💬 Friday Thread: What Are Your "Best" Books of the Year So Far?
And what are you reading now?
Hello! It’s that time of the year. Midway—the time of year many readers take stock of their reading lives, see what’s working and what’s not, and perhaps challenge themselves to pick a few books that stand out from all the rest.
I use The Storygraph to keep track of everything I read, so seeing the “statistics” of my reading life is fast and easy. But it’s not until I do this post that I take the time to evaluate every single part of my reading over the past six months. And that has been quite illuminating (I’ll share some stats below).
I also love to challenge myself to pick my top 5 books of the year so far. Doing so this year feels harder than usual—the quality of my reading is high and I’ve had many five star reads.
How I pick my “best” books….I start by taking a long walk and asking myself what books have stayed with me so far this year. What stories am I still thinking about, what characters have haunted me, what made me cry, or thoroughly entertained me. Basically, what stories (from January 1 until now) are living rent free in my mind.
I had many more than five books come to mind. So, I made a list and from there I continued asking myself questions about the most memorable characters and storylines. Five books rose to the top.
You might have a completely different method of choosing your “best” books of the year so far, or you might not feel compelled to even choose “top” reads. I know using the terms “best” and “top” are subjective, so I hope you have fun with this question and just choose some favorites of the year if “best” doesn’t appeal to you:)
My Reading Stats For First Half of the Year
Total books read - 47
Top reading mood - emotional followed closely by reflective
Top reading pace - medium followed by slow -this is interesting because if you asked me I'd say I prefer fast paced books
81% of my reading is fiction and 19% nonfiction - I’m happy with this, I'd like to bump up my nonfiction even more
Top reading genre - Literary followed by mystery then thriller
I’ve read 24 new releases and 23 backlist - almost half and half which makes me happy….to dig a bit deeper, 17 of those 23 backlist were 4 stars and above so 73% of the backlist I read I loved (that’s huge) and 14 of the 24 new releases I rated 4 stars and above so that’s 58% of my new release reading. This lets me know backlist will continue to be a focus for me for the rest of the year
Format - audio (60%), Kindle (32%) and print 9% - this tracks but I’d like print to go up and audio down for the second half of the year
My average star rating for the first half of the year is 4.28 which I’m thrilled with- quality over quantity is a priority for me
My Top 5 Books of the Year So Far
Slanting Towards the Sea by Lidija Hilje - in case you missed it, I shared my interview with Lidija on this week’s Books & Beyond podcast episode
The River Is Waiting by Wally Lamb (review shared in this post)
The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak (thoughts shared in January’s Surprise Reads episode )
The Correspondent by Virginia Evans - my interview with Virginia was an earlier Books & Beyond episode
The Last Time They Met by Anita Shreve - thoughts shared here
I’ll be sharing my top thriller and top nonfiction in the comments. I’ll also be sharing the buzzy new release I just finished which is my biggest disappointment of the year. The Friday Thread comment section is a perk for paid subscribers, I’d love for you to consider upgrading your subscription and joining us every Friday to chat books and more:)
Question Time
The questions I ask in weekly threads are meant to be fun and help us connect, so please know you don’t have to answer each question, if you only have the time/desire to answer one, great! Please put book titles IN ALL CAPS for easy reading:)
What are your “best” books of the year so far? - feel free to share as many as you’d like, share some stand outs, or just share superlatives:)
What are you reading now?
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