ivory Owl Book Reviews: Best Books of 2013. I think Rhiannon would like Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and The Homecoming of Samuel Lake by Jenny Wingfield; both books are similar to the ones she has on her list, and both books are by female authors, which she she says reads almost exclusively.
Things I Can’t Say: Best and Worst Books of 2013. Shell is a fan of The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak and of the Divergent series by Veronica Roth. I’m recommending that she try Code Name Verity and Rose Under Fire, both Elizabeth Wein.
Life:merging: Best Books of 2013. Melissa, the librarian at this reader’s blog, enjoys animal stories and psychological thrillers and lots of other stuff. She should check out Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell and Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein, because other books by those authors are on her “best of 2013” list.
The Well-Read Readhead’s Best Books of 2013. I see some familiar names on Ms. Redhead’s list: Wally Lamb, Jodi Piccoult, Michael Pollan, Gillian Flynn. And I see some authors I may want to check out. Looking at Redhead’s TBR list, I highly recommend The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell, Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray, Watership Down by Richard Adams, and she’s never read any Agatha Christie? What’s up with that? Do it: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.
Delivering Grace: Best Books of 2013. SarahEizabeth Jones is a UK home educator, and for her I have a list of my favorite read-aloud books. For her own reading, SarahElizabeth might enjoy Surprised by Oxford: A Memoir by Carolyn Weber.
British author and blogger Tara Hanks: Best Books of 2013. I want to read Careless People: Murder, Mayhem, and the Invention of the Great Gatsby by Sarah Churchwell, one of the books on Ms. Hanks’ list of favorites. I wonder if Ms. Hanks might like to try Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me by Karen Swallow Prior and/or something by one of Eldest Daughter’s favorite authors, Flannery O’Connor, perhaps Wise Blood or The Violent Bear It Away.
living read girl lists her favorite reads of 2013. I want to add a couple of these favorites to my TBR list, too, namely The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things by Paula Byrne and The Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout. I’ll give “lady t” some book recommendations for her perusal: Crampton Hodnet or Excellent Women by Barbara Pym (because I think Pym is rather Austen-ish) Also “lady t” should check out Dorothy Dunnett’s The Lymond Chronicles, a series beginning with The Game of Kings. This series, set in the sixteenth century, is another of Eldest Daughter’s favorites. I haven’t read these yet, but I really plan to do so this year.
Be a Better Booktalker: My Favorite Children’s and Teen Books of 2013. Andrea Lipinski recommends Sure Signs of Crazy by Karen Harrington, which sounds like a middle grade novel that’s right up my alley. OCD Love Story by Corey Ann Haydu sounds good, too. (What can I say? I read books about eccentric and mentally unbalanced people.) I’m not sure what to suggest for Andrea: maybe The Bronte Sisters: The Brief Lives of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne by Catherine Reef? Or Imperfect Spiral by Debbie Levy.
Shelley Johannes: The Book Diaries. Best Children’s Picture Books of 2013. I want to read (and feast my eyes upon) all of Shelley’s picks. On the other hand, I really don’t know what to suggest to her since she’s an artist, that intimidating word, and seems to know all about the pictures. I will list a few of my favorite classic (and new) picture book illustrators, in case she hasn’t seen all of them: Peter Spier, Susan Jeffers, Roger Duviosin, Donald Crews, Trina Schart Hyman, Tasha Tudor, Lauren Child, Marcia Brown, Allen Say, Francoise Seignobosc, Robert McCloskey, Brett Helquist . . . wow, this list could go on and on. Who are your favorite children’s book illustrators?
Jared C. Wilson at Gospel Driven Church: 10 Best Books I Read This Year. I “know” Jared from way back: he’s been blogging at Gospel Driven Church and with the guys at The THinklings for a loooong time . . . almost as long as I’ve been blogging. One of his top ten for this year is a book that really impressed me, too, and made me cringe a little (and pray) every time I see Tom Cruise, namely Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and The Prison of Belief by Lawrence Wright. However, for suggestions for Jared, I went back to his Top Ten Lists from previous years and saw that he read Pride and Prejudice a couple of years ago and really liked it a lot. I think it’s time for Jared to read Emma or Sense and Sensibility. I would also suggest the book we just finished studying in my Sunday School class, Echoes of Eden by Jerram Barrs.
Merry Christmas to all, and to all Happy Reading!