Fiction Round-Up

Since the year is drawing to a close, I thought it was time for a post about my favorite books of the past year. I've read well over 70 books (and the year isn't over yet) so I decided to split it up between fiction and non-fiction this year. Today is for fiction, and I'll get to non-fiction before the end of the year.

For the record: my lists are of books that I read this year, not necessarily books that were written or published this year!

Okay, my top fiction books, in no particular order:

1. Terry Pratchett. I read 18 of his books this year, so he's definitely a favorite! He writes fantasy with proper British humor. His books should not be read in public unless you enjoy people wondering why you suddenly started laughing out loud.

2. Jeffrey Archer, And Thereby Hangs a Tail. This is, I believe, his newest book of short stories. Archer also writes novels, but I've never read any. I have, however, read all of his collections of short stories. I like the way he writes.

3. Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games trilogy. I started them to see what the kids were reading and rather enjoyed them. The first book is the best, and I found that by the third book she was getting a bit preachy. Her views would have been easier to take if she had been more subtle. Still, the story was good.

4. Lian Tanner: Museum of Thieves, City of Lies, Path of Beasts. This is another trilogy, written for children and very, very good. It's one of the few trilogies where I found the last book to be as satisfying as the first.

5. Madeline L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Dragons in the Water. This was really a re-read, since I had read all of them before. I started re-reading them because one of my students is writing book reports on a couple of her books. They seem a lot shorter than they did when I was a child! I still enjoy L'Engle's writing style and stories.

There were more (a lot more) but these are my favorites. A lot of what I ended up reading in the fiction category was children's fiction. I enjoy any story as long as it's written well, and I find that reading children's and youth fiction is very relaxing.