Play Book Tag discussion

Now that we're halfway through the year, have you read any books that are stand-outs and that you would recommend to others?

It's hard for me to pick only one.

My favorite book of the year so far is historical fiction:
Washington Black by Esi Edugyan - 5* - My Review

For literary fiction:
The Painter of Battles by Arturo Pérez-Reverte - 5* - My Review

If you're looking for SciFi, these two are both fabulous:
Embassytown by China Miéville - 5* - My Review
and
Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson - 5* - My Review

For non-fiction, I loved both:
Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941–1942 by Ian W. Toll - 5* - My Review
and
The Last of the Doughboys: The Forgotten Generation and Their Forgotten World War by Richard Rubin - 5* - My Review

For recent releases:
Mobility by Lydia Kiesling - 5* - My Review

Unfortunately I've had a lot of middle of the road books for this first half of the year. They were "fine" but nothing that wowed me.

However, The Butterfly Garden by Dot Hutchison had me riveted until the last page. Also, unpopular opinion I think, but I really did enjoy Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros. Finally, the first books in the Study series by Maria Snyder (Poison Study and Magic Study) were fun reads.

Here are my 5 star reads:
When the Angels Left the Old Country - a historical fiction with magical realism, angels and demons who travel from old country through Ellis Island and on to NYC

Coming Home- Memoir of Brittney Griner and her time in prison in Russia and how she survived. So interesting and insightful.

The Ministry of Time - Mash-up of time travel and science fiction

I Am Rome - historical fiction about part of Julius Caesars life.

Still Life with Bread Crumbs - Contemporary fiction. So good, she is a wonderful writer

The Chinese Groove -- Contemporary fiction of a Chinese immigrant in San Francisco.

5 stars reads for me thus far"

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi
The Iron King
Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941-1942
All Quiet on the Western Front

I'm behind in my reading goals this year. I've been rereading a lot. Not even whole books a lot of the time, just my favorite parts. Very few new books have kept my attention.

But there have been a few 5 star keepers:

Table for Two

A World of Curiosities

The Glassmaker

Here are the books that have struck me so far.

Fiction:

They May Not Mean To, But They Do by Cathleen Schine - The author wrote with such warmth, pathos and comedy about a family that is living through the aging experience with elderly parents, that I could have been reading about my own family.

The Rachel Incident by Caroline O'Donoghue - features two twenty-somethings living in Ireland and coming of age as young adults. The characters weren't always that likeable, yet the author's writing had me rooting for them.

The Red Notebook by Antoine Laurain - is a charming story set in Paris. It's a lighter book that was a delight to read.

Real Americans by Rachel Khong - It's the story of three generations of a Chinese-American family, yet like nothing I've read before. The characters are well developed and intriguing. I could not put the book down.

Short Story Collection:

Table for Two by Amor Towles - It's no wonder that so many readers enjoy Towles' writing. This is a strong collection of stories, including a novella.

Non-Fiction:

Our Hidden Conversations: What Americans Really Think About Race and Identity by Michele Norris - is a compilation of people's oral histories/reflections about how their race has affected their lives. All races are included in the book. Fascinating to read!

I have had a slow year this year for highly rated books. Only two that I've rated above 4 stars. And one was a reread.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet / Jamie Ford (reread)
The Traitor's Wife: A Novel of the Reign of Edward II / Susan Higginbotham

My five-star reads thus far this year have been:

Best books for the year thus far:
-The Testament of Mary by Colm Tóibín
- All The Little Bird-Hearts by Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow
- All the Sinners Bleed by S.A. Cosby
- The Women by Kristin Hannah
- Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
- The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
- The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
- Disturbing the Dead by Kelley Armstrong

John, "Tomorrow X 3," "The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store," and "The Vanishing Half" were favorites of mine in past years. I haven't read any of your other books.

My 5-star reads so far (EXCLUDING re-reads)

The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese
The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo
Good Night, Irene by Luis Alberto Urrea
Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold

Book Concierge wrote: "My 5-star reads so far (EXCLUDING re-reads)

The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese
The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo
Good Night, Irene by Luis Alb..."

I loved The Covenant of Water, Good Night, Irene and The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store- two of those made my best of list.

Let's see...I"ve had a lot of 3 and 4 star reads, but the 5 stars so far are:

The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper
Bernard Ollivier - His Walking the Silk Road Trilogy - I read the last 2 in 2024: Walking to Samarkand: The Great Silk Road from Persia to Central Asia and Winds of the Steppe: Walking the Great Silk Road from Central Asia to China
Murder at Queen's Landing
The Silence of the Girls
Ruby Fever - a really well-done conclusion to the Hidden Legacy Series
Crooked Kingdom - another excellent conclusion, this time a duology and it surpassed the wonderful first.
All the Sinners Bleed - the final scene - one of the best ever.
Water for Elephants
Flâneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice, and London
Galatea - short but mighty
The Hound of the Baskervilles - nothing tops the original source material
The Thirteenth Tale
Good Evening, Mrs Craven: The Wartime Stories of Mollie Panter-Downes

There's no real order here - except from recent to first of year more or less. What's shocking is how much NF there is here. I'm not much of a NF reader but just about all the Unofficial Trim picks ended up being the handful of NF I tossed on the list to get me to read them (the good news is that the rest of the year is going to be fiction after the current month). Plus Steeplechase had me picking up a couple.

Theresa wrote: "Let's see...I"ve had a lot of 3 and 4 star reads, but the 5 stars so far are:

The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper
Bernard Ollivier - H..."

I'd include the Bernard Ollivier trilogy with hearts. I love slow travel stories and he excelled at it, giving us information about the history, landscape, monuments etc and people he met along the way. We also got to see inside his head during his solitary hours.

Booknblues wrote: "Theresa wrote: "Let's see...I"ve had a lot of 3 and 4 star reads, but the 5 stars so far are: ...


He's making my Top 10 for the year for sure. Think he was on there last year for Out of Istanbul: A Journey of Discovery along the Silk Road. These are exceptionally well done journey books.

I'm still adding to my list. I can't seem to keep it open to add to it so have save after each addition. GR is such a PITA.

Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men
Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America
The Road Back to You: An Enneagram Journey to Self-Discovery
Outliers: The Story of Success
Red Rising Series. This year I read book 5, 6 and the three prequel graphic novels
Paris in the Present Tense

Blacktop Wasteland by S.A. Cosby
First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston
Outsider: An Old Man, a Mountain and the Search for a Hidden Past by Brett Popplewell
Looking for Jane by Heather Marshall

Thank you to everyone who has participated in this. It's great to share favorite books with each other. I'm always looking for good books to read.

What a fun thread! Thank you, Holly, for posting it. Unfortunately, my reading year is not off to a rip roaring start. I've read 25 books.

My favorite fiction by a lot was Monstrilio. A great read IF you like literary fiction.

The best non-fiction so far (and I've read way more non-fiction) was Did I Ever Tell You? which was a gem of a memoir.

But honestly, the book that probably grabbed me the most was a beach read that I absolutely never would have picked up on my own: The Housemaid

I guess reading for just pure page turning fun is better than I remembered!

And finally, BY FAR the worst book so far was The Second Coming. I think it's going to be heavily marketed, but just no, no, and no.

Anita, I've heard a lot of good things about "Monstrilio." I'll have to try it.

You made me smile at your comment about "The Second Coming." I see that other reviewers agree with you - it has a low rating on Goodreads.

I just decided to DNF a popular book here on GR. Margo's Got Money Troubles was a little too edgy for me.

The only new read over 4 stars for me so far - 4.5, rounded up to 5 - is The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles. Really enjoyed it! Lots of 4-star reads (Bruno series), and one 5-star re-read (for the fourth or fifth time, not sure), The Deed of Paksenarrion by Elizabeth Moon.

I can join the love for the Silk Road Travel Trilogy:
- Out of Istanbul: A Journey of Discovery along the Silk Road
- Walking to Samarkand: The Great Silk Road from Persia to Central Asia
- Winds of the Steppe: Walking the Great Silk Road from Central Asia to China

Other fabulous non-fiction:
- Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives
- Leonardo da Vinci

Top rate historical fiction:
- Morality Play
- The Road to the Country
- Pied Piper
- The Last Days of Night
- My Father's House
- Someone Knows My Name

Literary fiction:
- Open City by Teju Cole

I have fewer solid 5 star books than usual even though I read more (170 books). Some of them surprise me now.

Leaving off rereads….

My clear favorites were
North Woods
Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness
The Seven Year Slip

I didn’t like every part, but I’m really glad I read these:
Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men
When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir
The Office of Historical Corrections - short stories
The Glass Hotel
Birnam Wood
The Odyssey ( and I loved my reread of Penelopiad)

I loved time travel books when I was 20, and these made me feel twenty again.
The Eyre Affair
A Stitch in Time
The Ministry of Time (this started with 4 stars but it’s moving up).
This Is How You Lose the Time War - a reread that I probably wouldn’t have appreciated when I was 20.

The tags led me to many YA and fantasy books that I could still appreciate.
Long Way Down
The Graveyard Book
The Outsiders
Cress and the Lunar series

Despite having read over 200 books, I have only had 2 5-star reads: One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy and Madame Fourcade's Secret War: The Daring Young Woman Who Led France's Largest Spy Network Against Hitler.

I'm not really surprised by this as my main focus this year is to read from my owned TBR to get it as low as possible, and as this includes books I've passed over for years as well as some more recent additions, I'm assuming most of them will be 3-star reads or thereabouts.

Other books that I've read and would recommend that aren't part of a series are:

Happiness Falls
The Wind Knows My Name
The Magnolia Palace
The Casual Vacancy

My 5 star reads so far are quite diverse

Lucy by the Sea
The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder
Tress of the Emerald Sea
The Great Halifax Explosion: A World War I Story of Treachery, Tragedy, and Extraordinary Heroism
Whale Fall
Small Things Like These
The Appeal

Strong 4 stars
The Ministry of Time
Everything Here Is Beautiful
The Guncle
She Who Became the Sun
When Women Were Dragons
Solito

So fun seeing everyone's choices! I am just starting Table for Two. Excited it's on some of your lists.

Robin, happy to see The Wager, Lucy and Small Things Like These are your 5 star list. Those were all great reads for me too (last year)!!

I gave a lot more 5 stars this year than I normally do, but my top ones were:
Hello Beautiful
The Shadow of What Was Lost
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
Bright Young Women

I can tell this thread is going to end up growing my TBR!

My 5-star books for the year so far:
Table for Two
This Is How You Lose the Time War
Where the Wild Ladies Are
The Martian Chronicles
Ordinary Grace
Wellness
Peace Like a River
Dearborn
All the Light We Cannot See
They Called Us Enemy

No surprise to me - 4 of these are short story collections.

Adding a 5-star read from this month, which will likely make my top 10 of the year:
The Road to the Country by Chigozie Obioma - 5* - My Review