Of these, there are only a few I rated five stars -A Discovery of Witches - which I just loved, Doc - which made me love Doc Holliday, and is the one "best list" book that I really liked (having made an NPR list of best books of the year), the Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian - a great middle school book about growing up across different cultures within the US.
Another I thought well worth a read include In the Sea There are Crocodiles, about a young boy making his way through Afghanistan, Iran, and other points, on his own after being abandoned for his own safety. Based on a true story, this one is well worth giving to your teen or preteen just like The Absolutely True Diary of A Part-Time Indian. The third preteen-teen book worth reading is The Hunger Games.
I read To Kill a Mockingbird for the first time this year. And Up the Down Staircase for the umpteenth time. And one true classic, A Tale of Two Cities.
Seven were non-fiction - have to increase that number for next year. Several of these were memoirs - I must like memoirs. The best of these was The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.
I read several award winners, book list books, best of books, few of which I liked as much as the critics did. These included the raved about The Sense of an Ending, ˆThe Tiger's Wife, State of Wonder, and Swamplandia, The Sisters Brothers - none of which really thrilled me.
