Tag Archives: Best Reads

MillersTime Contributors Favorite Reads from 2019

30 Monday Dec 2019

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“A Best Friend Is Someone Who Gives Me a Book I’ve Never Read”- A. Lincoln

Each year, this post is always my favorite. It combines my love of reading with the opportunity to stay in touch with friends all around the country. My hope is that each of you will find a book or books that will bring pleasure in the months ahead. And I look forward to hearing from you about what you find here that is a good read.

This 2019 list is comprised of the favorite reads of 82 adults and six children (ages 2+ to almost 11). Slightly more contributors (51%-49%) were female, about the same as last year. There were an equal amount of fiction and nonfiction books cited. (Last year, nonfiction led fiction 53%-47%, and all the previous nine years fiction led nonfiction.)

I’ve organized the post in three ways:

I. The Books that have been cited by multiple readers are listed first.

II. Next, the Contributors are listed alphabetically by first name — to make it easy if you are looking for the favorites of someone you know — with the titles and authors next, followed by any comments they made about those books.

III. Finally, a Spread Sheet is arranged in alphabetical order by the first name of the Contributor for quick reference. You can print out this alphabetical list of the MillersTime Contributors whose names are followed by Book Title, Author, and whether it is Fiction (F) or nonfiction (NF).

Also, at the end of this post, I’ve linked to the yearly lists beginning in 2009, just in case you need more suggestions or want to know what you or others favored in the past.

Enjoy.

I. Titles that appear on more than one reader’s list.

Fiction (F):

  • A Woman Is No Man, Etaf Fum
  • Before We Were Yours, Lisa Wingate
  • Bruno, Chief of Police Mysteries, Martin Walker
  • Evvie Drake Starts Over, Linda Holmes
  • Little Fires Everywhere, Celeste Ng
  • Machines Like Me, Ian McEwan
  • No-No Boy, John Okada
  • Normal People, Sally Rooney
  • Olive Again, Elizabeth Strout
  • Someone Knows My Name, Lawrence Hill
  • Stoner, John Williams
  • The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison
  • The Dutch House, Ann Patchett
  • The Great Alone, Kristin Hannah
  • The Heart’s Invisible Furies, John Boyne
  • The Nickel Boys, Colin Whitehead
  • The Other Americans, Laila Lalami
  • The Overstory, Richard Powers
  • The Water Dancer, Ta-Nehisi Coates
  • Washington Black, Esi Edugyan
  • Where the Crawdads Sing, Delia Owens

Nonfiction (NF):

  • American Prison, Shane Bauer
  • Bad Blood, John Carreyrou
  • Becoming, Michelle Obama
  • Being Mortal, Atul Gawande
  • Catch and Kill, Ronan Farrow
  • Educated, Tara Westover
  • Furious Hours, Casey Cep
  • Grant, Ron Chernow
  • Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson
  • Leadership in Turbulent Times, Doris Kearns Goodwin
  • Madame Fourcade’s Secret War, Lynne Olson
  • No Visible Bruises, Rachel Louise Snyder
  • Say Nothing, Patrick Radden Keefe
  • She Said, Jodi Kantor & Meghan Twohey
  • The Hidden Life of Trees, Peter Wohlleben
  • The Library Book, Susan Orlean
  • The Pioneers, David McCullough
  • The Warmth of Other Suns, Isabel Wilkerson
  • The Yellow House, Sarah Bloom
  • Upheaval, Jared Diamond
  • Working, Robert Caro

II. The 2019 Favorite Reads

(Alphabetic by First Name)

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The Books Most Enjoyed by MillersTime Readers in 2015

01 Friday Jan 2016

Posted by in Escapes and Pleasures

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“A Best Friend Is Someone Who Gives Me a Book I’ve Never Read”- A. Lincoln

Once again, you’re gonna need some time for this post.

And probably pen and paper (or whatever device you use these days to make your own lists) — to jot down some titles that you’ll likely want to add to your ‘to read’ list for 2016.

Despite a recurring theme in contributors’ emails about not reading as much this year, not finding as many memorable books, and/or not remembering the titles read, I think you’ll find an remarkably rich and diverse list of titles and comments.

Eighty-three of you contributed this year, listing 455 books, with fiction leading nonfiction 59% to 41%. More than 350 of the titles were only listed once or twice. The female-male division of contributors was 57%-43% (F/M), about what it has been in the past. Contributors ranged in age from 18 to 80, with most in the 30+ to 70+ year age range. (There was one ‘family’ contribution — grandmother, daughter, and granddaughter, tho I’m not sure they realized the others had contributed.)

While I don’t expect most of you will read all the way through this list (anyone who does can claim it as a book for next year), there is a tremendous amount of information here. I’ve organized it in several ways to make it all more user friendly:

  1. The most frequently cited titles are listed first.

2. Then, the contributors are listed alphabetically — to make it easy to find a specific individual’s favorites — followed by the titles and authors of the books they most enjoyed this year and any comments they made about those books.

3. Also, two spread sheet links have been added this year to see the titles, authors, and MillersTime contributors in summary form:

a) List #1 — organized with the titles first, followed by authors and followed by name of the reader/contributor citing the book, and

b) List #2 –organized with the reader/contributor names first, followed by titles and authors.

To get to (and perhaps print out) either or both of these lists, click on the links in a) or b) above. Alternatively, you can get to these lists at the very end of this post.

4. You can also click on the title of any book mentioned on this post to go to Amazon to see more about the book and its availability. (I’m not pushing Amazon and as you know am a fan of independent bookstores, but I did want to give readers a quick way to see more about a particular title.)

5. And new this year, you can click on Public Library after any title in this post to see what is available in your local library. (Note you will have to type in your zip code when you connect to the site.)

Titles that appear on the Favorites List three times or more:

Non-Fiction (NF):

Fiction (F):

For me, however, the strength and value of this (and previous) years’ lists have more to do with what contributors say about a book than the number of times a book may be listed. Sometimes, books listed only once or twice are the ones I most want to read in the coming year.

Just a reminder — this list is not meant to be the best books published in 2015, but rather what the title of this posting states — The Books Most Enjoyed by MillersTime Readers in 2015.

This list would not have been possible if those who contributed had not taken the time to send their favorite reads and their thoughtful comments. So, much thanks to all who did, those who have done so in the past — and continued to do so — and those who are new contributors.

Please forgive my endless reminders, though the results, I hope, may have been worth the nagging. (Late additions — please feel free to send them — will be posted as they arrive, without any snarky comments from the editor.)

And, of course, I take responsibility for any inaccuracies or mistakes in the posting of the titles, authors, comments, etc. as MillersTime readers rarely make grammatical or other mistakes in their submissions. Please feel free to let me know about any of my errors as I can correct them quickly and easily.

Feel free to share this post with others — family, friends, book clubs, etc.

Enjoy.

2015 – List of Favorite Reads:

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