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Goodreads Staffers' Top Three Books of the Year
Every December, as we wrap up our annual Goodreads Reading Challenge, we ask our well-read colleagues a simple yet incredibly tough question:
What were your three favorite books you read this year?
Oh, the angst we caused our coworkers as they whittled down their lists to just their top few books! Hopefully our carefully considered staff picks will inspire additions to your Want to Read Shelf.
You'll notice that our reading habits run the gamut. But if you look carefully, you can see some office favorites emerge, including multiple picks of the Odyssey-inspired fantasy Circe.
Now it's your turn! What are your top three books of the year? Please share them with us in the comments!
Oh, the angst we caused our coworkers as they whittled down their lists to just their top few books! Hopefully our carefully considered staff picks will inspire additions to your Want to Read Shelf.
You'll notice that our reading habits run the gamut. But if you look carefully, you can see some office favorites emerge, including multiple picks of the Odyssey-inspired fantasy Circe.
Now it's your turn! What are your top three books of the year? Please share them with us in the comments!
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Your turn! What are your top three reads of 2019? Share them with us in the comments!
Check out more recent articles:
Very Short 4-Star Books for Your Reading Challenge Books
The Top 40 Book Club Picks of 2019
The Most Read Books on Goodreads in December
Check out more recent articles:
Very Short 4-Star Books for Your Reading Challenge Books
The Top 40 Book Club Picks of 2019
The Most Read Books on Goodreads in December
Comments Showing 151-200 of 363 (363 new)
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa SeePachinko by Min Jin Lee
My Name is Resolute by Nancy E Turner
Top three read in 2019:1) Recursion by Blake Crouch
2) The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
3) Becoming by Michelle Obama
The year’s not over yet but1- Underland by Robert Macfarlane
2- Kafka by the Shore by Haruki Murakami
3- Slow Horses by Mick Herron (then the rest of the series)
My Top Three:1. Salvage the Bones, by Jesmyn Ward
2. Supermarket, by Bobby Hall
3. Boy Swallows Universe, by Trent Dalton
I gave 5 star ratings to only 4 books this year (of the nearly 200 I read). So I have to list all four --She Has Her Mother's Laugh by Carl Zimmer
Circe by Madeleine Miller
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
The Huntress by Kate Quinn
My three favorite for this year:#1 Texas by James A. Michener
#2 Priest (Ratcatchers #1) by Matthew Colville
#3 Redliners by David Drake
Honorable mention goes to: A Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier... by Joseph Plumb Martin
The Legend of Lyon Redmond by Julie Ann Long - a romance with a few truths like - Sometimes the things we don't say are more important than the thing we do say.and
A General Theory of Love by Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini and Richard Lannon - an amazing piece of work with vast insights on every page, even though I had to take it in spurts because for me it was deep, really deep though ever so insightful.
My Best books of 2019 (Can’t decide which one I liked best, they are all magnificent):Louise Erdrich: The round house
Valeria Luiselli: Lost children Archive
Ali Smith: Spring
A difficult decision to pick just 3, but here they are:Becoming by Michelle Obama
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
The Overstory by Richard Powers
I'm currently reading In Beauty May She Walk by Leslie Mass. It may make my list for next year.
1. Before Dishonor by Peter David (reread)2. A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
3. Why We Love Star Wars: The Great Moments That Built A Galaxy Far, Far Away by Ken Napzok
Finished 12/30/18 but still worth recommending today:
Cilla Lee-Jenkins: Future Author Extraordinaire by Susan Tan
The Last Mrs. ParrishThen She Was Gone
The Royal We
Great recommendations! Excited to add some of these to my Want to Read shelf.
So far 1. Chanel Miller - Know My Name
2. Thomas Rueb - Laura H.
3. Margaret Atwood - The Testaments
I agree that this was a difficult task, but here are my three:The Underground Church by Robin Meyers
The Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan
How God Works by Marshall Brain
diciamo questi , ma è difficile scegliere solo 3
The Fifth Season
by N.K. Jemisin
Assassin's Fate
by Robin Hobb
Malice
by John Gwynne
The Heart's Invisible Furies, John BoyneOn Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous, Ocean Vuong
Pachinko, Min Jin Lee
"Becoming" by Michelle Obama; "The Depression Cure" by Stephen Ilardi; "Women in Science" by Rachel Ignotofsky.
State of Wonder, Ann PatchettThe Alice Network, Kate Quinn
Educated, Tara Westover
Out of 100+ books read this year, my top 3 (in no particular order) are:- This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger
- The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
- Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout
My top 3 reads of the year are:-The secret history by Donna Tartt
Painting the darkness by Robert Goddard
The museum of extraordinary things by Alice Hoffman
📚📚📚📚📚📚
it’s possible if asked next week, i’d pick a different three. but for now, i’m hapoy with these (in no particular order):- the soul of an octopus by sy montgomery
- the heart’s invisible furies by john boyne
- where the crawdads sing by delia owens
Once again, I wish these comment threads had a "like" button. So many good lists!Here are mine:
Educated - Tara Westover
Born a Crime - Trevor Noah
And a tie for #3:
Tiamat's Wrath - James S.A. Corey
A Memory Called Empire - Arkady Martine
(Yes, I'm cheating to squeeze in a fourth book.)
In no particular order:The Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware
A gentlemen in Moscow by Amor Towles
Top 3 read this year:
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles (great read, very well written)
Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow (seems like fiction, but it's not!)
Becoming by Michelle Obama
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles (great read, very well written)
Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow (seems like fiction, but it's not!)
Becoming by Michelle Obama
I adored Olive, Again, The Guest Book and The Silent Patient.
Read quite a few good ones but these are the top 31. Beautiful Boy by David Sheff
2. Becoming by Michelle Obama
3. Where Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
My top 3 are Queenie by Candice Carty Williams, My Time Among The Whites: Notes from an unfinished education by Jennine Capo Crucet and The Travelers by Regina Porter.
Mine:* The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
* A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr.
* The Pyrates by George MacDonald Fraser
Circe by Madeline MillerOne Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Sozhenitsyn
Exhalation: Stories by Ted Chiang
difficult choices :Once Upon a River by Diane SetterfieldThe Dutch House by Ann Patchett
Olive,Again by Elizabeth Stroudt
Message 51 by Iris,2019
Okay here goes, and boy is this hard, but I'm going to go with dividing this list up amongst different genres:1. Autobiography: Born a Crime by Trevor Noah (Audible version narrated by Trevor Noah)
2. Fantasy: City of Brass and Kingdom of Copper by S.A. Chakraborty (sorry I know that's two books, but in my defense, they are part of a series and I'm anxiously awaiting Book 3)
3. Fiction: A Place for Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza (this was the toughest one to pick given all the amazing books I read this year, but this book honestly stayed with me for weeks, and I related to the family who shares my faith and culture)
My understanding is that the instructions say "our favorite books that we read in 2019", not favorite books that were released in 2019 that we read.--The Humans by Matt Haig
--The Marco Effect by Jussi Adler-Olsen
--Disorderly Knights/Pawn in Frankincense by Dorothy Dunnett (re-read)
My top 3:The Murmur of Bees - Sofia Segovia
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet - Jamie Ford
The Nightingale - Kristin Hannah
My three favorite books by SharenBecoming by Michelle OBama
The Moment of Lift by Melinda Gates
The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michelle Richardson
Where the Crawdads SingKingdom of Copper
Muse of Nightmares
My top three books of 2019 (I read them in 2019, but they were all first published earlier - I hope it's OK, because they are really great): - A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towels
- Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry, and
- A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay
Wow! Glad to see Mary Renault on the list!It's so difficult only picking three... but here's what I've come up with:
1) The Shining by Stephen King
2) Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield
3) Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick
Although not published in 2019, these are my favorite reads of the year:1) Birdbox by Josh Malerman
2) Landline by Rainbow Rowell
3) The Dreamers by Karen Thomson Walker
Flight BehaviorWe are all completely besides ourselves
The Night circus
My favorite books read in 2019 are:The Weight of A Piano - Chris Cander
Where The Crawdads Sing - Delia Owens
The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
My top three books of the year would be...1. The Secret Commonwealth by Philip Pullman
2.The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes
3. Akin by Emma Donoghue
Highly notable also are...
The First Time Lauren Pailing Died by Alyson Rudd
Expectation by Anna Hope
and last but not least...
We Must Be Brave by Frances Liardet
Just finishing book #238 for the year - hard to choose.The Silent Patient
Becoming
My Lovely Wife
Exit West - Mohsin HamidWashington Black - Esi Edugyan
The Immortalists - Chloe Benjamin
80+ books read this year very favorites but multiples read of each author make picking one hard:
Madeline Miller (Song of Achilles and Circe)
Bryn Greenwood (All the Ugly and Wonderful Things and The Reckless Oath We Made)
Chris Cleave (Little Bee and Incendiary)
Most disappointing books:
The Fall of Gondolin - JRR Tolkien
The House of Broken Angels - Luis Alberto Urrea
Play it as it Lays - Joan Didion
Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey CepInheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love" by Dani Shapiro
Circe by Madeline Miller
My Top-3 books of 2019 (excluding re-reads):-The House in the Dark of the Woods, by Laird Hunt
-French Exit, by Patrick deWitt
-Ponti, by Sharlene Teo
The Women Who Smashed Codes - Jason Fagone
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith