The Reading Challenge Group discussion

As they year comes to a close, take a moment to share your favorite reads from the last 365 days.

My favorites were (in no particular order):

The Circle by Dave Eggers
S. by J.J. Abrams and Doug Dorst
The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

I had more 5 stars, but these three were certainly the best of the year for me.

Girl With a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Letters of a Woman Homesteader by Elinore Pruitt Stewart were my only five star reads this year.

I also enjoyed these four star (not quite five star) books:

Bring Up the Bodies
The Age of Miracles
Euphoria
Circling the Sun
Go Set a Watchman
Letters from Father Christmas

My top 3 in no particular order:

Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir
Gone with the Wind
Jane Eyre

The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas
Under the Lilacs by Louisa May Alcott
One of Ours by Willa Cather

Not including any re-reads:

Boudica: Dreaming the Eagle by Manda Scott
Boudica: Dreaming the Bull by Manda Scott
Dreaming the Hound by Manda Scott
Dreaming the Serpent Spear by Manda Scott

Rome: The Emperor's Spy by M.C. Scott
Rome: The Coming of the King by M.C. Scott
Rome: The Eagle of the Twelfth by M.C. Scott
Rome: The Art of War by M.C. Scott

A Year of Ravens: A Novel of Boudica's Rebellion by Ruth Downie et al

The Secret History: A Novel of Empress Theodora by Stephanie Thornton
The Tiger Queens: The Women of Genghis Khan by Stephanie Thornton

Beneath a Marble Sky by John Shors
Temple of a Thousand Faces by John Shors

The First Man in Rome by Colleen McCullough
The Grass Crown by Colleen McCullough
Fortune's Favorites by Colleen McCullough
Caesar's Women by Colleen McCullough

The Serpent and the Pearl by Kate Quinn
The Lion and the Rose by Kate Quinn

Kate Quinn's Empress of Rome series

A Day of Fire: A Novel of Pompeii by Stephanie Dray et al

Jan Guillou's Crusades trilogy

Dances with Wolves by Michael Blake

Dance of the Tiger: A Novel of the Ice Age by Björn Kurtén

Dear and Glorious Physician by Taylor Caldwell

Brick Lane by Monica Ali

Into the Fire by Manda Scott

The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith
Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith

Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Terry Pratchett

Game of Queens: A Novel of Vashti and Esther

Simon Scarrow's Macro and Cato series (1-5 so far)

The Skystone by Jack Whyte plus the next 3 of a total of nine.

btw - that's about 1 in 10 of what I read.

These are mine so far by month, am still working on my December 2015 reads:

January -The Paragraph Ranch, Three Graves Full, To Curious Heights, The League of Protectors, Misery

February -The Wise Man's Fear,
Libriomancer, Codex Born, Empty Bodies: A Post-Apocalyptic Tale of Dystopian Survival, A Wrinkle in Time, Firefight

March -The Blue Castle, Little Brother, Suicide Forest, A Death, The Queen of the Tearling, A Monster Calls, Sirius

April -The Rosie Project, What the Night Knows, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, The Second Heart, Enzan: The Far Mountain: A Connor Burke Martial Arts Thriller, Living Hell ,Illusion,
My Life With The Walter Boys

May -Warbreaker, Room ,Before I Go To Sleep, The Crane Wife, The Rithmatist, Circus Galacticus ,Born of Defiance, Island of the Blue Dolphins, Wildwood, The Adventures of an Imagination, Zero Is The Key, The Under Dog: A Short Story, The Shining, Divergent

June -Holy Cow: A Modern-Day Dairy Tale, The Isle of the Lost, Spook Lights: Southern Gothic Horror, May B., The Mother-Daughter Book Club, Skin Game, What Lies Within, Snitch, Rest In Pizza, The Girl with All the Gifts

July -Beastly, The Arabian Nights: Tales from a Thousand and One Nights, The Color Purple, Quick Silver, The Orion Ghost, Dying to Dream, The Christmas Train, The Zodiac Legacy: Convergence, Blue Dahlia, Boom Town

August -The Invasion of the Tearling, The Last Princess, Much Ado About Anne, Ordinary Grace, Bone Cold, Warriors of the Black Shroud, Unbound

September -Cinnamon, Gregor the Overlander, Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane,The Wednesday Wars, The Light That Failed

October -The Halloween Tree, The Sorrows, Draculas

November -So...I Survived the Zombie Apocalypse and All I Got Was This Podcast, The Genius Wars, Dear Pen Pal, Pies & Prejudice, Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods, The Day the Crayons Came Home

Cinder is very good

Definitely my favorite of 2015 is The Martian

The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics
Little Women
Burial Rites
The Nightingale
The Luminaries
Cloud Atlas
The Paris Wife
The Rosie Project
Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter

I think the books that stood out the most to me this year were The Rest of Us Just Live Here and Reasons to Stay Alive (for very personal reasons).

Going to have to say Life After Life and the Thames Gateway trilogy by Nicola Barker (Wide Open, Behindlings, Darkmans) because they were unlike anything I've ever read before.

I haven't read nearly as much as I did last year, which is both disappointing but understanding. Nevertheless, I've read some amazing books this year!

My favourites definitely include: Stoner, Ready Player One, The Martian, Pansy Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore.

Notable mentions are: A Room of One's Own, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Wool and Woman on the Edge of Time

my top 10
The Martian Andy Weir
The Left Hand of Darkness Ursula K. Le Guin
A Canticle for Leibowitz Walter M. Miller Jr.
The City & the City China Miéville
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell Susanna Clarke
Ancillary Justice Ann Leckie
Under the Greenwood Tree Thomas Hardy (love the language, and it gives my list something besides SF&F)
Not Less Than Gods Kage Baker (loved it in context of the Company series)
Redshirts John Scalzi (nudged out Pohl's The Space Merchants and even Iain M. Banks, which I know is very unsmart of me)
The Gods Themselves Isaac Asimov (I gave this 5*s for the same sort of reason I did The Martian... "inspirational" comes to mind, though less unconditionally/ obviously)

Had fun finally finishing the Harry Potter series this year. I'm still trying to make the Dr. Siri series last (starts with The Coroner's Lunch by Colin Cotterill).

Emma by Jane Austen (finally read!)
Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison
All Involved by Ryan Gattis

My top three. Not necessarily in that order.