It’s hard to believe that yesterday was the 14th anniversary of my blog. As has become my habit, this is the time that I list my favorite books of the ones I reviewed during the year. As usual, I make my list from the Best of Ten books during the year.

This year was a tough one to pick, because I had twelve books that were difficult to choose among, along with all the other Best of Tens. I ended up with three or four fairly recent books and five or six classic novels, one comic novel, three novels about the course of the main character’s childhood and life, four historical novels and one partially historical, one nonfiction memoir, one mystery, and one drama with a twist. Three were by men, and seven by women. Two of these books were re-reads for me.

So, here they are, in the order I reviewed them:

• Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
• How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn
• The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
• The Magician’s Assistant by Ann Patchett
• Clear by Carys Davies
• Life Among the Qallunaat by Mini Aodla Freeman
• The Pink House by Nelia Gardner White
• A Pale View of the Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro
• The Deepening Stream by Dorothy Canfield Fisher
• Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips