5 Best Books of 2013

I'm back from my week at home.  I'll tell you more about it later this week, but suffice it to say that I had a wonderful time!

Back to the post topic at hand...  I read a lot in 2013!  As of today, I have read 79 books which is by far the most books I have read in a year.  Between all the flights I took and the extra alone time in a new city, I had a lot of time to read. And luckily, I read some really great books.  Here are my top 5 picks from 2013, in no particular order!

And The Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini - If you haven't read something by Hosseini, I highly recommend that you do.  His writing is beautiful and his books are always such page-turners for me.  And The Mountains Echoed was a little different than his other books as there were several story lines that were all inter-connected.  It got off to a bit of a slow and confusing start for me initially but I am glad I stuck with it as it was truly a wonderful book.  It was one of those books that I was sad to see end as I just really loved the characters.

Still Alice by Lisa Genova - This has been on my TBR list for years and I finally got around to reading it this year.  It was such a great book.  It's told from the perspective of Alice, a Harvard professor who develops early-onset Alzheimer's over the course of the book.  This book was especially impactful for me as Phil's dad had Alzheimer's so it was especially heart breaking to read about this, knowing his dad was suffering from this disease.

Me Before You by Jojo Moyes - I loved this book.  It's about a heavy subject as the main character is a care taker for a quadriplegic.  Despite the heavy topic, the author did a great job of introducing humor along the way and I actually laughed out loud occasionally, which doesn't happen very often when I am reading.  This book is a tear jerker, so have some Kleenexes on hand.

The Little Way of Ruthie Leming by Rod Dreher - My aunt/God-mom is a retired English teacher so every time I see her, I ask her about her latest and greatest reads. She recommended this book when I saw her at Julia Child Night so I downloaded it onto my nook for my Paris trip.  I ended up starting and finishing this book on my flight back to Charlotte.  It was so, so good.  It falls under the memoir category as the author writes about the life of his younger sister. But there are other elements in the book such as the decision to live far from family to pursue your career, and whether it's worth the sacrifices (which obviously hit home for me).  Warning:  it's another tear jerker.  I started crying when I got to a really sad part of the book and could not stop!  Which was a little embarrassing since I was in such a public place but oh well!

Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum - My best of list wouldn't be complete without a WWII book!  I have owned this one for years but finally got around to reading it for my online book club.  It was such a great book.  There is a modern-day story as the main character, Trudy, researches her family's past and it's potential tie to a Nazi soldier, and then the book flashed back to the time of WWII.  I especially loved that it was partially set in Minnesota as it's always fun to read books that are set in a city you know and love.





What were your best reads of 2013?