This year I’ve read 100 books, around one every 4 days. Not crazy, but a little goal I set myself since I like to tell people I love to read, then forget how much I actually do love to read. I keep track via Goodreads, and here are my top 5 of the year.

Blindness by Jose Saramago — WTF? Made me stand up from the sofa and feel incredibly lucky at the world outside my window. I love books that do this. Force a little reality shift. Kept me nervous the WHOLE way through. Kinda hate that, but major respect for the talent of Saramago. Truly a tour de force for lack of a better term. How quickly it all falls apart. Adored it all.

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk — Absolutely my author of the year. I adore anything she writes. It is deeply inspiring to see how she plays around with words. And the protagonist of this made me fall in love with women, the world, animals and nature. Deeply moving and inspiring. Again, I probably stood up and looked outside the window on closing this one. Utter adoration for Olga.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie — Let me tell you something, I adore anything classic murder mystery. ANYTHING. I will clear Mountain View Public Library of their Agatha Christie every so often. And they all said, this one is the best. They were right. She messes with your head in the most subtle and fun of ways. Like Christie is kind of laughing at you. That’s fine by me, I personally DID NOT see the twist coming. I just watched Wake Up Dead Man (Knives Out), and I noticed this book was on the reading list along with the Hollow Man, as Benoit Blanc tries to solve the murder of Wicks. I thought, man, I’ve cracked it! The priest did it! What a clever clue for clever folk like me! How I revelled in my intelligence. I’ve read that, I cried! LOL. Well, they got me again.

Nightwatching by Tracy Sierra — This little gem was on my mother’s book shelf when I visited home this year. With nothing to read, I picked it up, stomped up to my childhood bedroom at the back of the house (overlooking pitch black gardens), and started to read. Bad idea. Read this in daylight. With nice normal people around. Coffee shop, maybe? Do not read this in the dark and creaking quiet of your parents old house. You will be convinced of your own death. Anyway, loved it. Adored it. Women as strong leads with a little violence in the soul. Love.

North Woods by Daniel Mason — It doesn’t get better than A Daniel Mason. For real. I am in love with him. By the time you realise what it is truly about, Mason’s prose claws are in your soul. You’re staying til the end, he says. He is right. You are. This book is delightfully, soulfully moving. Elegant, genre spanning, a blurring work of fiction around one homestead in Massachusetts. I adore him. The Piano Tuner sits on my bedside table for when I have finished the books I have checked out from the library currently (a self imposed rule).