Books of 2018: Honorable Mentions

This next list of book recommendations from me contains mostly four star reads, as well as three five star ones.  These were all excellent books and I enjoyed them immensely.  Another long post, so I hope you will enjoy it!

Honorable Mention

Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarity

I am a big fan of Liane Moriarity and will read anything she comes out with.  This book tells the tale of nine people who, for various reasons, come together at a remote luxury health resort.  Some want to lose weight, others to gain spiritual clarity, to get over grief, to attain more of a zen attitude, etc.  They all know the ten day stay will involve hard work, but no one is ready for the actual challenges they all will face.  

Dear Mrs. Bird by AJ Pearce

Set in London during WW2, this book is about Emmeline, who is trying to stay cheerful and do her bit.  What she wants more than anything is to work as a journalist, preferably as a war correspondent.  When she gets hired at a newspaper, she thinks it is her big break.  Imagine her surprise when she learns she is to be the assistant to the paper's advice columnist, the extremely disagreeable Mrs. Bird.  Does Emmeline take things too far when she starts writing some of the advice letters herself and bypassing the unsympathetic Mrs. Bird?  A witty and light read.

The Witch Elm by Tana French

Tana French is an Irish author best known for her Dublin Murder Squad series.  She branches off in a new direction with this stand alone novel, which I enjoyed very much.  Toby is a lucky charmer who always seems to land on his feet.  One night after having drinks with his buddies, he is burglarized and beaten nearly to death.  As he struggles to recover his health and memory, he realizes he may never be the same as he was.  He takes refuge at the ancestral family home occupied by his dying Uncle Hugo.  A skull turns up in the hollow tree in the back yard and Toby begins to question whether he is remembering his past as it actually occurred.  Very suspenseful, with a plot that will keep you guessing.

The Woman in the Window by  A. J. Finn

Anne lives alone in her house, an alcoholic and agoraphobic.  She orders in all she needs, mainly prescription meds and wine.  She is the perfect "unreliable narrator" we all love to have in our psychological thrillers.  Spending time spying through her window, Anne thinks she witnesses a murder in a neighbors house.  Did she really, or did she imagine it?  The plot unfolds in a very suspenseful manner and I found it quite "Hitchcockian" in its atmosphere.

Educated by Tara Westover

This book is a memoir about a young girl who grows up in a remote area with an eccentric survivalist family.  Tara is kept out of school, is denied any kind of medical attention and doesn't even have a birth certificate.  She first attends school at the age of 17, not knowing what the Holocaust was, who Martin Luther King was, and most other basic bits of knowledge even the least educated of us are exposed to.  Despite terrible odds put upon her by her family, Tara's insatiable quest for knowledge leads her to leave her insanely restrictive family, get into college, do graduate work both at Harvard and Cambridge, and eventually earn a PhD.  And write this scathing memoir about her early upbringing.  Her early experiences are so incredible they verge on the unbelievable, but this book is definitely something to experience.  And besides, absolutely everyone is talking about it!

The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gowar

In 1700s London, a prosperous merchant comes into the possession of a tiny mummified mermaid.  This bizarre object becomes a sensation and turns Jonah Hancock's life upside down.  He is wined and dined by the highest society (who all want to see this curious object) and comes to meet Angelica Neal, a notorious and beautiful courtesan.  This book is so wonderfully descriptive of society and it's various characters, smells, tastes, and interiors.  So if you love description and atmosphere in a book, you will love this.  The plot is preposterous of course, but once you get over your skepticism that anyone could find a dead mermaid, you will enjoy the romp that is this book.  Five stars.

Circe by Madeline Miller

If you loved mythology as a kid, as I did, this might be a wonderful read for you.  Circe is a Titan, daughter of the Sun God Helios.  Different from her siblings, she is shunned and becomes a loner.  It turns out that she does possess the power of witchcraft, and once banned forever to a remote island she employs her magic to great effect.  Many famous characters from mythology turn up on the shores of her island.  She comes to love mortals and is forced to make a choice as to which world she belongs in, the world of men or the world of the gods.  Very descriptive, with such a strong female character, this book was a very satisfying story. Five stars.

We Were the Lucky Ones by Georgia Hunter

This novel was inspired by the true story of one Polish Jew family who became separated at the beginning of WW2.  We follow the various family members who are forced onto very different paths.  One goes into exile to Brazil, some get sent to a work camp in Siberia, some work in factories in the Jewish ghetto, some manage to live as gentiles in plain sight of the Nazi's who want to round them up or kill them.  Against incredible odds, we follow the stories of these family members throughout the war years.  It is a book about survival, luck, beating the odds, the fear and sorrow that they may never see each other again, and the hope they maintain throughout the most perilous and horrific experiences.  It sounds like the subject matter might be hard going, and sometimes it is, but overall this was one of the most uplifting and hopeful books I have ever read.  Five stars.

So in this post and my previous one yesterday, I shared with you my 18 best reads in 2018.  Stay tuned for more though, because next week I will talk about some disappointments and duds!  I will also make recommendations for my favorite audible books, tell you about the author I read the most last year, my favorite new author discovery, and which books from my past I decided deserved to be re-read.