At the end of each year I take a look back on the books that I’ve read and try to determine the best books I’ve read in each category and the best book I read during the year.  This is a best of those I’ve read and reviewed in 2020, not necessarily the best books published in 2020.

I read more books in 2020 than I expected or intended to read. This is a result of the COVID pandemic.  My summer job was cancelled, which left me with a bunch of time and a bunch of books queued in my Kindle.

There were some consistently good mystery writers that were a part of my reading this past year. David Housewright is always reliable for a good hard-boiled detective mystery and I read two of his McKenzie Mysteries this year.

I also read two novels and one collection of short stories by one of my new favorites, Gigi Pandian. I’m always eager to open a new Pandian book.

2020 saw a new arrival on the mystery scene – possibly over-looked by most mystery readers because here books are also science fiction – Amanda Bridgeman. As I look back, I think the two books in Bridgeman’s Salvi Brentt series stand out the most to me.

But only one mystery got a full five stars and so I think it’s appropriate to award it the best of 2020…

BEST MYSTERY 2020 – Atlanta Burns by Chuck Wendig

Chuck Wendig should be a household name because everything I’ve read of his, has stood out as tremendously powerful.

I don’t typically read a lot of Historical Fiction so there aren’t a lot of books in this category to choose from, making it an easy call.

BEST HISTORICAL FICTION 2020 – THE PARISIANS by Marius Gabriel

Last year I struggled to find some worthy children’s books and YA books.  That wasn’t a problem this year. It seemed as though everywhere I looked I found some worthy reading in these categories.  That Best Mystery could just as easily be the Best YA. 2020 saw the return of Bruce Coville – one of my favorite children’s book authors.

“Children’s Book” covers a lot of ground, and if I broke the category down more to include a specific “Middle Grade Reader” I think Coville would be a shoo-in, but for 2020 I think I have to award the Best Children’s Book to another perennial favorite – someone whose art is quickly recognizable.

BEST CHILDREN’S BOOK 2020 – COZY by Jan Brett

There were a lot of good Young Adult books read in 2020 but one of my newer favorite authors – someone I don’t usually think of as a YA author, but it definitely fits for this book. You just can’t go wrong with Seanan McGuire.

BEST YA BOOK 2020 – ACROSS THE GREEN GRASS FIELDS by Seanan McGuire

I like reading Westerns, but those typically fall into a good-but-not-great category for me.  This year I read a couple of ‘new’ authors (for me anyway) in this category, and I enjoyed them. And while I will read a Craig Johnson “Walt Longmire” any time, any where, the latest didn’t really stand out. This year’s best western book goes to one of my ‘new’ authors.

BEST WESTERN 2020 – DARK TERRITORY by Terrence McCauley

Non-Fiction books have typically done pretty well on my blog here – I think they typically get better ratings than any other category. Of the 17 books I logged into this category in 2020, only three or four were rated less than 4 stars.

Normally, any book that gets 5 stars will be higher in line than a book with 4 and a half (or four and three-quarter as in this case), and while John Cleese’s Creativity: A Short and Cheerful Guide is deserving of 5 stars, Hallie Rubenhold’s The Five sticks with me as a much more memorable book.

BEST NON-FICTION 2020 – THE FIVE: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold

I have listed a Best Romance in previous years, but other than The Parisians, which I awarded Best Historical Fiction, I didn’t read anything worthy of awarding in 2020.

I’ve cut back on my Graphic Novel reading over the past few years but I did read a few this past year and I really enjoyed reading the reissue of Asterix, but one graphic novel really blew me away with its simplicity and power.  And it was a biography!

BEST GRAPHIC NOVEL – BIX by Scott Chantler

And so we come down to the two categories that I might still consider my favorites … Fantasy and Science Fiction.  I enjoy a lot of different genres, but these are the types of books that first got me reading and continue to thrill me.  These two categories also have a fair amount of crossover and my selection for Fantasy could easily be considered Science Fiction.

In Fantasy books, it would be easy to award Seanan McGuire again for Across the Green Grass Fields.  It’s such a  good book! But my Fantasy award goes to an author whose work defines the field and should be studied in schools.

BEST FANTASY 2020 – FOUNDRYSIDE by Robert Jackson Bennett

And for Science Fiction there are some giants in the field – established and new – I read Jeff Noon, John Scalzi, Christopher Paolini, Amanda Bridgeman, Jim Butcher, Kim Stanley Robinson, to name just a few.  John P. Murphy’s Red Noise came out of nowhere, was terrific, and I look forward to more in that series. But the best book in the category is easy to name.  This book won’t be published until 2021 and it is one you won’t want to miss.  I hope they print enough first editions!

BEST SCIENCE FICTION 2020 – PROJECT HAIL MARY by Andy Weir

There was one other book that I read in 2020 that I still think about.  It’s hard to define a category for it.  Science Fiction? Fantasy? Alternate History?  I’ll call it Speculative Fiction (a term used back in the 1970’s for authors like Harlan Ellison and Thomas Disch) and call a special award this year.  Read this book.

BEST SPECULATIVE FICTION 2020 – CORPORATE GUNSLINGER by Doug Engstrom

And so it comes down to The Best of the Best!  Some years it is difficult to choose the best of the best, but this year was pretty easy, despite some really fantastic reads. This is a highly anticipated book to be published in early 2021 and it is very easily the most exciting, riveting book I read in 2020.

THE BEST OF THE BEST 2020 – PROJECT HAIL MARY by Andy Weir

It was definitely a good year, and I look forward to 2021!

At the end of each year I take a look back on the books that I’ve read and try to determine the best books I’ve read in each category and the best book I read during the year.  This is a best of those I’ve read and reviewed in 2019, not necessarily the best books published in 2019. So let’s get right to it!

Looking back I was a little surprised (pleasantly) to see how many Mystery books were highly rated this past year.  In fact, there were three books that got a perfect 5.0 rating from me, and I don’t give out 5.0 scores very often.

In the running are: Reason to Doubt by Nancy Cole Silverman which I thought was absolutely fantastic. The always-reliable Caroline Fardig with Murder Over Mochas. And Final Reckoning by Robert Bailey.  Silverman’s books was really powerful, but I still recall the constant anxiety I had and the desire to keep turning pages to see what happened next with Bailey’s book.

BEST MYSTERY 2019 – FINAL RECKONING by Robert Bailey

I’ll move next to Historical Fiction because this is an easy call.  Only one book stood out, having received a perfect 5.0 rating from me.

BEST HISTORICAL FICTION 2019 – FINDING DOROTHY by Elizabeth Letts

Two categories that didn’t do as well as they have in the past are YA and Children’s books. I suspect that this has a lot to do with some of the authors who are missing from my reading list in 2019.  And in the case of YA, it is sometimes difficult to know if a book should be classified as YA or not.

In Children’s books, the best I had were two books with a 4.5 rating: A Circle of Elephants by Eric Dinerstein, and Briar and Rose and Jack by Katherine Colville.  This is a tough call.

BEST CHILDREN’S BOOK 2019 – BRIAR AND ROSE AND JACK by Katherine Colville

As in with Children’s books, YA only had two books that scored a 4.5 from me for 2019. Those were Mask of Shadows by Linsey Miller and Nemesis by Anna Banks.  This one is really too close to call, so I’m selecting one because I’ll give the other one acknowledgement later.

BEST YA BOOK 2019 – MASK OF SHADOWS by Linsey Miller

I like reading Westerns, but those typically fall into a good-but-not-great category for me.  My choice here is not a ‘typical’ Western and actually better fits the Mystery category, but, well, my award, I can do whatever I want!

BEST WESTERN 2019 – THE BITTERROOTS by C. J. Box

Non-Fiction books have typically done pretty well on my blog here, and there were two that I gave a perfect 5.0 score, and plenty others that I can recall quite fondly.  My choice is a book that is a bit older, but because I enjoyed it so much I bought a physical copy to have on hand and that speaks pretty well for a book, I think.

BEST NON-FICTION 2019 – THE HIDDEN MACHINERY by Margot Livesey

I don’t read a lot of Romance books (I guess it’s a ‘guy’ thing?) but I’m always curious about the genre since it’s so popular with the general reading public.  I only read a few this year, some of them decent, but I’m giving this award to the book I didn’t use for the YA award.  The romance in Anna Bank’s YA book Nemesis was really well done.

BEST ROMANCE 2019 – NEMESIS by Anna Banks

I’ve cut back on my Graphic Novel reading this past year (I think), and of what I’ve read, I haven’t been overly impressed. The winner this year isn’t a traditional graphic novel but rather a collection of newspaper comic strips.

BEST GRAPHIC NOVEL – HE-MAN AND THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE NEWSPAPER COMIC STRIPS published by Dark Horse Books

And so we come down to the two categories that I might still consider my favorites … Fantasy and Science Fiction.  I enjoy a lot of different genres, but these are the types of books that first got me reading and continue to thrill me.  These two categories also have a fair amount of crossover and my selection for Sci-Fi could easily be considered Fantasy.

In Fantasy books, I was a little surprised to see that I hadn’t given any 5.0 scores and that some of my favorite authors didn’t score higher.  But for my selection (with a 4.75 rating) I’m going with an author I don’t usually think about, but when I read his books, I’m always completely enamored.

BEST FANTASY 2019 – GATES OF THE DEAD by James A. Moore

And for Science Fiction I have the difficult task of selecting a title from two very strong contenders.  Either of these could be considered Fantasy, but I tend to think of them as Science Fiction and so that’s where I’m categorizing them.  And since I can’t really make up my mind, I’m awarding a five-way tie!  But in a sense, it’s a two-way tie, since the books represent two different series.

BEST SCIENCE FICTION 2019 –

Books 1 & 2 in The Philosopher’s Series: THE PHILOSOPHER’S FLIGHT & THE PHILOSOPHER’S WAR by Tom Miller

and

Books 1, 2, & 3 in The Map of Unknown Things series: THE QUEEN OF ALL CROWS, THE OUTLAW AND THE UPSTART KING, & THE FUGITIVE AND THE VANISHING MAN by Rod Duncan

And so it comes down to The Best of the Best!  Most of the books listed above were a surprise to me.  Only two of the authors listed here have been on my ‘best of’ lists before and I love that part of the reading and reviewing – finding new voices that really entertain. For the Best of the Best I selected an author who so ‘wow’d’ me that I immediately went out and bought TWO copies of the book(s) to share.  I really wanted others to see how tremendous the books are.  And so far everyone has really enjoyed them as well.

THE BEST OF THE BEST 2019 – THE PHILOSOPHER’S FLIGHT and THE PHILOSOPHER’S WAR by Tom Miller

It was definitely a good year, and I look forward to 2020!