Best Books I Read in 2013

With the New Year just around the corner, it is time to jump on the list making bandwagon. Everywhere you look there are best of 2013 lists for every quantifiable thing imaginable. This year at Musings for a Leather Chair I have put together my own list, of the Best Books I Read in 2013. I must say, this year was an interesting one in terms of my book intake. According to Goodreads, a nifty website where you can track the books you’ve read and find suggestions for similar picks, I read 43 books this year. I had joined in the reading challenge hoping to finish 50 and I’m not entirely sure that I haven’t hit that, since all the reading for grad school has to add up to at least a few books.

Regardless, what stood out to me while looking over my Goodreads list and trying to choose books for my best of list was that 2013 was the year of re-reading. Nearly every single book I read this year I had already read, be it years ago or even just months before. I know some people hate the idea of re-reading a book. They have been there and done that and feel no need to revisit a plot they already know. For me, re-reading is like tucking into your favorite comfort food, or hanging out with friends you have had all your life. To open pages you have turned before and follow along on adventures with characters that you feel utterly connected to is a special thing. It is a comforting thing. You know your favorite books will never let you down, and so at least in my case, I go back to them time and time again.  I made a lot of changes in 2013, from finally landing my professional coaching job and moving out of my parent’s house to starting to train for athletics again and attending a new grad school campus. With all these changes whisking me one way or another, I read books that could keep me in one place for a while.

With that being said, I now present to you (in no particular order) Musings from a Leather Chair’s Best Books I Read in 2013:

1. The Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss –A fantasy series that I am positive will be my absolute favorite by the time it is over, eclipsing the likes of A Song of Ice and Fire and The Lord of the Rings. Rothfuss has two books in the series so far, The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man’s Fear.
2. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green – A darkly funny love story about kids with cancer. I have yet to find a John Green novel I don’t like, but this one made me cry and laugh within a hundred pages of each other and so wins a spot on this list.
3. A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin – Thank God my boyfriend made me re-read this book. It was so much better than in fifth grade. LeGuin creates a fully realized fantasy world that tries to answer the bigger questions of human existence.
4. The Beka Cooper (Provost’s Dog) Trilogy by Tamora Pierce – Tammy has once again given the reader a heroine to be proud of. Beka is shy, funny, incredibly loyal, smart and perhaps one of my favorites among Pierce’s extensive body of work. The police work provides mystery and a new setting in a world I was used to seeing from the point of view of a knight or mage.
5. Ender’s Game and Ender’s Shadow by Orson Scott Card – Despite Card having political views that I adamantly disagree with, he knows how to write spectacular science fiction. The characters are deep and the story sneakily philosophical between the fun space battles.
6. The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins – I will re-read these books forever. I love Katniss and the complexities of her character and I love that Collins resisted the urge to make these books merely teenage romance and instead strove for something deeper, darker and in the end way more engaging to read. Plus I love the movies and think Jennifer Lawrence is a goddess.
7. City of Bohane by Kevin Barry – A wonderfully original work by an up and coming Irish author. Bohane is a new take on the violence and dark humor that has consumed many Irish texts for the last decade. There are ridiculous characters that you root for and a poetic spirit to the novel that was unexpected. If you like the movie Snatch then this is a must read.
8. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman – I cannot believe I hadn’t read any Gaiman up until this point. A beautiful story told simply, as the best ones are. This is the kind of book I can image reading to my kids years from now and still enjoying it.
9. The Will of the Empress by Tamora Pierce – I know, Pierce has already shown up on here, but this is by far my favorite book out of all of her works. Characters who I met when we were both ten years old have now grown up and I love them all the more for it. There is plenty of magic and sass and women doing badass things in various ways and I know I will come back to this book over and over again as the years go by.
10. The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown – Of course a rowing book would make it on here, and what a rowing book it is. A historical work of non-fiction telling the story of the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and the US rowers who went over and won a gold medal right under Hitler’s nose. The book gives us the rowers’ stories and a remarkably human look at surviving in the Great Depression. Regardless of whether or not you row, this is a book worth reading.