Having read 74 books at this point in the year (end of November), I thought I'd list the ones I really liked and the ones I thought were particularly great. I based the list on my Goodreads ratings where 5 stars mean 'it was amazing' and 4 stars mean 'really liked it'. I would like the rating system better if it had a genre category, but it doesn't. Some of the books I really liked were spy novels or murder mysteries...not necessarily great literature, but for the genre, they were good. I was sparing with the 5 stars, reserving that rating for books I not only really liked, but thought were extraordinary.
Here are two 4 star lists, first the mysteries then the others, in reverse order of when they were read:
MYSTERY
Return to Dust - Andrew Lanh
The Poet - Michael Connelly
The Vendetta Defense - Lisa Scottoline
Fever of the Bone - Val McDermid
Harvest - Tess Gerritsen
The Gods of Guilt - Michael Connelly
Blood Work - Michael Connelly
High Country Nocturne - Jon Talton
True Evil - Greg Iles
The Alibi - Sandra Brown
Long After Midnight - Iris Johansen
Shoot the Moon - Billie Letts
A Wanted Man - Lee Child
Criminal Intent - William Bernhardt
Never Go Back - Lee Child
Worth Dying For - Lee Child
OTHER
The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Art of Baking Blind - Sarah Vaughan
Sarah's Key - Tatiana de Rosnay
The Searchers - Alan Lemay
Interpreter of Maladies - Jhumpa Lahiri
A Fifty Year Silence - Miranda Richmond Mouillet
Eight Hundred Grapes - Laura Dave
The Kitchen House - Kathleen Grissom
The Lady from Zagreb - Phillip Kerr
The Loop - Nicholas Evans
The Nurse - Alexandra Robbins
The Alphabet House - Jussi Adler-Olsen
Here is the 5 star list:
What She Knew - Gilly Macmillan
The Zookeeper's Wife - Diane Ackerman
Outlander - Diana Gabaldon
The Hunger Games and the Gospel (non-fiction) - Julie Clawson
The Fifth Gospel - Ian Caldwell
The Nightingale - Kristin Hannah
