Once the barrage of lightweight summer books has come and gone, readers’ thoughts to turn fall reading and holiday gifts. To help us make our choices, the usual flurry of best books of the year articles and lists is showing up all over the Internet and in your favorite book stores. For this, you can always start with the list of 101 best books of the year on Publishers Weekly. (The feature has site errors in it, but click on OK and get past them.) Or you can look at USA Today’s list of fall books here.
Indie Bound publishes a “Next” list for upcoming books. Here are their favorites for November:
Likewise, Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance (SIBA) keeps up with bestsellers for bookstores in the southeast. Here’s the link to their hardbacks PDF. On the download, they’ve highlighted several books, including:
When people ask me about fiction and poetry, my answer depends on what (if anything) I know about the person. Do they like romance, fantasy, general fiction, crime? However, my three top picks of the year in fiction are:
And, for those who like poetry (I think Bryant’s latest book is only on Sams Dot Com):
I’m intrigued by these short stories, but they may not work for everyone:
In the crime category, I liked Robert Galbraith’s (J. K. Rowling) The Cuckoo’s Falling and Stephen King’s Joyland. In plays, I liked Elizabeth Clark-Sterne’s On the Doorstep of the Castle. Also, Tracy R. Franklin’s strong collection of poetry and essays Looking for the Sun Door is a beautiful book. And, since a short story of mine appears in the anthology, I have to mention Spirits of St. Louis: Missouri Ghost Stories. Of course, I wouldn’t mind if you clicked on the banner below to take a look at my new contemporary fantasy The Betrayed.
I hope you find plenty out there for your to-be-read list and for the lists of your friends and family.