My Favorite Books of 2013

The year 2013 has turned out to be a year of confusion.  I read alot of great books during the year and many of them came to me in a very roundabout way.  Usually I browse the bookstore looking for new titles.  Of course I keep up with the bestseller lists in the New York Times, USA Today because I love lists. I looked at the top 100 books of 2013 on Amazon and surprisingly I hadn't heard of most of them and had actually read only about 5.  Lists can make me feel out of touch but I'm hoping my list will put some new life into your own reading choices.

The Best Book by those of the Same Title:    Life After Life by Jill McCorkle
Life After Life by Kate Atkinson was released to much acclaim on the same day as the novel of the same title by McCorkle.  I read them both because of the intrigue.  You will find the title by Atkinson on many of the best book lists, but I didn't like it at all. Neither did my sisters. Repeating  Ursula's life over and over, tired me.  Life After Life by Jill McCorkle portrayed brilliantly what it feels like to be young and grow old. 

The Funniest Book:  The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window by Jonas Jonasson
The title says it all.  The 100 year old man climbed out the window of the old folks home and found the adventure of his life.  As I said before, its a cross between Forest Gump and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  Laugh out loud, funny.

The Book with the Most Publicity that Should be Skipped:  The Cukoo's Calling  by Robert Galbraith
Or was it really written by J.K Rowling?  It doesn't matter who wrote it.  Dull.  Skip it.

The Best Self Help Book that Wasn't:  The Book of Why by Nicholas Montemarano
With a title like that, it's easy to understand why I thought this was a self help book.  It's a novel full of help understanding the mysteries of life.  I adored it.

The Best Books for Women:  I couldn't decide between The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty, The Silent Wife by A.S.A Harrison and The Wives of Los Alamos by TaraShea Nesbit
The Husband's Secret is on all the best books list as it should be.  Loved it.   I couldn't remember the title at first so The Silent Wife came up instead on my search.  This novel shows up on very few lists and it needs to be on more.  A great read! The Wives of Los Alamos will be released after the first of the year.  Pre order it!  You will not be disappointed and you will learn a few things about the history of WWII.

In 2013, I read many more fascinating books, some good, some bad, and the rest only OK.  They couldn't all make the list. A few made other well known lists but couldn't make my cut.  My resolution for the New Year is to read only good books.  Let's see how that works for me!  Happy New Year.  Happy Reading!

The Cukoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith

The Cukoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith

Even I can't resist a good headline.  When I heard that The Cukoo's Calling had been written by J.K. Rowling under a pseudonym, I had to read it.  I am not usually drawn to what is on the top of the New York Times Bestseller list, instead choosing to indulge my own eclectic tastes, but I adore Harry Potter.  I figured I might as well get in on the action to see what all the fuss is about.

Supermodel, Lula Landry falls out the window of her London flat into the snow.  Comoran Strike, a down and out private detective is hired by Lula's brother to prove she did not commit suicide as the police have ruled. Strike, anxious to have a paying customer, jumps into the investigation. 

Mysteries are not usually my thing.  The death happens on page one and I had to swim upstream through 400 pages to find out who did it.  I tired of Strike interviewing one person and each subsequent chapter detailing the same question and answer with the next character.  And so on and so on.  To me as a reader I didn't feel the questioning moved the story forward.  By the time I got to the end I really wasn't surprised, but I failed to understand how Strike came to his conclusion.  Maybe because I was bored, I skipped over the parts I should have paid attention to.

J.K. Rowling is a masterful writer. Her descriptions and scenes come to life through her prose. The Cukoo's Calling is filled with vibrant and colorful characters.  The story they were a part of, unfortunately, plodded along because of the large portions of dialogue necessary for a crime investigation. 

I wasted my vacation on this novel.  From now on, I'm going to select my reading material based on what appeals to me, and not rely on the newspaper's headlines. Come to think of it, I was disappointed on how Harry Potter ended too.