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 301-350 of 363 (363 new)
Wow, tough one! I’d have to say my top 3 are:Oculus by Sally Wen Mao
A People’s Future of the United States ed. Victor Lavalle
Real Queer America by Samantha Allen
My top 3 for 2019: 1. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, 2. The Art of Living by Thich Nhat Hanh, and 3. Conscientious Objections by Neil Postman.
Hmmm. How can you recommend a book you want to read but haven’t read yet. A bit of a cop out good read staffers !!
Shrinking my top 5 into a top 3 was hard but here we go:1. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
2. Skyward
3. The Heart's Invisible Furies
Priya wrote: "The Kite Runner Normal People
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone"
HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE . Good one ! I read it too .
My top 3:1. The Silent Patient- Alex
Michaelides
2. Verity- Colleen Hoover
3. A Little Life- Hanya Yanagihara
I've read a lot this year but loved these three though I had a lot of awesome reads this year.1. The Giver of Stars
2. The Great Alone
3. Slash
I have a lot of awesome ones I've read though which you can check out in my 2019 on goodreads review and in the comments of that review too.
2019 on goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I think my favorites of the ones I read, in no particular order:1. Verity
2. The Institute
3. Callahan's Crosstime Saloon
1. The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah2. Nineteen Letters by Jody Perry
3. I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
My top 3 would be:Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
The 100 year old man who climbed out the window and disappeared by Jonas Jonasson
The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski
My top 3 books of 2019 (I Have Read In 2019)1) Carry On- Rainbow Rowell
2) They Both Die At The End- Adam Silvera
3) Out of Position- Kyell Gold
The 3 that I enjoyed the most that I have read this year areThe Name of the Wind
The Goldfinch
Assassin's Fate
1. Milkman (audiobook) by Anna Burns2. Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips
3. Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk
In no particular order:1. Silver in the wood by Emily Tesh. I checked it out from the library
and loved it so much I had to buy a copy (not the first time this
has happened)
2. Blowout by Rachel Maddow
3. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon.
Technically not finished - still have volume 5 & 6 to go
Tough call, I am going with:Elantris- Brandon Sanderson Elantris
Nightingale- Kristin Hannah. The Nightingale
The Last Ship- William BrinkleyThe Last Ship
Grace wrote: "Many books listed are not 2019"I could be wrong, I assumed top 10 you read in 2019, not that were released in 2019. If that’s the case one of mine is way off.....
I am of the understanding that it is the 3 best books you read in 2019, no?Anyway my 3 best books of 2019 are:
The Only Girl in the World by Maude Julien
11/22/63 by Stephen King
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
Grace wrote: "Many books listed are not 2019"The question posed was "What were your three favorite books you read this year?" rather than "What were your three favorite 2019 books you read this year?" Easy misinterpretation of the question, however, considering that other Goodread categories have pertained to this year's books.
Chrissy wrote: "In no order, An Unkindness of Ghosts, Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist, and The Murmur of Bees!"Oh, The Murmur of Bees was so good!
Only for those published in 2019 and just three lady!!!!Its about bloody time PERIOD By Emma Barnett
Patsy By Nicole Dennis-Benn
Lets talk about race By Ben Lindsey
Runner up prize
Manipulate by Pam Godwin
So many choices! I'll go with1. In the Valleys of the Noble Beyond by John Zada
2. The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates
3. Under Land by Robert MacFarlane
Choosing 3 is tough! But here's my top 3 for 2019:Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich by Norman Ohler
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...
Animal Farm by George Orwell
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8...
Homes: A Refugee Story by Abu Bakr Al Rabeeah, Winnie Yeung
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4...
I think about these books a lot and I feel like they've changed my perception on a few things.
Here are my top 3 non-fictional books I have read in 2019, all with the potential to make a positive change in life:Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cane
Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer
The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less by Barry Schwartz
You should do a list of "best books of the decade" too! Could be staff picks or a general list sorted by popularity or average rating(preferably average rating lmao)
My three favourite books of the yearThe Silence of the girls Pat Barker
Thursbitch Alan Garner
Dead Mans Blues Ray Celestin
I also wanted to include Circe but I think I read that the previous year. Looking forward to more good books in 2020
Nice list! My top three this year were:1. Giftet
2. This Is How You Lose the Time War
3. All the Light We Cannot See
My top 3 are:Name of the wind by pat rothfuss kingkiller #1
The shining by Stephen King
And red notice by Bill browder
Really hard not to pick the hate u give or why we sleep which would round out my top 5
I picked these three books because they were the ones I talked about the most with other readers.1. There There by Tommy Orange
2. Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse
3. Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe
So difficult to choose but:1) We Need to Talk About Kevin - Lionel Shriver
2) The Good People - Hannah Kent
3) The Girls - Emma Cline
My favorite reads this year include:The Heart's Invisible Furies, John Boone
The Invention of Wings, Sue Monk Kidd
Circe, M Miller
The seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo -Taylor Jenkins Reid Recursion-Blake Crouch
Hollow Kingdom- Kira Jane Buxton
Hard to pick just three, but here goes: 1. The Alice Network
2. Book Woman of Troublesome Creek
3. Circe
Top 3: Skyward by Brandon Sanderson
The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo BH Taylor Jenkins Reed
Love this post and all the comments! So much more to add to my own shelves, thanks to everyone here. My top 3 this year:• Bird Box by Josh Malerman
• The Forsaken Ones by Lori Brighton
• The Sun Is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon
I thought this was going to be hard for me to choose, but three books stood out for me this year:>
The Bookish Life of Nina Hill>
The Whisper Man>
The Family Upstairs
Here are my top 3 fictional books I have read in 2019.The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Stand by Stephen King
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy













2)A Brief History of Seven Killings by James Marlon
3)Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert