My Year in Reading: 2013

I read about 80 books this year. I thought I was going to hit 100, but I had a terrifically busy fall. Still, 80 is a lot, and I read some very good ones. I read poetry and, because of my book club, a fair amount of non-fiction. But mostly I read fiction because that’s what I like and that’s what I write. Not everything I read was new, although most of it was relatively recent. Probably next year I’ll read a lot of what was published this year. Story of my life.

Below is a list of some very good fiction I read this year, in no meaningful order (I think it’s the reverse chronological order of when I finished them). It’s a pretty long list to be a “best of” list, but I didn’t want to leave any of these books off. And the links are to the mini-reviews I did of them on this blog. (To see all of my mini reviews, go here.) If I had to pick one book out of all that I read this year as my favorite, I’d have to say Suite Francaise. It’s brilliant.

The Right Hand Shore by Christopher Tilghman

The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers

The Civilized World by Susi Wyss

The Virgins by Pamela Erens

Suite Francaise by Irene Nemerovsky

Flashes of War by Katey Schultz

The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

Life Among Giants by Bill Roorbach

Wash by Margaret Wrinkle

Shine Shine Shine by Lydia Netzer

The Round House by Louise Erdrich

Prosperous Friends by Christine Schutt

Arcadia by Lauren Groff