The first 9 books in the Three Pines Gamache books by Louise Penny.

"Educated", "Five Days Gone" and a biography of A.E. Housman, that included his poetry collection in "A Shropshire Lad."

Nothing outstanding this year, but I did enjoy

Under a Wing Reeve Lindbergh's autobiography about growing up in a famous household.

The Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd an intermingling of finding the remains of a prehistoric body in the peat of a Northern island mountain and the horrors of the 'Troubles' in that sorry country.

Heartbreak Hotel by Deborah Moggach because she is an excellent humorous writer (in the English sense, 'though often lost on other English speaking people) and I don't read enough light but bright fiction.

“The
House of the Mosque” by Kader ABdolah It is about a family those is
the keykeeper of the mosque. The novel describes the life in a little
village in Persia under the Saha rules and how it changed after the
religious revolution, life became a nightmare, mother who denounced
her own son because in her opinion he didn't strictly followed the
Allah law. Instead before the Ayatollah revolution, life was easy and
pleasurable.

By
the same Author I red also “My
Father’s Notebook” and was very good. The novel rivet around the
bound between him and his father, who was a deaf-mute, they used to
live in a little village far away from Theran. Of course his father
was a believer in a naive way, the son, Abdolah wasn’t and when
enrolled at the University he joined also a lefty party that acted
obviously underground dreaming about a revolution in order to wipe
out the Shah and his regime. So they were persecuted by the Shah. At
one point , the revolution arrived, but not as they have dreamt it,
it was a religious revolution, so now the party was still persecuted
by the Immans, for his father little changed, once in command there
was the Shah and now there is Komheini , that’s all. For the son
instead things change a lot, the Saha was despised from the majority
of the population, but with the immans in command , all the people
were with them . At one point he had to absconded , first in Soviet
Unit, then in DDR and eventually in Holland. He no more think about
politics, he started writing novels.

The Golem and the Jinni. This is not my usual genre but I read it on Yoyobon's recommendation, and I loved it! I can't wait for the sequel.

Six Louise Penny books (maybe seven if I get the one on hold in time).

The Lost Man.

Those were the ones I enjoyed the most this year.

Donna

Shadow Divers (Kurson)

City of Thieves (Benioff)

Island of Sea Women (See)

The Other Americans (Lalami)

Washington Black (Edugyan)

For lighter fare, I've enjoyed M. C. Beaton's Hamish Macbeth series.

Cool!

Our enthusiasm was premature......Harper Collins shows no release by her :o(

Socks, thanks for a reminder. I have been musing (for some unknown reason) that there are few red-haired heroes in fiction. Of course, Hamish is one.

Any more? I like the tall, dark and handsome or a dirty-blond hero ...

Ann... I don’t have any other suggestions for you. I’m not a big fan of cozy mysteries, but I do like Hamish, the Scottish setting and all the characters. Beaton has written another series called Agatha Raisin, but I haven’t tried those. There’s a Hamish Macbeth series on the streaming services (Amazon?). I enjoyed it but Hamish doesn’t look as expected.

I haven't read the Hamish Macbeth series. I'm sorry to say I found the Agatha Raisin 'book one' unbelievable and therefore unreadable . . . so I didn't bother with the rest . . . and like socks am not really 'into' cosy mysteries . . . or, come to that, series!

Ann, the hero in Faye Kellerman’s books, Lieutenant Peter Decker, is red-haired.

Donna

Socks, I have read some of the Agatha Raisin books but got bored with the character after a while. There is a TV series but the actor again doesn't look like the book description.

I like Hamish fairly well, but I found Agatha Raisin silly.

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine

Where the Crawdads Sing

Out of the Easy

Molokai

The KItchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar

Dispatches from Pluto: Lost and Found in the Mississippi Delta

As Bright as Heaven

Pachinko

The Good Luck of Right Now

The Story of Arthur Truluv

My favorites from my 2019 reading:

Educated -- Tara Westover
The Library Book -- Susan Orlean
The Great Alone -- Kristin Hannah
Where the Crawdads Sing -- Delia Owens
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine -- Gail Honeyman
Nomadland -- Jessica Bruder
Sadie Shapiro’s Knitting Book -- Robert Kimmel Smith
The Stranger in the Woods -- Michael Kinkel

I can never remember what I read all year, but a few good ones off the top of my head are The Dutch House, Where the Crawdads Sing, and the last couple of the War at Home series by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles.

Carolyn - I keep a reading journal; otherwise I wouldn't remember either. And if I read as many books as you do, I really wouldn't remember!

I keep journals, too, but by author. The last couple of years I've been listing on Goodreads, too, but another problem I have is not remembering the plot either, although I do a brief recap in the journals.

Ha @carolyn_ky I use goodreads to keep track of the books I want to read, and then what I have read. Very helpful.I honestly don't remember too many plots clearly, but I definitely remember how much I loved (or not) a book. Just rating wtih the stars helps too!