Around the Year in 52 Books discussion

One month to go in 2023! What was your best book of November?

Answer the following questions:

- Title
- Author
- Rating
- Format (Print, eBook, Audio)
- ATY Prompt you used it for (if applicable)
- Brief reason why it was the best

2023 Best Books Listopia

- Title: The Blood of Heaven
- Author: Kent Wascom
- Rating: 5 stars
- Format (Print, eBook, Audio): Kindle
- ATY Prompt you used it for (if applicable): N/A

- Brief reason why it was the best: I don't give out 5 stars very often, but this book deserved it. It is so eloquently written, it was hard to put down. Set in the early 1800's in what was then called "West Florida", it is the first of a three-part family saga. Incredible descriptions and details, characters that are well-developed. The author makes history come alive. Could be used for several of next year's prompts.

Two for me this month, both fantasy.

Title: The Rage of Dragons
Author: Evan Winters
Rating: 5 stars
Format: Print
Prompt: N/A ATY, PS Bought from an independent bookstore.
Why: Really gripping account of a young boy's desire for revenge, in pursuit of which he submits to dangerous to the point of deadly training. Despite my frustration with many of the main characters choices, I was so engaged with what was happening to him, and I think it's really a feat of great writing to be able to do that - "you make me so mad, but I can't quit you!".

Title: Starless
Author: Jacqueline Carey
Rating: 5 stars
Format: Print
Prompt: N/A ATY, PS Book recommended by a friend
Why: Another young person training to become a deadly and lethal fighter, this time in order to be able to protect the Sun-Blessed princess to whom they are a shadow. The secondary characters and the world-building were very rich and engaging, it just felt like a classic grand adventure.

I have two this month - one fiction and one non-fiction.

Fiction
- Title: The End of Drum-Time
- Author: Hanna Pylväinen
- Rating: 5*
- Format (Print, eBook, Audio): ebook/audio combination
- ATY Prompt you used it for: I am finished with the challenge
- Brief reason why it was the best:
This book tells of the Sámi reindeer herders in Scandinavia, an indigenous people who have no political power. It is a of the decline of an ancient culture, told in a manner that inspires empathy. The writing is evocative of a time and place, and of lives that revolve around the rhythms of nature. I appreciated reading about this lesser known (to me) region and people. It provided the immersive experience that I look for in my reading.

Non-Fiction
- Title: Cold: Adventures in the World's Frozen Places
- Author: Bill Streever
- Rating: 5*
- Format (Print, eBook, Audio): ebook/audio combination
- ATY Prompt you used it for: I am finished with the challenge
- Brief reason why it was the best:
A combination of memoir, travelogue, science, and history, this book examines just about every aspect of the cold. The author's writing style is lively and engaging. He explains complex scientific concepts in terms easily understood by a non-scientist, and combines scientific explanations with vivid storytelling. It focuses on human and animals' capacity to endure and thrive in extreme cold. It sheds light on the beauty and complexity of the world's coldest places. I loved it.

Listopia is updated!

- Title - The Colour
- Author - Rose Tremain
- Rating - 5*
- Format (Print, eBook, Audio) - Print
- ATY Prompt you used it for (if applicable) - none
- Brief reason why it was the best - Incredible sense of place and time - early settlement in New Zealand, and who knew there was a Gold Rush there? Deep characters and dramatic incidents.

- Title - Plays by American Women: 1900-1930
- Author - actually Editor - Judith E. Barlow
- Rating - 5
- Format (Print, eBook, Audio) - Pring
- ATY Prompt you used it for (if applicable) - none
- Brief reason why it was the best - These plays are amazingly ahead of their time. None of them are well known today. All are very feminist, attacking the double standard, limited roles for women, predatory men, economics, and more. Some of the writing styles are also avant-garde.

- Title: The Virgin Suicides
- Author: Jeffrey Eugenides
- Rating: 5 stars
- Format (Print, eBook, Audio): eBook
- ATY Prompt you used it for (if applicable): Debut book
- Brief reason why it was the best: This book gave me some serious high school nostalgia (not always a good feeling), excellent writing, and gothic-suburban vibes. I was lukewarm on Middlesex but this one blew me away.

-Title: Before Your Memory Fades
- Author: Toshikazu Kawaguchi
- Rating: 5
- Format (Print, eBook, Audio): print book
- ATY Prompt you used it for (if applicable): None for the regular challenge but I did it use it for the fall "tree" prompt
- Brief reason why it was the best: I thought this was the best book of the series so far. It its darker and kind of melancholy, but I liked the overall message that departed love ones want us to LIVE and want us to have some happiness in our lives

- Title: The Death I Gave Him
- Author: Em X. Liu
- Rating: 5 stars
- Format (Print, eBook, Audio): Print
- ATY Prompt you used it for (if applicable): I didn't, but it finds the murder prompt, among others
- Brief reason why it was the best: Brilliant re-envisioning of Hamlet, distorted and expanded and refracted. It plays exquisitely with the tension between the freedom of a retelling, and the fatalistic inevitability of a well-known story. Fantastic structure and brutal, exquisite prose.

- Title: When the Moon is Low
- Author: Nadia Hashimi
- Rating: 5 stars
- Format (Print, eBook, Audio): print (found an arc copy in a little free library)
- ATY Prompt you used it for (if applicable): 47. A book related to a geometric shape (moons are round - round is a shape)
- Brief reason why it was the best: I can't believe this isn't more widely read. It's a beautiful story about a family that become
refugees from Afghanistan after the Taliban take over. The family seek to make their way to England for asylum, but along the way the eldest son gets separated from his family. The mother has to make the decision on whether to stay and wait for him or to go on without him. It's heartbreaking and hopeful and so hard to put down. It also humanizes the plight of refugees and asylum-seekers coming from war-torn countries.

Listopia updated!

- Title The Poppy War
- Author R.F. Kuang
- Rating 5 stars
- Format (Print, eBook, Audio) audio
- ATY Prompt you used it for (if applicable) N/A Although I did use it for the fall challenge about a book with an orange cover.

- Brief reason why it was the best This book was a wild ride. It is a little bit all over the place, but it is the first book in a trilogy, so I am sure many of these loose ends will get tied up. I was hooked right away. It's very different from any fantasy book I have ever read. I am really looking forward to finishing the trilogy.

- Title Iron Flame
- Author Rebecca Yarros
- Rating 5 stars
- Format (Print, eBook, Audio) audio
- ATY Prompt you used it for (if applicable) N/A
- Brief reason why it was the best This is the sequel to Fourth Wing, and I enjoyed every minute of it. I got it on Audible because I didn't want to have to wait for a book to arrive or have to go get it from the bookstore. :) It was so good - action-packed. I enjoy the cast of characters. The book ended with quite a twist, so I am anxious to see what she is going to do with that.

Title Check & Mate
Author Ali Hazelwood
Rating 5 stars
Format eBook
ATY Prompt you used it for (if applicable) Related to a chess piece.
Brief reason why it was the best It was a fun YA romcom set in the world of competitive chess.

Title System Collapse
Author Martha Wells
Rating 5 stars
Format eBook
ATY Prompt you used it for (if applicable) I used it for my round 2 of popsugar: A book with a robot or cyborg character.
Brief reason why it was the best It's Murderbot. Is that brief enough?🙃

- Title: All's Well
- Author - Mona Awad
- Rating: 4 stars
- Format (Print, eBook, Audio): Print
- ATY Prompt you used it for (if applicable): character with a disability
- Brief reason why it was the best: a blurring of Alls Well and Macbeth, plus a great commentary on how male health care professionals sometimes discount women's pain. It's surreal, but less WTF is going on than Bunny.

- Title: The Book of Cold Cases
- Author: Simone St James
- Rating: 4 stars
- Format (Print, eBook, Audio): print
- ATY Prompt you used it for (if applicable): A title that contains a word often found in a recipe
- Brief reason why it was the best: told in dual POV, it explores interest in true crime and the real people behind the crimes. I liked it more the The Sundown Motel.

Well I had many 5 star reads this month Fourth Wing, Iron Flame, Check & Mate, System Collapse have already been added by others.

- Title: Spy x Family, Vol. 10
- Author: Tatsuya Endo
- Rating: 5 stars
- Format (Print, eBook, Audio): print
- ATY Prompt you used it for (if applicable): n/a
- Brief reason why it was the best:
This manga series is cute, but this volume had some good commentary on the senselessness of war.

My best of the month was The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World

And the listopia is up to date through here!

- Title: The Bedlam Stacks
- Author: Natasha Pulley
- Rating: 5
- Format (Print, eBook, Audio): eBook
- ATY Prompt you used it for (if applicable): NA
- Brief reason why it was the best: a genre-crossing book: adventure, historical fiction, magical realism set in 1859. The basic premise is that an injured employee of the East India Company has been told to go to Peru to steal quinine plants that are desperately needed in India for the treatment of malaria. A very bad idea given that everyone else who has gone before him e have either been killed or disappeared (and likely killed) and he is already injured. But he has memories of his grandfather and father talking about living in the area when the father was young and he is interested in going. I loved it.

-Title: Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone
-Author: Benjamin Stevenson
-Rating: 5*
-Format: Print
-ATY Prompt: NA (Could be used for 21st Century)
-Why Best: Original take on a murder mystery

- Title: A House with Good Bones
- Author: T. Kingfisher
- Rating: 4.5 stars
- Format (Print, eBook, Audio): ebook
- ATY Prompt you used it for (if applicable): none. I read it so I can vote for the horror category in the GR Choice Awards
- Brief reason why it was the best: It was nerdy, a little creepy, and most of all, funny. Kingfisher's humor just hits for me. This book is about Sam who is wondering why her mom is acting so strangely.

Title This is Going to Hurt
Author Adam Kay
Rating 5 stars
Format Audio
ATY Prompt None
Reason It made me laugh, always a plus, and I love diary formats. It's not easy to make a book about the healthcare system funny, but Kay did it.

Erica wrote: "Well I had many 5 star reads this month Fourth Wing, Iron Flame, Check & Mate, System Collapse have already been added by others."

You had a good month in books!

Listopia is up to date!

- Title: Lone Women
- Author: Victor LaValle
- Rating: 5 stars
- Format (Print, eBook, Audio): print
- ATY Prompt you used it for (if applicable): N/A
- Brief reason why it was the best: A horror story about women in the 1800s homesteading alone in Montana. I did NOT think this book was going to be up my alley. I'm not into horror, I'm not into historical fiction, I'm not into Western themes. but this book is amazing!

The book is about one woman is particular, Adelaide, one of the only Black women homesteading in the wilderness around Big Sandy, Montana. She is, in fact, not alone. She has come to Montana burdened with a secret responsibility, but in the needful inter-dependence she develops with her neighbors in a bid to stay alive in an unforgiving environment, secrets don't stay secrets.

The plot is propulsive, the writing is beautiful, & themes of the book are based on real documented history.

The best one for me was definitely:

- Title: A Killing in November
- Author: Simon Mason
- Rating: 5/5
- Format (Print, eBook, Audio): ebook
- ATY Prompt you used it for (if applicable): n/a
- Brief reason why it was the best: it was a really gripping mystery, with excellent writing and well drawn characters.

- Title: The Town
- Author: Conrad Richter
- Rating: 5 stars
- Format (Print, eBook, Audio): Book
- ATY Prompt you used it for (if applicable):
- Brief reason why it was the best: The last book in The Awakening Land trilogy, The Town followed Sayward Luckett's family up until the Civil War. This is very vivid historical fiction.

- Title - Children of Time
- Author - Adrian Tchaikovsky
- Rating - 5 star
- Format - audio
- ATY Prompt you used it for - unusually large version of an animal
- Brief reason why it was the best
This book was phenomenal. A fascinating plot that was an incredible page turner.

Title: Starling House
Author: Alix E. Harrow
Rating: 5 stars
Format: Hardback
ATY Prompt you used it for: birds, bees or bunnies

I just love a sentient house!

I try to leave at least one non-fiction for November (Non-Fiction November!). This year I had three that I at least partially read in November. One was one of my top 2 books for the month:

Title: Spare
Author: Prince Harry
Rating: 5 stars
Format: audio
ATY Prompt you used it for: n/a
Brief reason why it was the best: I don't normally read "celebrity memoirs" and I also don't normally read "audio" because the narration puts me to sleep, or at least doesn't hold my attention. But the sample proved to me that Prince Harry could do a good job telling his own story, and I'm now trying that with other memoirs (so far so good). The book was interesting, both to see his and Meghan's side of the story, but also to see how truly difficult it can be to always have the press following you around - not just annoying, but actually intrusive and even dangerous. Also (and The Crown alludes to this) the "business of the crown" actually pits family members against each other, like you might see in a standard corporation. Being "a royal" isn't all tea and scones! I also got a good surprise at the end when I found out that a high school classmate of my son's was one of the recording engineers for the audio book (this is partially because when Harry and Meghan settled in the States they moved about 15-20 minutes from where I live and a well known recording engineering company is also located here).

Title: Th1rt3en
Author: Steve Cavanagh
Rating: 5 stars
Format: print
ATY Prompt you used it for: 14. A book with a con, deception, or fake
Brief reason why it was the best: This is another
"not my usual read". I think both this book and my book above show that sometimes choosing outside your norm can be a good thing! This was a courtroom drama that caught my eye because the tagline is "The serial killer isn't on trial... he's on the jury!". I was intrigued because I was on the jury for a very large trial last year, and the idea that one of "us" could actually be the one who should be on trial was interesting. The book itself was interesting because the serial killer was very smart and came up with very interesting ways of getting what he wanted. The prosecuting attorney was also very smart, but also not your typical attorney — in the past he was a con man! This book is technically part of a series, but can be read as a stand alone (the history you need to know about the prosecuting attorney and the judge is briefly explained in this book).

Listopia is up to date!

Title: The Last Policeman
Author: Ben H. Winters
Rating: 5 stars
Format (Print, eBook, Audio): eBook
ATY Prompt you used it for (if applicable): n/a
Brief reason why it was the best: Part mystery, part apocalyptic fiction, as a green detective tries to solve a crime on an Earth which is doomed by an impending asteroid crash that will end life on Earth

Added to listopia

- Title: The Blue Book of Nebo
- Author: Manon Steffan Ros
- Rating: 5 stars
- Format: Audio
- ATY Prompt you used it for:
- Brief reason why it was the best: This is a Newberry Medal winning post apocalyptic novel set in rural Wales featuring a mother and son’s fight for survival and growth

added