2020 - Your Best Five Reads of Q1 (January - March)

Please share five of your favorite books you've read in the last three months. What made your quarantine easy?

Happy list making!

I only read 2 books that are quarantine worthy:

The Winter Rose by Jennifer Donnelly
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

I've been lucky this quarter - I've read a lot of very good books. The top six (because I couldn't wrestle it down to five) are:
American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins
The Skeleton Road by Val McDermid
The Jane Austen Project by Kathleen A. Flynn
Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Longbourn by Jo Baker
The Alice Network by Kate Quinn

>3 ahef1963: I really liked Reid and Quinn's books.

The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware
Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman by Anne Helen Petersen
Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know by Malcolm Gladwell
The Library Book by Susan Orlean

In the order consumed ~

audiobooks ~
Desperate Creed: (Book 5 Ryder Creed K-9 Mystery) by Alex Kava
American Dirt (Oprah's Book Club): A Novel by Jeanine Cummins
Other Windsor Girl: A Novel of Princess Margaret, Royal Rebel by Georgie Blalock
You Are Not Alone: A Novel by Greer Hendricks

eBooks ~
A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America by Philip Rucker
Mindfulness for Chocolate Lovers: A Lighthearted Way to Stress Less and Savor More Each Day by
Diane R. Gehart
Watergate Girl: My Fight for Truth and Justice Against a Criminal President by Jill Wine-Banks

In the order in which I read them:

Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout
The Corner That Held Them by Sylvia Townsend Warner
Blood-Dark Track: A Family History by Joseph O'Neill
Apeirogon by Colum McCann
A Month in Siena by Hisham Matar

Honorable Mention:

Sempre Susan: A Memoir of Susan Sontag by Sigrid Nunez

Every time I read a thread like this, my wish list gets longer! Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud is definitely going on it now!

My faves so far this year -
The Prince of Frogtown, by Rick Bragg; Word by Word. by Kory Stamper, a re-read of Dune, Other People's Houses, by Abi Waxman, and Sourdough, by Robin Sloan.

I'd probably single out 'Word by Word' for convalescent reading, since it's (a) funny and (b) can be picked up and put down at random. For quarantine reading, probably 'Dune', since it's long and involving.

Currently reading Skinny Legs and All, by Tom Robbins, which is the second book in a row about The Apocalypse (more or less), the other one being Good Omens. Total coincidence (I think!) that those two would surface back-to-back in the TBR stack.

The Electric Acid Kool-Aid Test by Tom Wolfe
LSD and the Mind of the Universe: Diamonds from Heaven by Chris Bache
Bede Griffiths: Essential Writings (Modern Spiritual Masters Series)
The Akashic Experience: Science and the Cosmic Memory Field by Ervin Laszlo
What the Birds See by Sonya Hartnett

Here's mine:

The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Trace: Who Killed Maria James by Rachael Brown
Xenocide by Orson Scott Card
Winter's Heart by Robert Jordan
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis by Giorgio Bassani

Honorable mention: Tallinn: A Medieval Crossroads by Toomas Vendelin

>9 Ellesee:

Interesting you would list The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test as a "best of". While I loved The Right Stuff, I just could not get through 'Electric Kool-Aid'.

Anything in particular that made you rate it so highly?

>10 LisaMorr: I loved The Help so much it got to stay on my shelves when I finished.

>9 Ellesee: >11 LyndaInOregon: The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test has been in my car for 9 years as my emergency back-up book and I have about 20 pages to go. To me it's been entertaining a few pages a time, but I don't think I could sit and read it straight through.

I gave 5 stars to six books in this time period. Hard to choose, but I'll delete the children's picture book ...

Here are my five faves, Jan-Mar2020
Lab Girl by Hope Jahren
Indianapolis: The True Story by Lynn Vincent and Sara Vladik
The Only Road by Alexendra Diaz
The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng
Notorious RBG by Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik

Hmmm ... three NONfiction choices in this group...

>12 PaperbackPirate: I can see that! A friend gifted it to me with the expectation what I would pass it on, which is a great idea to share the love!

>14 LisaMorr: It's a great book to pass on too!

>9 Ellesee:
Perhaps my mistake was in trying to read The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test straight through!

I usually choose short story collections for my emergency in-car backup book! Might be interesting to see what others are carting around for "emergency" reading.

Monday Starts in Saturday by the Strugatsky brothers
The Civil War as a Theological Crisis by Mark A. Noll
Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson
The Master of the Day of Judgment by Leo Perutz
The Pendragon Protocol by Phillip Purser-Hallard
with an honourable mention to
Imperial Legend by Alexis Troubetzkoy