Julia's 2025 Top Reads

Once Again, I Have a Little List – and this time, it is so late I really must apologise!

 

Time has run away with me this Festive Season, but it won’t stop the Staff, Friends and Volunteers of our beautiful library Te Takeretanga o Kura-hau-po from wishing all of you Great Readers the very best New Year this worrisome world can offer us, with Goodwill to All a compulsory requirement – we hope!

 

1.    The Things We Didn’t Know, by Elba Iris Perez. 

2.    Sea Change, by Jenny Pattrick. 

3.    The Cracked Mirror, by Chris Brookmyre

4.    Frankie, by Graham Norton.

5.    Going to the Dogs, by Pierre le Maitre.

6.    Fangs for Nothing, by Steffie Holmes.

7.    In a Place of Darkness, by StuartMacBride.

8.    King of Ashes, by S. A. Cosby.

9.    A Beautiful Family, by JenniferTrevelyan.

10. Lucky Thing, by Tom Baragwanath.

11.   The Frozen People, by Elly Griffiths.

12.   An Impossible Fortune, by Richard Osman.

13.   The Spy Coast, by Tess Gerritsen.

14.    The Summer Guests, by Tess Gerritsen

15.   Three Days in June, by Anne Tyler

And there's the list, everyone - Te Takere's First Fifteen waiting for you to take your pick. 

Happy New Year to every dedicated reader in Aotearoa and around the globe.

 

 

THE BEST OF THE BEST, THE CRÈME DE LA CRÈME 

THE FIRST FOURTEEN OF THE GREATEST READS OF THE YEAR 2020, FOR ALL GREAT READERS!

1.    The Testaments, byMargaret Atwood.

2.    The Butterfly Girl, by Rene Denfeld.

3.    The Overstory, byRichard Powers.

4.    American Dirt, by JeanineCummins.

5.    Saving Missy, byBeth Morrey.

6.    The Mirror and theLight, by Hilary Mantel.

7.    Broken, by Don Winslow.

8.    The Dickens Boy, byTom Keneally.

9.    The Last Crossing,by Brian McGilloway

10.          Call Your Daughter Home, by Deb Spera

11.          The Pull of the Stars, by Emma Donohue

12.          The Thursday Murder Club, by Richard Osman

13.          Like a House on Fire, by Caroline Hulse

14.          The Sound of Stars (YA), by Alechia Dow

 I thank you all for your interest throughout the year - isn't it great to have great stories at our fingertips.  In spite of Covid and its attendant worries, we are still able to enjoy the best escapism of all.  Season's greetings everyone, and let us hope that 2021 will be a vast improvement on crappy old 2020 - we all should have a refund on this year!  Lots of love to all.  

It’s that time again …….!

When all the August Publications and Flash Mags bring out their Best of the Best lists for the year. 

So here’s mine.

Well, why not, I say!  I’ve read some pretty amazing titles this year and while I can’t list a mighty Top Twenty, I have come up with Seventeen Stunners (sorry, sorry!).  These are books that I have rated more than five stars;  it’s not easy to award six stars out of five, or even seven – so the quality of writing is stratospheric in my August Opinion.  Should you wish to read individual reviews, please use the search drop box;  for some mysterious reason I can’t provide a title link. 

The titles are in chronological order, not in order of preference.  Happy New Year, everyone, and keep reading.  As if we could ever stop!

1                   Country, by Michael Hughes

2                   The Rosie Result, by Graham Simsion

3                   November Road, by Lou Berney

4                   The Border, by Don Winslow

5                   The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock, by Imogen Hermes Gowar

6                   Necessary Secrets, by Greg McGee

7                   The Hoarder, by Jess Kidd

8                   Boy Swallows Universe, by Trent Dalton

9                   The War that Saved my Life, by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley (Junior fiction)

10              Flight of the Fantail, by Steph Matuku (Young Adults)

11              Good Girl, Bad Girl, by Michael Robotham

12              In the Shadow of Wolves, by Alvidas Slepikas

13              Auē, by Becky Manawatu

14              Elephant secret, by Eric Walters (Junior fiction)

15              The River, by Peter Heller

16              Bridge of Clay, by Markus Zusak

17              Akin, by Emma Donoghue

Julia's top twenty books from 2017

Click the links to read my reviews of the following books:

Blue Dog, by Louis de Bernieres (January 2017)
I am Pilgrim, by Terry Hayes (February 2017)
A man Called Ove, by Frederick Backman (February 2017)
The Pigeon Tunnel, a memoir by John le Carré (February 2017)
The Rules of Backyard Cricket, by Jock Serong (March 2017)
Hagseed, by Margaret Atwood (March 2017)
Carry Me, by Peter Behrens (April 2017)
Leap of Faith, by Jenny Pattrick (May 2017)
Moonglow, a memoir by Michael Chabon (June 2017)
The Hate U Give, by Angie Thomas (June 2017) Young Adults
Saints for All Occasions, by J. Courtney Sullivan (August 2017)
Look Who’s Back, by Timur Vermes (August 2017)
Lincoln in the Bardo, by George Saunders (August 2017)
Among the Living, by Jonathan Rabb (October 2017)
The Blood Miracles, by Lisa McInerney (October 2017)
The Force, by Don Winslow (October 2017)
A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towle (October 2017)
The Cartel, by Don Winslow (November 2017)
Born a Crime, by Trevor Noah (November 2017)
The Trials of Morrigan Crow, by Jessica Townsend  (November 2017) Junior fiction