Top Ten for 2015

One thing I like about Goodreads is the ability to keep track of what I've read on multiple levels.  Not only do I mark off the books and rate them, but I can create "shelves" to categorize the different kinds of fiction, history, etc. that I read. 

I also really like the "stats" feature which says I read 81 books / 23,687 pages last year, although I think that includes some that I "did-not-finish" and some I marked as "reference" and therefore didn't entirely read, such as cookbooks.  The longest was Nicholas Nickleby at nearly 1,000 pages (and it felt like it!).  I gave an average of 3.5 stars in ratings (3 is "liked" and 4 is "really liked").

But for my Top Ten list I've picked books that stand out most in my memory, regardless of the rating.  Even though I re-read some favorites (Harry Potter) and loved some continuing series (How To Catch a Bogle and Lockwood & Co.), I've chosen not to include them on this list.  So, here it is (in no special order except that 5 stars are before 4 stars) with links to my reviews:

• A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
• The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times, and Ideas of the Great Economic Thinkers by Robert Heilbroner
• Mad World: An Oral History of New Wave Artists and Songs That Defined the 1980s by Lori Majewski
• Men of War: The American Soldier in Combat at Bunker Hill, Gettysburg, and Iwo Jima by Alexander Rose
• Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys (I'll post my review next week - I don't think the book's out yet)
• Rain: A Natural and Cultural History by Cynthia Barnett
• Rebecca by Daphne du Marier (I'm still working on a review but it's a classic about a woman who marries a widower but can't overcome the influence of his first wife - Alfred Hitchcock won his first Academy Award for the movie)
• Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty by Caroline Alexander
• The Great Beanie Baby Bubble: Mass Delusion and the Dark Side of Cute by Zac Bissonnette
• We Were Liars by E. Lockhart