Books I Read, Rankings (Fiction) (2019)

I decided to rank the books (fiction) I read in 2019. I had the feeling 2019 was not as good a reading year for me as previous years had been. But, I wanted to look it over, to actually get a sense of my year in books. I don't have everything listed. For instance, I read several "Sammy Keyes" books and several "Hardy Boys" books. These books are really important in the reading I do with my kids, but I only listed one of each. I did not list "The Girl on the Train" or "The Devil Colony" (a James Rollins Sigma Force novel). To me these are popular books, each enjoyable in its own way, but I just decided they don't make my top 20.

In terms of simple enjoyment, I could have listed every Jeffrey Deaver book. I just listed two (one Kathryn Dance, one Lincoln Rhyme). I could have listed all the installments of the Maze Runner and the Girl with the Dragon Tatoo, but decided to only include the first of each of those series. I listed a short stories collection and a couple of plays, but no poetry collections, even though in 2019 I read more poetry than I ever have before.

I don't have specific standards. This is just my ranking of books I read this year.

1. The Law of Finders Keepers (Shelia Turnage)
2. Their Eyes were Watching God (Zora Neal Hurston)
3. Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
4. Speaker for the Dead (Orsen Scott Card)
5. The Hand Maid's Tale (Margaret Atwood)
6. Animal Farm (George Orwell)
7. Mare Runner (James Dashner)
8. Enders Shadow (Orsen Scott Card)
9. The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo (Stieg Larsson)
10. Roadside Crosses (Jeffrey Deaver)
11. The Death of Liar (M.C. Beaton)
12. Agent 6 (Tom Rob Smith)
13. Death Trap (Ira Levin)
14. The Song of Igor's Campaign (translated by V. Nabokov)
15. Brodie's Report (Juan Luis Borges)
16. The Burning Wire (Jeffrey Deaver)
17. Journey to the Center of the Earth (H.G. Wells)
18. Hardy Boys: Double Deception (Franklin Dixon)
19. Like Water for Chocolate (Laura Esquival)
20. Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief (Wendelin Van Draanen)