The Best Book for this period is The Panopticon by Jenni Fagan!
Tag: book lists
Best of Ten!
The Best Book for this period is The Hoarder, also named Mr. Flood’s Last Resort, by Jess Kidd! Also highly recommended is The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams!

Classics Club Spin #26
It’s time for another Classics Club Spin. I have been trying to finish my list in time for my deadline, which is coming up at the end of June. I’m not going to make it, but I’ve been scheduling in books that I read months ago to try to get most of the books reviewed by then, and I have been reading like crazy to finish the others. With any luck, I’ll only be a month or so late. That means that my list for this spin is going to be repetitive.
To participate in the spin, you post a numbered list of 20 of the books from your Classics Club list (or in my case, however many books you have left over and over to make a list of 20). The Classics Club picks a number, and that determines the book you’ll read for the spin. So, here is my list! We are posting these lists by April 18th, and the deadline to read the chosen book is May 31.
- The Sea Hawk by Rafael Sabatini
- The Last of the Wine by Mary Renault
- The Viscount de Bragelonne by Alexandre Dumas
- The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Evelina by Frances Burney
- The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster
- Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare
- The Sea Hawk by Rafael Sabatini
- The Last of the Wine by Mary Renault
- The Viscount de Bragelonne by Alexandre Dumas
- The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Evelina by Frances Burney
- The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster
- Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare
- The Sea Hawk by Rafael Sabatini
- The Last of the Wine by Mary Renault
- The Viscount de Bragelonne by Alexandre Dumas
- The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster
- Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare
Best of Ten!
The Best Book for this period is Everything Under by Daisy Johnson!
Best of Ten!
The Best Book for this period is The Overstory by Richard Powers! Also highly recommended is Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell!

Best of Ten!
The Best Book for this period is Swimming Lessons by Claire Fuller! Also highly recommended is The Western Wind by Samantha Harvey!
Best of Ten!
The Best Book for this period is Things in Jars by Jess Kidd!
Ninth Anniversary! Top Ten Books of the Year!
Here it is my ninth anniversary for this blog, and as is my custom, I am posting my top ten of the books I reviewed this year.
This year is much more of a mixed bag than last year. I have selected a classic science fiction novel, several contemporary novels, several historical novels, a couple of older classic novels, and even one ghost story. Although a few nonfiction novels made it to my periodic best book posts, I selected all fiction books this time. I read one of the books on the list for the Literary Wives blogging club and another for one of my projects, the Booker prize project.
So, with no more ado, here is my top ten list, in the order that I reviewed the books:
- Bitter Orange by Claire Fuller
- Elmet by Fiona Mozley
- The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin
- The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
- The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell
- The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James
- The Towers of Trebizond by Rose Macaulay
- Smile of the Wolf by Tim Leach
- The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel
- Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
Best of Ten!
The Best Book for this period is Mansfield Park by Jane Austen!
Best of Ten!
The Best Book for this period is The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel! Also recommended is This Is Happiness by Niall Williams.









