My 3000th Blog Post = My 21st Annual Recommended Reading List!

Every year since 1993, I’ve compiled a list of favorite books read during the year. What started as an insert to my holiday cards evolved into this blog, and over two decades later, the tradition continues.

In putting together this year’s list, I’ve noticed that it’s very heavy in very recent releases (five titles from 2012 alone) and marks the first time I’ve had husband and wife writers make the list (Geraldine Brooks and one of my favorite authors, Tony Horwitz.)

So here, in no particular order, I am pleased to present my twenty-first annual recommended reading list. Happy reading!

• Life After Life (2013)  Kate Atkinson
• The Dinner (2013)  Herman Koch
• The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007)  Sherman Alexie
• Code Name Verity (2012)  Elizabeth Wein
• Triburbia (2012)  Karl Taro Greenfeld
• The Long Road to Antietam: How the Civil War Became a Revolution (2012)  Richard Slotkin
• The Light Between the Oceans (2012) M.L. Stedman
• Caleb’s Crossing (2011) Geraldine Brooks
• Never Let Me Go (2010) Kazuo Ishiguro
• Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War (2011)  Tony Horwitz
• Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief (2013)  Lawrence Wright
• Gone Girl (2012)  Gillian Flynn
• Lady Audley’s Secret (1862)  Mary Elizabeth Braddon
• American Boy (2011)  Larry Watson

Click on the book title to see my review.

(Every year, I swear I’m going to write the book review shortly after reading the book and thereby avoid the end-of-year crunch of writing reviews. Obviously, I failed at that once again and rather than delay sending out my holiday cards, I decided to post the list here and fill it in as I go in the coming weeks. As full reviews are posted to the blog, I’ll update this list with links to each review.)