Best of the Year 2019

Already time for the yearly roundup of some of the best reads this year. I always wait until the very last possible moment to post my list; you never know what you'll come across around Christmas! I like to give every book I've read this year a chance to appear on my favourites list, no matter if I read it in the first week of January or the last few days of December. 

I also create a statistical summary each year, mostly for my own geekish pleasure. As I've said before, I don't think of reading as a competition -- I keep track of numbers and various stats for my own interest, not to prove anything or compare myself to anyone. 

Here are my reading stats for 2019.

Total Reading: 124

Authors

Female: 112
Male: 12
Both/Neither: 0

Genre 

Fiction: 100
Non Fiction: 24


In Translation: 32

Swedish: 3
Quebec French: 5
French: 9
Japanese: 4
German: 1
Arabic: 1
Spanish: 1
Russian: 4
Dutch: 2
Italian: 2

My Own Books: 62
Library Books: 57

Review Copies: 5

Rereads: 10
E-reads: 3

Author who I read the most from: Starting with the first Lord Peter Wimsey book when I was sick in the spring, I kept going and read 15 of Dorothy Sayers' books.

2019'sWeird Random Stat :  Number of Books published under a pseudonym: 10

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And now for the Bests of 2019! 

I choose my Best picks solely by my own guidelines -- how much I enjoyed them, the wonderful writing, great characters, or originality that stuck with me. This is 100% my own tastes talking here. I had a bit of a strange reading year, reading all over the place and not really finding much that struck me as fantastic. Despite that, I do have ten wonderful reads to share! 

The Summer Book / Tove Jansson; trans. by Thomas Teal

I've been reading a fair amount of Tove Jansson over the last year or two. This book was a beautiful read, a collection of chapters detailing the relationship between a young girl and her grandmother.

I also read some books that featured my favourite hobby, sewing, and two of them in particular were very well done, and really enjoyable. Loved them both! 

The Gown by Jennifer Robson

This one features the embroidery workshop at Norman Hartnell, London, where Princess Elizabeth's wedding gown was made. 

The Time in Between by Maria Dueñas 

I picked this up during August's Women in Translation month, and loved it! It follows the life of a young Spanish woman who lives through the Civil War and makes her living as a dressmaker. Lengthy, dramatic and such a good read. 

I discovered another two works in translation, both more serious and literary, and they were both amazing, powerful, highly recommended reads. 

The Ten Thousand Things by Maria Dermoût 

This novel is a poetic, dream-like story about Dutch Indonesia: violence, beauty, colonialism, women's lives, it's all there. 

Sofia Petrovna by Lydia Chukovskaya

This is a slim classic -- but it's terrifying in the way it shows how totalitarianism invades every aspect of a society, right down to people's intimate lives, no matter how they struggle against it. Still shockingly relevant, I'd say this is a must read in our current climate. 

And I'm finishing with some fun, light genre reads that I discovered this year. 

First is Mary Burchell's Hospital Corridors

Despite the terrible title and cover, this romance novel by my favourite Mills & Boon author was a great read. It features a British heroine who moves to Montreal, and reads like a travel guide to my favourite city. So amusing! 

Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy Sayers

This entry was my unexpected favourite of the Peter Wimsey series. Peter is undercover in an ad agency, and the workplace details were so spot on and descriptive that I felt like I might be working there too. I loved this element and the way that it gets to Peter by the end, so that he is also absorbed in this new work, which he was only supposed to pretend to do. 

Murder on Millionaire's Row by Erin Lindsey

This light read was an unexpected and delightful mystery set in Gilded Age New York. It turned out to also be a paranormal based series, to my surprise and enjoyment. 

The 10,000 Doors of January  by Alix E. Harrow

This debut novel was a stunner. Influenced by the greats of fantasy fiction, this one takes on strong female leads, magical worlds connected by mysterious doorways, and an atmospheric setting. I loved it!

Hasty Wedding by Mignon G. Eberhart

The last choice for this year,  yet unblogged, was a lucky thrift store find (with this lovely lurid cover!) This 1938 mystery holds up surprisingly well, and was great fun to read. The characters were actually quite faceted and that made this one into an interesting story beyond the noir elements. 


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So there are my wildly variant top ten faves of the year. I hope that your reading year was as much fun. Looking forward to 2020!