Top Five Favorite Books By Year

Since 2011, I’ve kept a composition notebook (now two) with the title, author, genre, and one sentence thoughts on every book I’ve read to completion. I thought it would be fun to share my top five books each year from that notebook. Some of the books were read so ago that I only remember how they made me feel, while others have had a direct impact on shaping my worldview and writing style. I’m also not allowed to duplicate any titles on the list. All books will be linked to Goodreads (eventually), and any review I’ve done will be noted and highlighted in bold.

Happy reading!

2025 

  • The Cozy Minimalist Home 

  • Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)

  • Mansfield Park (Jane Austen)

  • The First Cities (emergence of man) 

  • In a Certain Land...

2024 

  • Women's Lives and Clothes in WW2 

  • A Praying Life 

  • War of the Worlds (H. G. Wells)

  • Greek and Roman Ghost stories 

  • The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (C. S. Lewis)

2023 

  • Curious Quest

  • The Eye of Osiris (R. Austin Freeman)

  • 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Jules Verne)

  • The Blue Castle (L. M. Montgomery)

  • The Dark Lord of Derkholm (Dianna Wynne Jones)

2022 

  • The Lemon Meringue Dog (Walt Morey)

  • The Trail of Danger

  • In a Blue Velvet Dress 

  • The Empire Builders (Time Life’s The Emergence of Man series) 

  • Facing Death (G. A. Henty)

2021 

  • The City of Dreaming Books 

  • Typewriter 

  • HMS Marlborough Will Enter Port 

  • All the Queen's Sons 

  • The Little Broomstick (Mary Stewart)

2020 

  • A Day With Wilbur Robinson 

  • Beowulf (trans. )

  • The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)

  • Thank You, Mr. Falker (Patricia Polocco)

  • Snow Dust (Joanna G. Holden)

2019 

  • Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy 

  • Rise of the Machines 

  • The 101 Dalmatians (Dodie Smith)

  • Grateful American (Gary Sinise)

  • Trolley Car Family

2018 

  • The Arrival (Shaun Tan)

  • The Last Motley 

  • Take Off Your Pants 

  • The Green Ember 

  • All I Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

2017 

  • The Storm in the Barn 

  • Green and Ancient Light 

  • The Singing Bone (R. Austin Freeman)

  • The Planetary Series 

  • Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library

2016 

  • All the Light We Cannot See 

  • The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making 

  • The Illustrated Man (Ray Bradbury)

  • The Yellow Room 

  • The Parsifal Mosaic (Robert Ludlum)

2015 

*Most years I averaged 50 books, but in 2015 I read over 100, so I allowed myself 10 favorites!

  • Ice Station Zebra (Alistair MacLean)

  • The Hunt for Red October (Tom Clancy)

  • Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury)

  • The ‘Anne and Hope’ Mutiny 

  • The Aviator 

  • The Phantom Tollbooth (Norton Juster)

  • The Year Without Summer 

  • Year of the Black Pony (Walt Morey)

  • The Song 

  • The Grain Ship

2014 

  • No surrender! (G. A. Henty)

  • The Man Who Was Thursday (G. K. Chesterton)

  • Meaning at the Movies 

  • The Scarlet Pimpernel 

  • Kidnapped (Robert Louis Stevenson)

2013 

  • Bella at Midnight 

  • Amusing Ourselves to Death (Neil Postman)

  • Legend of the Bleeding Heart 

  • The Bat (Mary Roberts Rhinehart with)

  • With Wulf in Canada (G. A. Henty)

2012 

  • The Secret of Platform 13 (Eva Ibbotson)

  • The Star of Kazan (Eva Ibbotson)

  • John Thorndyke's Cases (R. Austin Freeman)

  • The Cat of Babastes (G.A. Henty)

  • Brewster's Millions

2011 

  • Michael Strogoff (Jules Verne)

  • God's Smuggler (Brother Andrew)

  • The Seven Keys of Balabad

  • Dragonfly Pool (Eva Ibbotson)

  • Stevie and His Seven Orphans

2010 

  • Surgeon at Iwo

  • The Forgotten Heroes 

  • Cracker!: The Best Dog in Vietnam

  • Running Out of Time (Margaret Peterson Haddox)

  • Reaching Dustin