Top 10 Books of 2019

     Here are my favorites from the last year. A so-so year for me, only a couple of what I would consider great books, but lots of good ones. I read 65 books this year, averaging 1.25 books a week. This was 7 titles less than the goal of 72 I had set for myself. I put this firmly on the head of Zaidah - somehow a 1 year old eats up a lot of your time.

1. The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead. This novel got great reviews and is on several Best Of lists for the year (including Barack Obama's). It is not an easy read, but definitely the most powerful book I read this year. Told in flashbacks, it is the story of one young man's experiences at a dangerous reform school for boys in the 1960s. It is based on a real school for boys in Florida that existed for 100 years. Elwood, a young African American, is sent to the school for a crime he did not commit. While there, he meets another young man, who helps him to survive and get along in this brutal environment. This is a powerful look at inequality that is still an enjoyable read. Whitehead is an amazing writer and I will be going back to look at some of his previous books. 

2. Once Upon A River by Diane Setterfield. While "The Nickel Boys" was the best written book I read this year, this is the book that has stuck with me the most. I keep replaying scenes in my head almost a year later. "River" is part historical mystery and part fairy tale with a big dose of magical realism thrown in. It worked completely for me. It all takes place along a river in England in the 1800s and involves a long missing girl returned to her parents, a stolen pig, and an ancient inn along the banks of a river with many mysteries under the surface. The writing is mystical and beautiful, nothing moves quickly, but at exactly the right pace. “It was better to tell such stories close to the river than in a drawing room. Words accumulate indoors, trapped by walls and ceilings. The weight of what has been said can lie heavily on what might yet be said and suffocate it. By the river the air carries the story on a journey: one sentence drifts away and makes way for the next.”

3. Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid. The Six is rock band that is rapidly moving to the top of the charts and Daisy Jones is the young singer that joins them in this novel told mostly in excerpts of interviews. A highly fictionalized account of the group Fleetwood Mac, it follows the rise to the top and then breakup of a 1970's rock band. I found the story fascinating and it kept me turning pages from beginning to end. This one finished on several Best Of lists also. I finished it and immediately spent the next hour listening to the music of and researching the history of Fleetwood Mac.   

4. Full Throttle by Joe Hill. A collection of horror/fantasy stories by Stephen King's son. I continue to enjoy just about everything Hill releases. There are 2 collaborations with King here, but they were probably my least favorite entries. Some of my favorites - "Late Returns" about a haunted bookmobile, "By the Silver Water of Lake Champlain" a very Bradburyesque story about a lake monster, and "Dark Carousel" about a vengeful merry-g-round. 

5. Nothing To See Here by Kevin Wilson. From the author of "The Family Fang" comes this story about a woman hired to bee a nanny to two children who catch on fire when angry. Wilson has written 3 novels now, all of them strange and all of them compelling. The narrator is not a likable person, but you are soon rooting for her and the these bizarre twins. Not as good as "The Family Fang", which I loved, but still very good.  

6. Sol Majestic by Ferrett Steinmetz. A wonderfully humorous science fiction novel about the greatest restaurant in the Galaxy. A destitute teen guru wins a meal at The Sol Majestic, the most renown and expensive restaurant in known space. The owner and chef change his life, setting him off down a very different road. This novel is good science fiction and displays a love of food not often found in fiction. This one made me cry and laugh out loud.

7. The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal. The first in a planned trilogy of alternate history novels, it won the 2018 Hugo and Nebula for Best Novel. in 1952, a meteorite strike wipes out most of the East Coast of the US and triggers climate change that will end life on Earth in the near future. This speeds up the space race and the US starts using female astronauts in the 1960s. This story is told by a mathematician that becomes one of the first. I also very much enjoyed "The Fated Sky", the second book in the series. The third one is due out in 2020.

8. Never Have I Ever by Joshilyn Jackson. I have read everyone of Joshilyn Jackson's books and they have all been very good. My favorite is still "The Almost Sisters", but this one is excellent too. "Never Ever Have I Ever" is Jackson's first true thriller and she knocks it out of the park. Amy Whey is happy with her normal life in a nice neighborhood. Then one might, a new person intrudes on the local book club and she seems to know things about Amy that no one else does. Filled with twists and turns and SCUBA diving, it was a fun read.

9. The Dreamers by Karen Thompson Walker. "The Age of Miracles" by Walker was one of the most original post-apocalyptic novels I have read. Her new novel has been on several Best Of lists for this year. A small community in California is decimated by a mysterious illness that causes people to go to sleep and not wake up. Walker's novels are elevated by her beautiful writing, I very much look forward to more books from her.  

10. The Rosie Result by Graeme Simsion. This is the final book in a trilogy that started with "The Rosie Project". It follows the improbable romantic and family life of Don, a college professor who is very high on the spectrum. While the second book was a bit of a disappointment, Simsion came roaring back with this finale. Don is trying to deal with his 11 year old son who is having trouble fitting in at school. It is very fulfilling to see this character grow so much from a beginning where he could barely deal with other people.    

     The first two books on my list are the 2 that will stick with me for a long time. Honorable mentions to "Where the Crawdads Sing", "The River", "Orange World", "The Chain", and "Lost and Found". My favorite non-fiction book of the year was "The Five" by Hallie Rubenhold. It is the story of the 5 women killed by Jack the Ripper, but it is also the story of life for the very poor in Victorian London. It is gut wrenching at times, none of the 5 women are quite as portrayed in Ripper books. 

.    And the worst book I read this year was "48 Hours" by William Fortschen, an apocalyptic story about how people react to a coming electrical storm. It wasn't horrible, just really boring.  

Top 10 Books of 2018

   Yes, I am actually trying to get this done before the end of the year (Well, that didn't happen). Pretty good, considering I just posted my Best of 2017 list a few days ago! I read 71 books this year, averaging 1.36 books a week. This was 5 titles less than the goal of 75 I had set for myself. My number one pick was an add one, but one that really resonated with me. It got good reviews when it came out, but I haven't seen it on any Best Books lists for the year. In fact, the only book on my list that has been on several Best Of lists is my 9 choice.

1. Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata. I read a review of this in "Publishers Weekly" and thought it sounded pretty interesting. I'm very glad that I decided to try it, because I loved it. Murata tells the story of 36 year old Keiko who has been working in the same Tokyo convenience store for 18 years. Registering somewhere on the autism spectrum, she has never fit in with her family, friends, or schoolmates till she starts working here. All the rules for working in the store and interacting with customers and coworkers are laid out in the employee manual. It is only when she starts to deviate from her established life to make others happy that she starts to have problems. I adored Keiko and was rooting for her on every page to make the best decisions for her own life.

2. Elevation by Stephen King. This is just a novella by the King of Horror, but has jumped into my top 3 of his works. It's not horror at all, in fact, it most reminded my of some of Ray Bradbury's best fantasy. Scott Carey is losing weight, but he doesn't look any thinner. He has decisions to make, including in whom to confide. This is a moving story of friendships, old and new, and determining your own fate.

3. Binti by Nnedi Okorafor  Another novella, this one won the Hugo and Nebula Awards a few years ago, although I just discovered it. Binti is a young woman from an African tribe who had been accepted into the most prestigious university in the galaxy. Her unique skills are needed when problems arise on the trip there. This is the first in a series of 3 stories and I look forward to trying the other two..

4. He - John Connolly  A fictional look at the life of Stan Laurel, half of  possibly the greatest comedy duo ever. The book starts in the beach house Stan lived the last years of his life in and is told through a series of flashbacks. This is definitely not a sugar coated look at his life, he was not wonderful human being, but neither was he a bad guy. And you can definitely feel the love he had for his partner, Oliver Hardy. Although not based on this book, I'm now looking forward to seeing the Laurel and Hardy biopic coming out this year.

5. Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers  This is the final book in a science fiction trilogy that started with Long Way To A Small Planet, which was on my Top 10 last year. All three books are very well done and extremely readable, although only loosely connected. 

6. Varina by Charles Frazier  Frazier has now written 4 novels, 3 of them have finished on my Top 10 lists over the years. I love his writing, it's very descriptive. This is the story of Varina, the wife of Jefferson Davis. It mostly concentrates on her escape from Richmond at the end of the Civil War, but her whole history with Davis is covered in flashbacks. She was a very interesting person and not at all what you would expect from the wife of the leader of the Confederacy.  

7. The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah A damaged Vietnam vet moves his wife and teen daughter to a small town in Alaska to live off the grid in 1974. Things go smoothly for a short time, then the father starts to deteriorate.

8. Irontown Blues by John Varley  John Varley is one of my favorite SF writers. His books harken back to the classic science fiction of the 1940s-1960s, but still feels fresh. This is essentially a noir thriller featuring a private detective living on the moon who is hired by a beautiful young woman. She has been infected with an engineered virus and wants to know why. Needless to say, his investigation leads to deeper and darker secrets.

9. There There by Tommy Orange  This is the only book on my list that is on multiple big name Best of lists. This is a slowly developing story about a large group of Native Americans in the Oakland area. As the book progresses the characters are heading to a final resolution a the city pow-wow. 

10. Noir by Christopher Moore  More noir, for shore! This time it's Christophe Moore's take on a noir novel so you know it's going to be wacky. The story involves a beautiful dame, gangsters, mystics in Chinatown, deadly snakes, and possibly a little green man. I laughed all the way through this book.  

   Overall, it wasn't a great year for reading for me. The first two books on my list are the 2 that will stick with me for a long time. The others were good, and I really enjoyed reading them, but I doubt I will remember a lot about them a few years down the road. 
    And the worst book I read this year was "The Man From the Train" by Bill & Rachel James, a true crime novel about a serial killer that operated in middle American between 1898 and 1912. There's fascinating stuff here, but the way the authors tell the story just drove me crazy - it was all conversational and quite disjointed.  

Top 10 Books of 2017

    For whatever reason, I never posted my best books of 2017 even though I had put the list together. I'm not going to go back and write reviews for them, but there is some good stuff here if you want to check them out.

1. The Almost Sisters by Joshilyn Jackson  Amid chaos in her extended family's life, a comic book creator finds out she is unexpectedly pregnant. I have enjoyed everyone of Jackson's novels, but this one is easily her best. Funny and touching, this shows what family really means.  
2. My Absolute Darling - Gabriel Tallent  An absolutely brutal punch to the gut. Hard to read, but the fantastic writing makes it worth the read. Fourteen year old Julia lives in a ramshackle house with her mentally ill, paranoid father. I don't often read books because of the blurbs, but when Stephen King calls something a masterpiece, I'm interested. 
3. Sourdough - Robin Sloan  From the author of "Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore", an earlier favorite of mine, comes this humorous story of a sourdough starter that seems to have special powers.
4. Long Way To A Small Planet - Becky Chambers  This is the first in a science fiction trilogy that I really enjoyed. It felt old fashioned (in a good way) and thoroughly modern at the same time.
5. News of the World - Paulette Jiles A short novel about a post Civil War former Army Captain trying to return a young girl that had been a captive of the Kiowa for several years to her surviving family.   
6. Celine - Peter Heller  Celine is a 68 year old, ill private detective traveling across the US in a motor home on the track of a criminal with her husband. Based on Heller's real mother, who worked for the FBI and became a detective late in life.
7. Beartown - Fredrick Backman  I am a huge fan of Backman and while this is his best written book, it is dark and depressing. It is the story of a small town in Sweden and it's love and how much it depends on it's youth hockey team.
8. Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann  The best non=fiction I read this year. The story of the Osage Indians of Oklahoma in the 1920's. When oil was discovered on their land, speculators & con men did everything they could to take it away from them.
9. Strange Weather - Joe Hill  Four short fantasy novels, all good, but one of which I am still thinking about almost 2 years later.
10. The Force - Don Winslow  Fantastic antihero thriller about a group of bad cops and their attempts to hang on to their ill gotten games. 

    And the book I couldn't stand this year was "George & Lizzie" by Nancy Pearl. She may be a great librarian, but this romantic comedy of a book was just dreadful.

Top 10 Books of 2016

     Hey, January is almost over, it must be time for my top 10 list! I read 75 books this year, averaging 1.44 books a week. This was 5 titles more than last year's total. I got a lot more reading done the last month or so of the year then I had been averaging earlier. My number one pick was an easy choice and I'm excited to have found a great new author, at least in my opinion. I'm still reading at least 90% of my books on my Nook, I think I only read 3 or 4 physical books this year.

1. A Man Called Ove by Frederik Backman. I discovered Backman when a coworker at the bookstore raved about "My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She's Sorry". I got a copy, read it, and absolutely loved it. I followed that up with "A Man Called Ove" and a few months later "Britt-Marie Was Here" when it was released. I'm going to cheat here and include all three of those books as my number one book of the year. Overall, "A Man Called Ove" was easily my favorite book of the year. The book made me laugh and cry out loud and I was thoroughly pissed when it was over that it wasn't longer. Ove is a widowed curmudgeon who wants nothing more to be left alone. As he comes into his neighbors as he goes about his well established routines, we learn his back story and how he came to be the man he is today. I highly recommend this book and the Swedish film that was made from it as well. Backman's other 2 books are wonderful reads also - "Britt-Marie Was Here" is a sequel to "My Grandmother.."

2. Good Morning Midnight by Lily Brooks-Dalton. An absolutely beautifully written book. Something apocalyptic has happened to mankind, the only survivors we know of are a 78 year old scientist at an Arctic observatory and 6 astronauts headed back to Earth after an expedition to Jupiter. None of them know what has happened, their were rumors of impending war and then nothing - no radio signals, no signs of life at all. Sully, the female communications officer on board the Aether, and Augie, the scientist stranded in the Arctic, have much in common. There is hope that somehow they will be able to communicate with each other. I can't remember ever reading a book with such a profound sense of loneliness, it make my heart ache. But it is a fantastic book and I am glad that I read it.  

3. The Fireman by Joe Hill. "The Fireman" is an excellent look at a fascinating core of characters after a disease has decimated the world. It is easily comparable to his father's book "The Stand", in my opinion. A horrible plague is spreading quickly across the country. Everyone calls it Dragonscale, and it's a highly contagious spore that produces gold & black marks on their bodies and eventually causes them to burst into flames. An infected nurse and a fireman work together to help a camp of victims survive and find a place of safety. I love Stephen King's books, but this is the second straight book from his son that is as good as most of his.      

4. To The Bright Edge Of The World by Eowyn Ivey. Absolutely beautiful tale of an Alaskan exploration mission by a small American Army group. The story is told in a series of letters, diaries, and newspaper articles. Three stories are going on at once - Colonel Allen Forester, the leader of the expedition; Sophie, the pregnant wife he has left alone at army outpost; and two modern characters writing each other about the history of the expedition. All three stories are wonderfully told and there is a beautiful sense of nature and the religion & mythology of the Alaskan Indians. There are many parts of this book that I will remember for a long time.

5. The Nix by Nathan Hill. In my original review of this book several months ago, I said "The Nix" was a very good book that could have been a great one if it was about 100 pages shorter. While I still won't say it was a great book, it was very good and I now think that the length was just right. It has been  several months since I finished it, but I keep thinking about it. Samuel Andresen-Anderson is a 30something small college English professor whose mother abandoned his family when he was 11. Some 20 years later she reemerges when she is filmed throwing rocks at an ultra conservative presidential candidate. He begins a journey to find out all he can about her life, trying to understand why she left him and how she got to this place. Part of Sam's back story is that he obsessed with a World of Warcraft type online game. The first review I read of this book described it as a mix of John Irving and Michael Chabon and I think that it lives up to that. Nathan Hill is an author well worth watching. 

6. Moonglow by Michael Chabon. Speaking of Michael Chabon, here he is with one of his best. He takes the life of his grandfather and turns it into intriguing fiction. Chabon is the narrator here and he has flown to his mother's home to spend time with his terminally ill grandfather. As he sits with him, his grandfather starts telling him stories from his life. Those stories take us from prewar Philadelphia to London and Germany during WWII; from a prison in New York to working with NASA during the latter days of the space race; and finally to a retirement community in Florida where he takes on a giant reptile eating the neighborhood pets. It's all a heartwarming and sad story of a man's life and some 80 years of American history.       .

7. The Last One by Alexandra Oliva. Zoo is a contestants on "In the Dark", a survival reality TV set in the wilderness of the Northeast. She, the other contestants, and the production crew are cut off from, the rest of the world while they are filming. Unknown to them, a pathogen hits that begins to kill off most of world’s population. Zoo is working alone and has no idea what has happened. She thinks the desolation and death that she sees are just tableaux set up by the production team of the show. Oliva is an wonderful writer and Zoo's thoughts on life and society as she begins to realize what is happening are gripping.

8. North Water by Ian McGuire. An excellent literary thriller set on board a 19th century British whaling ship. There's a killer aboard and although we pretty much know who it is, the story is still tight and exciting. Be warned that the storytelling is graphic and gory.  

9. The Road To Jonestown by Jeff Guinn. Meticulously researched, but fascinating look at Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple from their founding in Indiana to their tragic end in Guyana. I knew the basics of this story, but I learned so much from reading this book. Jones and his church did a lot of good for many years, before things started to spiral out of control. Highly recommended, but you will have to wait until April for it's release.

10. Morning Star by Pierce Brown. Fantastic conclusion to the "Red Rising" trilogy. I can't say enough about this science fiction trilogy. The publisher marketed it as Young Adult, but the author was nominated for a Hugo Award for the first book. It's possible to make a few comparisons to "The Hunger Games", but I feel that these books are much better than those.

     Other books that I loved this year were "Devotion" by Adam Makos (a great nonfiction story of two pilots in the Korean War), "Curioddity" by Paul Jenkins (a Douglas Adams like private eye adventure), "Everyone Brave Is Forgiven" by Chris Cleave (a moving WWII story set during the London Blitz), "The Wonder" by Emma Donoghue (a nurse investigating a possible miracle in 19th century Ireland), "Dark Matter" by Blake Crouch (a thrilling parallel world SF story), "The City Of Mirrors" by Justin Cronin (very good wrap-up to The Passage trilogy), and "Orphan X " by Gregg Hurwitz (start of a great new thriller series). I'm not sure if I read "Fortune Smiles" by Adam Johnson in 2016 or 2016, but it is an amazing collection of short stories by the author "The Orphan master's Son".
     And finally, the book that I most disliked this year - "Security" by Gina Wohlsdorf. It was a pretty mediocre thriller and I was contemplating just giving upon it. Then I read this paragraph and decided I just didn't have time for this. "Brian's and Tessa's laughter has calmed. They're each looking off in an imagined distance. They share a past. They're watching it like a movie. Brian knew Tessa when she was young and innocent. If he was remotely decent, he guarded that innocence, as did his stupid dead twin brother, but then they abandoned her, both of them, so what right does he have to steal an eyeful of Tessa like the sight of her is a nutrient of which he's been deprived."
 

Top 10 Books of 2015

   I read 70 books this year, averaging 1.35 books a week. This was 11 titles down from last year's total. I'm not sure if my reading speed is coming down with age or I just read more books this year that are a bit slower to get through. I felt like I read some really good books this year, but nothing that just blew me away like last year's "All the Light We Cannot See".

1. Our Souls At Night by Kent Haruf. A beautifully written look at the friendship between a widow and widower in Holt, Colorado, the setting of "Plainsong" and several other of Haruf"s books. This was Haruf's last book before he died and that sense of mortality comes through in the writing. It starts with “And then there was the day when Addie Moore made a call on Louis Waters.” Addie is coming over to ask Louis to come over every now and then and sleep with her. Not for sex necessarily, but just for the warmth & companionship, to hold hands and not talk at all. They become the best of friends and the relationship grows until some people become embarrassed by it. This is a book that has stayed with me. Parts of this book keep popping into my head more than 6 months after I finished it. A film is in development and Robert Redford and Jane Fonda are rumored to be interested.

2. Golden Sun by Pierce Brown. By far the most exciting book that I read in 2016, "Golden Son" is a follow-up to "Red Rising", a book that I really enjoyed last year. But this one blew me away, one of the best space operas I have ever read. Epic in scale, but with characters that I really liked and rooted for. Having fully infiltrated the Gold ruling class, Darrow continues to try to bring down the society from within. There were times reading this book that I remember actually gasping out loud, it is so filled with twists and surprises. I missed this one as soon as I finished it. "Morning Star", the final book in the trilogy is due out next month - I can't wait!

3. Undermajordomo Minor by Patrick DeWitt. While this may not be quite as good as DeWitt's "The Sisters Brother", it doesn't miss by much. This is kind of a fairy tale, at times laugh out loud funny, at times very dark and twisted. Think of a very dark, R rated "The Princess Bride". Lucien "Lucy" Minor is a compulsive liar, a skinny wimp in Bury, a small town full of brutish giants. He accepts a job sight unseen as the assistant to the majordomo of the remote and frightening Castle Von Aux. While learning his new job , he finds the castle and nearby village are full of dark secrets and strange inhabitants. Once I got into the book, I was grinning ear to ear from beginning to end.

4. Fortune Smiles by Adam Johnson. An amazing collection of short stories from the Pulitzer Prize winning author of "The Orphan Master's Son". Every single story in the volume is a winner, a rarity in collections like this. They will either tug at your heart or punch you in the gut, sometimes both. George Orwell Was A Friend Of Mine, the story of a former STASI prison warden trying to explain to people of a unified German what and why he did, is probably my favorite of the bunch. All the stories here are highly recommended. National Book Award winner for 2015.

5. Dead Wake by Erik Larson. Easily the best non-fiction I read in 2015, this is an excellent look at the last voyage of the Lusitania. Larson does a remarkable job of bringing the passengers and crew of the liner alive and shows the long list of coincidences that brought her and the German U-boat together off the coast of Ireland. Even though I knew the fate of the ship, I was still holding my breath at the end, hoping that passengers that I had come to know would survive.

6. The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson. While not perfect, this is the first book that I have read that feels like it deserves the too often used description "the next Gone Girl". Alternating narrators, a big twist halfway through the book, and a "villain" that you find yourself rooting for. Two strangers meet in a London airport and through a friendly discussion decide to kill the wife of one of them. I really liked that the book could surprise me (several times) and make me feel sympathetic for a cold blooded killer. In my opinion, much better than the overrated "The Girl On The Train", I was happy to see it finish on the "Entertainment Weekly" Best Books of 2015 list.

7. Into The Savage Country by Shannon Burke. Outstanding short novel about a fur trader in the American West of the 1820s. William Wyeth leaves St. Louis on a fur trapping expedition. Things don't go as planned and he ends up facing off with Native American tribes, the British government, and other American trapping groups. Featuring exciting action and beautiful descriptions of nature, "Savage Country" reminded me of Phillips Meyer's "The Son". I just saw "The Revenant" at the theater and this book makes an excellent companion piece to that film.

8. Trigger Warning by Neil Gaiman. I am still way behind in my Gaiman, this is only the third of his books that I have read. But I loved this collection of stories, featuring a little bit of everything. There is Click-Clack the Rattlebag, a story you should definitely not read right before trying to go to sleep. It features a Dr. Who story, a Sherlock Holmes tale, and a story that is a wonderful tribute to Ray Bradbury. The Return of the Thin White Duke is a homage to David Bowie, one of Gaiman's heroes.

9. Paradise Sky by Joe Lansdale. As a kid and well into my twenties I hated Westerns. "Lonesome Dove", "The Searchers", and Elmer Kelton made me a little more open to that genre. But it is still a surprise to me to find two books that could be considered Westerns on this list. "Paradise Sky" is the fictionalized story of the somewhat legendary African American cowboy known as Deadwood Dick. Joe Lansdale is a hell of a storyteller, and his "The Thicket" is one of the best adventure novels I have read over the last few years. "Paradise Sky" is almost that good and I wish it had been even longer, I was sorry to see it end.

10. Descent by Tim Johnston. A hard book to categorize. The first half is a depressing as anything I have read in a very long time. While out on a run with her little brother, Caitlin Courtland disappears in the Rocky Mountains. Enough of a downer that I wasn't sure I was going to finish it, but halfway through the story the book makes a fascinating turn and turns into a different type of book. I loved the second half of the story, it managed to surprise me and I love that in a book.

    Other books that I loved this year were "Make Me" by Lee Child (one of the best Jack Reacher thrillers), "Funny Girl" by Nick Hornby (a funny look at the life of a comedienne on British TV), "The Book Of Aron" by Jim Shepard (a sad but sometimes funny child's eye view of the Warsaw ghetto in WWII). "The Alex Crow" is another quirky, confusing, but vastly entertaining YA book from Andrew Smith. "Sweetland" by Michael Crummey is the genre-crossing tale of a man living a lonely life on an isolated Canadian island.
     And finally, the book that I most disliked this year - "The Girl On The Train" by Paula Hawkins. This bestselling book, touted as the next "Gone Girl", this is at best an average thriller about the murder of a young woman in London. Told though the narration of three women, one the eventual victim. I was somewhat bored by the whole thing, although I will admit the identity of the killer was a surprise. The story only worked because one of the characters suffered from blackouts, which seemed gimmickry.
     And I was very disappointed in the new John Irving novel, "The Avenue of Mysteries". John Irving may well be my favorite living author, many of his books have struck a real nerve in me and have stuck with me many years after finishing them. This wasn't one of  those, Still, even a weak John Irving is still a good read and I'm glad that I read it. The main character is a bestselling author that grew up in as an orphan in Mexico. The book switches back and forth between that time and the present in which he is taking a trip to the Philippines.

Half Year Report

    Just a quick rundown of a few of my favorite reads for the first half of the year. No in depth reviews here, just a couple of notes about them. In the order I read them, earliest first.

1. Golden Son by Pierce Brown. A follow-up to "Red Rising", a book that I read last year & really enjoyed. This is the second book in a trilogy and it really blew me away, it is one of the best space operas I have ever read. Epic in scale, but with characters that I really liked and rooted for. This is the kind of book that I missed as soon as I finished. 

2. Descent by Tim Johnston. A hard book to categorize. The first half is a depressing as anything I have read in a very long time. While out on a run with her little brother, Caitlin Courtland disappears in the Rocky Mountains. Enough of a downer that I wasn't sure I was going to finish it, but halfway through the story the book makes a fascinating turn. I loved the second half of the book, it managed to surprise me and I love that in a book.

3. The Kind Worth Killing - Peter Swanson. While not perfect, this is the first book that I have read that feels like it deserves the oft used description "the next Gone Girl". Alternating narrators, a big twist halfway through the book, and a "villain" that you find yourself rooting for. Two strangers meet in a London airport and through a friendly discussion decide to kill the wife of one of them. I really liked that the book could surprise me (several times) and make me feel sympathetic for a cold blooded killer.

4. Dead Wake - Erik Larson. Excellent look at the last voyage of the Lusitania. Larson does a remarkable job of bringing the passengers and crew of the liner alive and shows the long list of coincidences that brought her and the German U-boat together off the coast of Ireland.

5. Into the Savage Country - Shannon Burke. Outstanding short novel about a fur trader in the American West of the 1820s. Exciting action and beautiful descriptions. Reminded me of Phillips Meyer's "The Son". I grew up hating Westerns - wouldn't read or watch them, but now this period of American history has become fascinating to me.

6. Our Souls at Night - Kent Haruf. A beautifully written look at the friendship between a widow and widower in a small town in Colorado. Kent Haruf's "Plainsong" and "Eventide" are two of my favorite books and this is a beautiful conclusion to those stories. This was his last book before he died and that sense of mortality comes through in the writing. This is a book that has stayed with me, I keep thinking about parts of it for no reason. One of the best of the year.

   A few other titles of note - "The Killing Season" by Mason Cross is a thriller for fans of Lee Child. "The Alex Crow" is another quirky, confusing, but vastly entertaining YA book from Andrew Smith. "Sweetland" by Michael Crummey is the genre-crossing tale of a man living a lonely life on an isolated Canadian island.

My Top 10 Horror Novels

     I was shelving books in the bookstore and saw a book by Dan Simmons that reminded me how much I enjoyed his book "The Terror." That set me off on thinking about some of my favorite horror novels. So I put together a short list to post here. These are roughly in the order that I first read them from the earliest to the latest. I hope you enjoy it and maybe find some good reading material here.

1. Salem's Lot by Stephen King. This is the first novel that I can remember reading that really scared me. I was a freshmen in college and a friend asked if I had read anything by Stephen King. I had not and was only barely aware of him as an author (at that point, he only had 3 or 4 books out). So I gave this vampire tale a try and was soon enthralled in the story and characters. In it, a writer returns to the town he grew up in only to find it being taken over by vampires. I read the book in 2 days and became a King fan for life. In several interviews, King has said that this is his favorite of all his books.

2. Red Dragon by Thomas Harris. Technically, this may not be a horror novel, but it is a book that gave me the creeps and is one of the greatest thrillers ever written. "Silence of the Lambs" is a wonderful book, but I like Will Graham as a main character much better than Clarice Starling. I am fascinated by Graham's ability to walk through a crime scene and get into the mindset of a killer. This plot device is somewhat common now, but it was pretty revolutionary in 1981. I have reread this book several times and it always captures my imagination and creeps me out. There is one scene where Graham climbs a tree behind the victims' home and finds a vital clue that has stayed with me all these years.

3. Ghost Story by Peter Straub. I really enjoyed this story of four old men in Milburn, NY that accidently committed a horrible act in their youth that has come back to haunt them. The book is very atmospheric and slips seamlessly between the two time periods. We see how these four men act and react to what happened and it's eventual consequences. "Ghost Story" is another book that has scenes that stick with me decades after I read it. Straub has written some other very strong horror novels over the years.

4. The Mist by Stephen King. Actually just a novella, but it packs a hell of a punch. Soon after a powerful thunderstorm passes over a secret military installation, a mysterious mist spread across the countryside near a small town in Maine. When some of the characters drive into town for supplies, they are trapped with several others in a grocery store that becomes enveloped in the mist. There are "things" alive in the mist and they start trying to get to the people inside the store. The situation brings out the best and worst in people as they try to cope and decide whether to stay or attempt an escape. Along with "11/22/63" (not really a horror story), this is my favorite of all of King's works.

5. The Ruins by Scott Smith. I use to tell people that this was the best Stephen King novel not written by King. It is the story of 6 young people on vacation in Mexico that follow a map to a mysterious ruins in the jungle. Of course, there is something very evil that guards the ruins and horrible things start to happen to the visitors one by one. The "monster" here is at first glance somewhat silly, but when you start to realize what it can do, it becomes horrifying. It was made into a pretty bad film.

6. Nightrunners by Joe Lansdale. Only his second novel, this is not Lansdale's best book, but the circumstances under which I read it put it on this list. "Nightrunners" is the story of a bunch of vicious teens in a 1966 Chevy terrorizing the countryside. This violent, scary, and occasionally funny book is considered one of the first splatterpunk novels. The main reason this book makes my list is that I read most of it one night in a tent while camping. I read it late into the night and when I turned out the lantern, every sound outside the tent was almost certainly a teenager with a very large knife. There was not much sleep that night for me...

7. lost boy, lost girl by Peter Straub. This novel introduces us to a a middle-aged writer trying to help his brother Philip and nephew, Mark, after the suicide of Philip's wife, Nancy. There is a possibly haunted house, a serial killer preying on children, and a lost girl. Mark goes missing and Tim and Philip work together to find him before he disappears forever. The fact that the book involves children as victims and a terrifying mix of real and supernatural horrors has made it one that I have no desire to read again, but that stays with me.

8. The Terror by Dan Simmons. A hugely entertaining mix of historical fiction and horror. Based on the real life disappearance of two British ships of an 1845 Arctic expedition, Simmons brings in something very scary out on the ice that is slowly picking off the men. The mixture of the loneliness of the Arctic ice with the horrors of Inuit mythology bring a real sense of dread to this work. At over 700 pages, this was one of the books that got me started on e-books.

9. The Passage by Justin Cronin. First in a series of three books, the second book "The Twelve" is also very good (I'm still waiting impatiently for the final book to come out). "The Passage" is set in current times when a highly contagious virus begins turning people into beings that have some of the same characteristics of vampires. The book then jumps into the future where these creatures have overrun America. A small band of humans try to make it cross country to a rumored place of safety. This was close to being my number one book of 2010.

10. NOS4A2 by Joe Hill. Stephen King has two sons who also write, Owen King doesn't really do horror, but his one novel, "Double Feature", was quite good. Joe Hill, on the other hand, is proving himself as an excellent horror author. His first novel, "Heart Shaped Box", is about an aging rocker who buys a haunted suit; and his second book, "Horns", was recently adapted as a film starring Daniel Radcliffe. My favorite is his newest novel, "NOS4A2", which is the story of Victoria McQueen, a girl with the power to take shortcuts through another dimension to get places. Later in life she needs to use this power to try to save her son from Charles Manx, a frighteningly memorable villain. Manx drives around in his 1938 Rolls-Royce, offering to take unhappy children to Christmasland, where he says nothing bad ever happens. For me this book was every bit as epic, as King's "It", whose Pennywise the clown Manx reminded me of.

As a bonus pick, I think the "non-fiction" book "The Amityville Horror" scarred a whole generation of readers. Reading it while alone in the house on a very windy night with a large tree just outside the window didn't help. Jodie the pig and clouds of flies always seem to be just at the edge of my vision, making me hesitate to turn and look. I hope you try a few of these and they don't cause you to lose too much sleep.