I had to separate out nonfiction and fiction, because it just isn’t fair to make The Clicking of Cuthbert go up against Twilight of Democracy.  Once I did that, though, it became fairly easy to pick nine fiction books that perfectly represented my year in reading, and that I would wholeheartedly recommend to anyone.  These were books that absorbed all of my attention, made me laugh or cry or think or all of the above, and gave me so much joy this year.  

9.  The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet – David Mitchell, 2010.  This is the only other book of historical fiction I’ve ever read that I would say is on or near Hilary Mantel’s level.  So glad I stuck with it through the weird stuff and medical stuff.  

8.  Strange Journey – Maud Cairnes, 1935.  This incredibly delightful body-swap comedy was both an absorbing page-turner and a thoughtful novel that has stayed with me.  I look forward to reading many more books from the British Library Women’s Writers series.  

7.  The Clicking of Cuthbert – P. G. Wodehouse, 1922.  I read five by Wodehouse this year and it’s almost impossible to pick a favorite, because each one was hilarious and delightful.  But I’ll pick this one because I don’t care one iota about golf so it was even more of a happy surprise how much I loved these golf stories.  

6.  In the Best Families – Rex Stout, 1950.  As with spot seven, in a way this book is standing in as a representative example by the author.  I read many more than five Nero Wolfe mysteries by Rex Stout this year, though!  This isn’t where I would tell anyone to start, but it’s one I especially enjoyed myself.  It’s the third in the “Arnold Zeck” trilogy sub-series, and that whole trilogy was just top notch mid-century crime with a mobster element, and was so well-written and often funny.  In my family we just love these characters so, so much!

5.  Peril at End House – Agatha Christie, 1932.  Again, my favorite of a large number of books by the same author that brightened my year and got me through two different month-or-so episodes of sickness/recovery.  I had read some Agatha Christie before this year – maybe a dozen mysteries altogether, many of them when I was about twelve – but this was the year I actually realized what a gift her endless cleverness and ceaseless labors at the typewriter gave to the world.  To think of all the Agatha Christies I read this year, and all I still have to read!  (To come clean, I read 13 of them.  I won’t say how many Nero Wolfe/Rex Stouts I read, more than that). And Peril at End House, being a sinister and twisty mystery that features Poirot, I would put right at the top of the stack of those I’ve read so far.

4.  Hell of a Book – Jason Mott, 2021.  I raved about this book to all of my friends so I hope to get to discuss it in more detail with people soon – it’s definitely one of those books where trying to figure out what’s going on is an important part of your experience of the book.  It’s so sad and poignant, and opened my eyes and heart in a new way to the experience of fear that is part of so many people’s lives because of their own or their children’s skin color.  But it’s also, somehow, because the author is apparently a genius and an actual magician of words, extremely funny in places, full of astonishing turns of phrase, and just a great story. 

3.  The Prisoner – Marcel Proust, 1923.  I wanted to fold down all the corners because there were incredible passages on every page.  This is my first time through In Search of Lost Time and it has been so rewarding and just completely wonderful.  

2.  The Bird in the Tree – Elizabeth Goudge, 1940.  This was actually a reread but I remembered so little of it that I actually think I was too young to understand it the first time I read it and that it didn’t count.  (I was 24 or so then and am now 41.). I also just couldn’t bear to leave it out of my top books because I loved it so, so much.  Some might find it morally heavy-handed or emotionally unrealistic, but a lady I am in my book group who is older and definitely much wiser than I am made an impassioned argument against that view, at our meeting on this book, and without giving too much of the plot away I’ll just say that I agreed with her and that I thought the book was emotionally realistic and wise, and also absolutely beautiful.  

1. But my very favorite among all these books would have to be One Fine Day – Mollie Panter-Downes, 1947.  This story of a single summer day a year after the end of World War II entirely captivated me with its emotional resonance, its main character whom I felt like I became while I was reading it, and its vignettes of daily life that were so extraordinarily evocative of a particular time and place.  I loved the writing, and the way the beautiful descriptions seemed to flow from a deep love for England and a particular countryside in England.  

I also love the fact that Tea or Books recommendations took two of my top nine fiction spots, since this was the year I became a devoted fan of that podcast.  I have two entire shelves of “Tea or Books books” that are TBR, some pulled from elsewhere on my shelves as I heard them mentioned on the podcast, but many purchased from Alibris or Waterstones this year because I just couldn’t wait to get my hands on them, but I also couldn’t read them all at once!  Every single one that I’ve read so far I’ve enjoyed, so even though I’ve told myself to stop buying more and just read the ones I have, I don’t regret the ones I’ve already bought at all.  

If I were including rereads (other than Bird in the Tree…)  I would need to put the three Jane Austen novels I read aloud to my children into the mix here somehow, as well as Their Eyes Were Watching God, North and South, and Lady Anna.  So I like the rule that a lot of people follow where they don’t include rereads!  I also would like to come back in a few days and add a top ten (or nine – because I don’t know how to do a collage of ten pictures, ha) books that I read aloud with my children, because this had to be one of our best readaloud years ever, too.  

Cheers!  Happy New Year and here’s to beloved friends, joyful memories, and great books in 2023!