Go on tell us the top five reads of your year...

Here are mine:in no particular order

The Gallows Curse by Karen Maitland
The Absolutist by John Boyne
A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
The Sandalwood Tree by Elle Newmark
The Homecoming of Samuel Lake by Jenny Wingfield

and an honourable mention to Scottish Prisoner - I couldn't leave Jamie out ,could I.... ???

Great idea

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
Game of Thrones by George RR Martin
Lifetime Burning - by Linda Gillard
Stargazing by Linda Gillard

Only five is really tough. These are the ones that when I look back stood out the most and were ones recommended by other people and probably wouldn't have picked up otherwise but couldn't forget their stories long after I finished them.

Room by Emma Donaghue
The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean Auel
The Jester by James Patterson
the art of racing in the rain by Garth Stein
Rosie Little's Cautionery Tails for Girls by Danielle Wood

Well, I only discovered Outlander this year so of course that is number one for me ... but have also really enjoyed:

Cloud Atlas - by David Mitchell
The Book Thief - by Marcus Zusack
Mister Pip - by Lloyd Jones
(and this is cheating because I have read it before) The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

Happy reading everyone! And may Ms G take pity on us all and release Book 8 ahead of schedule (imagine if it was already with the publishers?!? )

I don't know how you all managed to do this. It's HARD to pick only 5. These were my fiction choices (and most are multiple books, so I already cheated):

- The Temeraire series by Naomi Novik
- The Bronze Horseman trilogy by Paullina Simons (the first was my favorite)
- Kingkiller Chronicle by Patrick Rothfuss
- Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (Anyone who is comfortable getting in touch with her/his inner geek really HAS to read this book. Others might enjoy it too. )
- Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis (they are two separate books, but should have been one long one)

I listed more favorites in various categories here if you are interested: http://users.livejournal.com/_celebrian ... tml#cutid1

Hard to pick.....

1. The Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin (like when I found Outlander..where have you been all my life!!)

2. The Hollows series by Kim Harrison (I avoided them for a long time due to the titles being very bad puns on old western movies, but they have nothing to do with the West and feature a delightfully sarcastic and randy pixy)

3. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (I would have read the others in the trilogy already but I'm holding out for the more affordable paperback versions or for an available copy at the library)

4. Stargazing by Linda Gillard (if only more women wrote with such soul baring honesty!)

5. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee (I'm glad we read this as a group and I participated in chapter summaries..one of those books that I always meant to read but never had.)

It took me a while, but here are my top five reads of 2011:

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

Room by Emma Donaghue

Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford

Lady Jayne - I looked at your list and had to smile. I read 4 out of 5 of those in 2011 and all of them were on my Honorable Mentions list that I added to my favorites. All great reads! And, maybe some should have been on the top 5, but those were mostly series with more than one book, so not really a fair comparison, I think. My link shows more about my various favorites and I had a couple of followup posts to correct some things I left out.

ABL, I try to be selective about the books I read, but once in a while, I come across a dud. It is nice to know that others share my choices for top reads. One other book that I loved is Marcus Zuzak's The Book Thief. It was amazing. Another book that I re-read last year and appreciated anew is S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders.

I've been meaning to read The Outsiders because my son's whole grade read and discussed it and I don't think I've ever read it myself. Hopefully soon.

1. The Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon I picked up Cross Stitch just before Halloween and have nailed the series, twice. What a ride...
2. The End of Mr. Y - Scarlett Thomas A great book for excersizing the mind
3. The Raw Shark Texts - Steven Hall A clever sweet read
4. A Discovery of Witches - Deborah Harkness Suprised by how much I enjoyed it
5. The Historian - Elizabeth Kostova Love love loved the imagry

(2-4 in no particular order)

There are some great book choices here - I keep adding to my wishlist !!

Keep 'em coming !

My top five for 2011, after great deliberation:

1) A Discovery of Witches (seems we all like this one! can't wait for the sequel in July!)
2) A Song of Ice & Fire by George R. R. Martin (is this cheating? Read all five books in 2011, and I can't pick just one!)
3) Toss-up between the two excellent Stephen King books I read this year: Under the Dome and 11/22/63
4) The Night Strangers by Chris Bohjalian
5) You Know When The Men Are Gone by Siobhan Fallon (incredibly moving collection of interconnected short stories about military wives -- highly recommended!)

It's so hard to narrow all the great books down to the top 5! And of course, it goes without saying that I loved Scottish Prisoner...

I also re-read Jane Eyre this year, for the first time in about 25 years, and truly enjoyed it.

I'm so happy to see so many people mentioning The Book Thief -- one of my all-time favorites; such a beautiful book!

ABL - The Connie Willis books are getting much closer to the top of my "to read" pile! Really looking forward to these, although I think I want to read her two earlier (and related to these) books first: The Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing Of The Dog.

Could talk about books all day...

My top five from 2011:

1) Outlander (I've only just discovered it)
2) The Sea Captain's Wife by Beth Powning
3) Water for Elephants (this was a re-read for my bookclub, but I liked it just as much the second time)
4) The Bhudda in the Attic by Julie Otsuka
5) Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

I only read 22 books last year, and a number of them were photography books, so I'll have to put some better effort in this year! Although, it's going to be hard to tear myself away from the OL series.

Are any of you on goodreads.com ?

Yes, I love Goodreads! I think is the link to find me: http://www.goodreads.com/friend/i?i=LTM ... A3Nzk6MzYx