Five-Star Fiction.

As this year comes to an end, I am also coming to the end of a 10-year period of recording every book I read. I started in January 2007, and it has been a really fun and rewarding pastime--and helpful, too, as I become more forgetful about what I have and haven't read!

I want to spend the next few days talking about the stats and details of what I have read in ten years' time. I record my books at GoodReads, and while I don't review them, I do rate them on their five-star system.

I am really picky about the fiction I read. And I read a lot of disappointing fiction. So for me to give a book five stars...it has to be wonderful. Now I have to say that some of these books have really stuck with me over the years, and others are barely memorable to me now. But I felt "five-star-ish" about each one of these when I finished it!

Here are my five-star fiction books from 2007-2016.

March, Geraldine Brooks
The Emancipator's Wife, Barbara Hambly
Year of Wonders, Geraldine Broooks
First Among Sequels, Jasper Fforde
Thus Was Adonis Murdered, Sarah Caudwell
The Shortest Way to Hades, Sarah Caudwell
The Sirens Sang of Murder, Sarah Caudwell
The Sibyl in Her Grave, Sarah Caudwell
Above Suspicion, Helen MacInnes
Alas, Babylon, Pat Frank
The Constant Princess, Philippa Gregory
River of Darkness, Rennie Airth
Moloka'i, Alan Brennert
The Widow's War, Sally Cabot Gunning
The Book Thief, Markus Zusak
Mistress of the Art of Death, Ariana Franklin
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Given Day, Dennis Lehane
City of Shadows, Ariana Franklin
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, Helen Simonson
Marvels, Kurt Busiek
Alice I Have Been, Melanie Benjamin
Queen Lucia, E. F. Benson
What Alice Forgot, Liane Moriarty
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, Stephen King
The Shining, Stephen King
The Age of Miracles, Karen Thompson Walker
The Art of Fielding, Chad Harbach
All the King's Men, Robert Penn Warren
Doc, Mary Doria Russell
The Cuckoo's Calling, Robert Galbraith
The Husband's Secret, Liane Moriarty
The End of the Wasp Season, Denise Mina
Crow Lake, Mary Lawson
The Aviator's Wife, Melanie Benjamin
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Rachel Joyce
The Hypnotist's Love Story, Liane Moriarty
The Light Between Oceans, M.L. Stedman
The Center of Everything, Laura Moriarty
Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel
All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr
Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn
Mind of Winter, Laura Kasischke
Those Who Wish Me Dead, Michael Koryta
The Invention of Wings, Sue Monk Kidd
Life After Life, Kate Atkinson
Duel: Terror Stories, Richard Matheson
Endless Night, Agatha Christie
The Girl With All the Gifts, M.R. Carey
Big Little Lies, Liane Moriarty
The Song of Hartgrove Hall, Natasha Solomons
The Swans of Fifth Avenue, Melanie Benjamin
Ross Poldark, Winston Graham
 The Wild Girl, Kate Forsyth
 Descent, Tim Johnston
 Miller's Valley, Anna Quindlen

Items of note:
The four books by Sarah Caudwell are, sadly, the first and only four books of her Hilary Tamar mystery series. She passed away before she could write more. If you are an Anglophile, if you like wordy, smart-alecky protagonists, and if you secretly think you're smarter than most of those around you...this is a series you will enjoy.