Our Favorite Reads of Last Year
It seems that everyone is always looking for a good book, and this morning we were discussing good books in the office and I said “Hey guys, I’m gonna make this today’s post!”- also because I’m still foggy from the stomach bug I had and did not have any other good ideas, to be honest. So here are some titles collected from everyone in the office, which is great because our interests in literature vary by subject, of the best things we read in the past year or so. Not all the titles are new, but perhaps ones you haven’t read yet! I just finished The Perfect Nanny, which holy sh*t guys, DO NOT read if you employ a nanny, and started Educated by Tara Westover, which has been lauded by everyone. So please share your favorites in comments so we can get a great list going!
Click titles or images for links!
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo- by Taylor Jenkins Reid
The Alice Network by Kate Quinn
The Book of M by Peng Shepherd
The Woman in the Window by A. J. Finn
(side note- I am SO EXCITED for this movie!)
One Day In December by Josie Silver
The Art Forger by B.A. Shapiro
You’ll Grow Out of It by Jessie Klein
The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah
The Storytellers Secret by Sejal Badani
Station 11 by Emily St. John Mandel
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
And some of my personal old faves that you should add to your list if you have not read: Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese, My Notorious Life by Kate Manning, I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes, The Bullet by Mary Louise Kelly, The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah, The Silent Sister by Diane Chamberlain, Little Bee by Chris Cleave, The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom, Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline, All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberley McCreight, The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert, Defending Jacob by William Landay.
Your turn! :)
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Browse:
White Fur (only half way through but such interesting writing – I’m so excited to get back to it every night)
and thanks for this list and all the comments – def saving!
Tiger Pelt by Annabelle Kim
All time favorites: Ahab’s Wife, A Prayer for Owen Meany, A Gentleman From Moscow, Elegance of the Hedgehog. Recently loved: Transcription (and everything else by Late Atkinson is brilliant), Forest Dark (amazing), Vanessa and her Sister, and the four Elena Ferrante gems (you can watch My Brilliant Friend, the first, on HBO). Love lists like this–thank you!!
The Map of Salt and Stars by Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar – there are two stories; one relatively current, the other in the 1100’s and they are woven together around the Mediterranean. This book is an exotic escape with strong female characters – my favorite book of 2018.
I love every book written by Ann Patchett – she is a national treasure!
Daisy Jones and the Six…the audio version is outstanding!
Two all-time favorites, though not new Peace Like a River by Leif Enger, and Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier (the book is so much deeper and richer than the movie). Pretty much any Phillipa Gregory book, because I’m obsessed with English history, especially The Kingmaker’s Daughter and The Wise Woman.
The best fiction book I’ve read recently was The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne. I loved The Great Alone and The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah. I also really enjoyed Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult. In nonfiction, Educated A Memoir by Tara Westover and The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls are phenomenal.
Thank you! Great post! Love getting book recommendations!
What a fun post! I just finished “Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine” and it was one of my favorite books ever. I could not put it down. I also loved “Pillars of the Earth” by Ken Follett and “East of Eden” by Steinbeck. Those two were just beautifully written and fascinating stories.
I loved most of the books on this list! Thanks for sharing!
https://thegirlfromconnecticut.com
Maid by Stephanie Land – an eye-opening memoir that’s also a good read. Also, for a great page turner, everything written by Paula Daly.
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. Great story and a fascinating read to get the perspective of Korean immigrants in Japan.
Thank you EOS! Loved loved The Alice Network!
Thanks for the great post, I added some books to my summer reading list.
Just finished City of Thieves by David Benioff- so well written, also loved Book Thief, Kite Runner, Wild, The Wangs vs The World (why is this not a movie yet?) & Boys on the Boat
Hill Billy Elegy, Calypso by David Sideris, My Dear Hamilton, and about to start Varina- which our town chose to read as a community.
These are all great books! Excellent suggestions…
Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life is wonderful. If you like murder mysteries, Tana French’s Dublin murder squad novels are worth reading. Also, Stephen King’s The Mercedes Killer, its two sequels, & the more recent connected novel, The Outsider. Thanks, Erin, for this post—lots of titles for summer reading. (Along with your new book which I just ordered—can’t wait!!!)
Life after life is one of my all time favorites! Along with The Goldfinch, A Little Life (it’s HEAVY but breathtaking) and East of Eden. I also just read Maid which was a great memoir that felt very of the moment in how it portrays the working poor, welfare, single motherhood, etc.
I don’t very often read current books, but I recently read Educated and A Gentleman in Moscow. Loved them both but for very different reasons! I found Educated to be a compelling story and was motivated to read it by both my sister and an interview with the author that I heard on NPR. I recently heard there is going to be a movie made of A Gentleman in Moscow, so I wanted to read the book first….easy to understand its popularity!
I recommmend “Where’d You Go Bernadette?” and “The Gentleman From Moscow” and will definitely check out yours. Always need a good book on hand. I also highly recommend The Holy Bible.
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. Soon to be released as a film . I am a believer in always reading the book first. That way someone else’s imagination doesn’t impose itself on your own.
Thank you for adding to my Book Wish List- and I love your refreshing honesty!
One of my favorites, although not a new one, is Pictures of the Past by Deby Eisenberg.
“The Cartel” by Dan Winslow – not a feel good book, but so interesting!
” The absolutely true diary of a part-time Indian” by Sherman Alexie – very insightful.
“The house on Prague Street” by Hanna Demetz – a haunting story of a girl’s survival
“The good women of China” by Xinran – very captivating.
“The Prince of Mist” by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. – anything by Zafon (a Spanish writer from Barcelona) is good!
“The Moment” by Douglas Kennedy – a tragic and twisted love story in cold war Berlin
Thank you for this Great List!!
Topping my recommendation list:
The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner
Swing Time by Zadie Smith
Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney
Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty (crazy!!)
I second The Mars Room.
Hillbilly Elegy. Interesting and relevant.
I second that. After reading it, I do understand “poor America” much better.
I just finished “My Sweet Life in Paris” by David Leibowitz…very enjoyable and light, especially if you’re spending some time in Paris. I’m currently reading and really enjoying Ruth Reichl’s new book “Save Me the Plums.” I loved her other books “Garlic and Sapphires” and “Tender at the Bone.” I’m also listening to Frances Mayes “Women in Sunlight” – the first couple chapters are kind of slow but I’m enjoying it as an audiobook.
I just finished L’Appart, the sequel to the Sweet Life in Paris – also very good. Can’t wait to read Reichl’s new book!
Same Kind of Different as Me by Ron Hall & Denver Moore, The Tatooist of Aushawitz, Middlesex, East of Eden, Fall of Giants, One Thousand White Women.
A woman is No Man – really good! Nice to see so many books here on my to read list!
I really disliked ‘Educated’. Just a litany of terrible abusive incidents because the family were true believers in a god who was in charge. Also, her story of how she became educated was not believable. Either she left out crucial facts or she lied.
I highly recommend the novel, ‘There There’ by Tommy Orange.
I loved Educated! Most “true believers” would not create for their family such extreme dysfunction. I’d imagine she had to edit down the book as I found her educational path a bit confusing but I still recommend it highly. I also loved HILLBILLY ELEGY.
YAAAAS on a movie for Woman in the Window!! When I first read it I thought I would LOVE to see it made into a movie. Can’t wait!!
A Woman is No Man – very good! Nice to see some books here on my to read list!
Love these recommendations! I’m currently reading The Huntress by Kate Quinn (her follow-up novel after The Alice Network) some other recent good reads are The Book of Essie by Meghan MacLean, Something in the Water by Catherine Steadman, And then She was Gone by Lisa Jewell, The Other Woman by Sandie Jones. and Before We Were Yours by Lisa Winga.
Bad Blood by John Carryou!
Where’d you go Bernadette! I read two days on vacation and was laughing out loud shocking my four year old!
“Elements of Family Style” franki
Daisy Jones and the Six was fantastic, The Seven and a half Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle was fascinating, and I also second the other recs for the Great Believers and Eleanor Oliphant.
I enjoyed reading Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine. And am now reading The Lilac Girls.
The former one of my favorites of the last few years. Enjoyed Lilac Girls also and have the prequel on my list.
Molly’s Game. I saw the movie first and then read the book which never happens! But they were both excellent .
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith (who also wrote 101 Dalmatians)
For fun nonfiction, any of the books by Sloane Crosley (I Was Told There’d Be Cake), and both of Mindy Kaling’s books!
I Capture the Castle is wonderful!
Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss is so good. Beautifully written, concise, suspenseful. Layer after layer of plot and meaning … really incredible! It’s literary but also completely suspenseful, gets into gender dynamics, history, all in like 100 pages. It should win all the awards.
Have to say I hated Woman in the Window. It was a boring version of Sigourney Weaver’s 1995 movie Copycat. Like, legit – it fully copies Copycat with the agoraphobia, central character a female shrink hunted and watched in her own home. But Copycat was good, and Woman in the Window was … not. Ironic the movie is called “Copycat” given that this dude fully ripped it off!
Also, The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. Oh my goodness, the best book I’ve ever read!
Yes that was a good one, and soon to be a movie too!
Definitely need to add some of these to my library holds!
Paige
http://thehappyflammily.com
Absolutely anything by Elinor Lipman. My sister calls her style snappy. :)
I love a series I can sink my teeth into for several books in a row and have been working my way through Ellie Griffith’s Ruth Galloway series. She’s an archaeologist who assists in criminal investigations in and around her home in Norfolk, England. Smartly written, engaging characters and captivating story lines.
Yes!!! Isn’t this series wonderful!!!
Love this list. Educated by Tara Westover was really good too!
Love this post — and just added a few for my summer reading pile! My favorite this year was “The Great Believers” by Rebecca Makkai.
I just finished this last night and I can’t stop thinking about it! So beautiful and so sad. I cried telling my husband about it.
LOVED this book
Read the New Yorker article about AJ Finn, aka Dan Mallory.
That article was fascinating and made me wish I hadn’t paid to read the book.
Yes! That article was stranger than fiction!
YES – and I didn’t like the book to begin with (I thought that his characterizations were inconsistent and the writing was poor) but reading that article made me REALLY not like it! Fascinating reading.
The Wife Between Us was great! Also, The Flight Attendant and The Couple Next Door.