This year was another big reading year for me – I read 319 books, down from last year’s 332 books! Of those books consumed, here were my favorites:

Poetry

~ No Small Gift by Jennifer Franklin: Poems with themes of betrayal, mothering a severely autistic and epileptic child, battling cancer during a divorce, mythology, and eventually, hope.

~ Where the Water Begins by Kimberly Casey: Poems with themes of loss, grief, addiction, hope, health, and figuring out how to keep moving forward.

~ All Sex and No Story by Laura Passin: A chapbook of poems that focus on the body, desire, sex, relationships, and the boundaries in between.

~ Green by Melissa Fite Johnson: Poems with themes of loss, teenage angst, hope, love and forgiving yourself for the mistakes you made in the past.

~ Borrowing Your Body by Laura Passin: Poems with themes of death, dying, loss, space, science, the infinite universe and surviving it all.

Fiction

~ The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab: The never-ending life of Addie LaRue, granted immortality but forgettability by everyone who meets her. Until she stumbles upon a man who remembers her and her world changes forever.

~ The Rose Code by Kate Quinn: Historical fiction set in England during WWII, focusing on three female code breakers.

~ The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett: Twin Black sisters who can pass as white – one returns to the hometown she tried to run from and the other leads her life as a white woman.

~ In the Quick by Kate Hope Day: A female astronaut may be the only person who believes the crew of the lost spacecraft are still alive and she may be the only person who can save them.

Nonfiction

~ The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket by Benjamin Lorr: A fascinating look at how big grocery stores started and how they’re powered. (Hint: It’s not all sunshine and rainbows and 2-for-1 deals.)

~ Still Writing: The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life by Dani Shapiro: A collection of short essays about being a writer and the writing life.

~ Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love by Dani Shapiro: After submitting her DNA to a genealogy website, Shapiro learns her father isn’t her biological father.

~ Plenty: A Memoir of Food and Family by Hannah Howard: Essays that form a memoir and focus on food, friendship, family, and the links and community they create.

~ Feast: True Love In and Out of the Kitchen by Hannah Howard: A Memoir about disordered eating and finding love, but not necessarily the right or healthy kind.

~ The Puma Years: A Memoir of Love and Transformation in the Bolivian Jungle by Laura Coleman: A memoir about Laura’s time volunteering at an animal sanctuary in Bolivia.