Again, many thanks to all of you who took the time to send in your favorite reads from 2013 and to write briefly about them.

A few thoughts, questions, a suggestion, and a plan:

What part of the list do you find the most helpful? Is it knowing the person who listed a book? Is it the number of times a book is cited? Is it the written comments about a particular book? Is it having some experience with choosing a book in prior years and thus ‘trusting’ the person who favored a book? Or something entirely different?

Something I just realized this year. Tho the sample is small, women tended to recommend fiction and men nonfiction. Not sure if that’s a more universal thing or just particular to this audience. Your thoughts?

A number of people mentioned they had trouble remembering books read in the beginning of 2013 and tended to list more recently read books. Suggestion: For 2014, when you finish a book, just write down the title in your calendar (electronic calendar if you do that sort of thing). Then it will be easier to reconstruct your year’s reading. (I tried to do that, but somewhere in the middle of the year I changed electronic calendars and lost what I had recorded. I hope not to do that again this year.)

Feel free to pass on this list to a friend or foe.

And for what you all have done for me, after numerous rereads of the 2013 list, I’ve chosen 12 to read over the next year. A couple were already on my ‘to read’ list, but most were not. Some were recommended by more than one of you; some by just one of you. Usually, I was intrigued by what individuals wrote about a particular book.

In alphabetical order:

Americanah (F)

The Absolute True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (NF)

The Dinner (F)

The Gallery (F)

God’s Hotel (NF)

The Goldfinch (F)

How to Live-or-A Life of Montaigne (NF)

Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls (F/NF)

The Lowland (F)

Sharp Objects (F)

So You Think You Know Baseball (NF)

Zealot (NF)

There are many more than 12 that interest me, but just one a month allows for other reads, for rereads, for new books, and for older, unread ones.

Thanx all.