Category: Things I Like

The Electric State by Simon Stalenhag
Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers
The Rose Code by Kate Quinn
Under the Whispering Door by T.J. Klune
Oreo by Fran Ross
The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters

Hild by Nicola Griffith
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty
The Curse of Chalion by Lois Bujold McMaster
Perhaps the Stars by Ada Palmer
Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

Edit: I’ve been thinking about this list, and I’ve decided to complicate it slightly. I did enjoy Perhaps the Stars and Nona the Ninth, but they are also fairly apparent choices. Both are later books in series that I have consistently enjoyed. I believe the first book of both series are on previous favorite lists. But there were two other books I read that were a little different, and I’m still thinking about them. So as an alternative, instead of Perhaps the Stars and Nona the Ninth, I might also say:

Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield
The Door in the Wall by Marguerite de Angeli

A Tangled Web by L.M. Montgomery
The Beatryce Prophecy by Kate DiCamillo
Ness by Robert Macfarlane
Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi
Rose Daughter by Robin McKinley
Bea-Wolf by Zach Weinersmith and Boulet
The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Poison for Breakfast by Lemony Snicket
Cress Watercress by Gregory Maguire
Jade War by Fonda Lee
The Shape of Sex by Leah DeVun
The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Fire Logic by Laurie J. Marks

I’ve been posting my favorite books of the year for (over) 5 years now, so I decided to scour the last 5 years to find my favorite books from my favorite books. Here they are: Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (from 2021) Paris Out of Hand by Karen Elizabeth Gordon (from 2018) The Only Harmless Great Thing by Brooke Bolander (from 2019) The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard (from 2018) When the Moon Was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore (from 2017) Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor (from 2017) A Stranger in Oolondria by Sofia Samatar (from 2017)

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle
The Hidden Palace by Helene Wecker
Shriek: An Afterword by Jeff Vandermeer
She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan
Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Woven in Moonlight by Isabel Ibañez
Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger

Honorable Mentions
The Secret Lives of Color by Kassia St. Clair
The Tea Dragon Society by Katie O’Neill
Prosper’s Demon by K.J. Parker

The Complete Tales of Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne
Night Hands by Jen Cross
A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine
Thomas the Rhymer by Ellen Kushner
The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery
Evergreen Ash by Christopher Abram
Beowulf: A New Translation by Maria Dahvana Headley

The Only Harmless Great Thing by Brooke Bolander
Monster Portraits by Sofia Samatar
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Emma by Jane Austen
Wise Child by Monica Furlong
The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker
Forget the Sleepless Shores by Sonya Taaffe
Emily of New Moon by L.M. Montgomery

Honorable mentions:
Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

The entire Earthsea series by Ursula K. Le Guin. My favorite: The Tombs of Atuan
Paris Out of Hand by Karen Elizabeth Gordon
Cloud and Ashes: Three Winter’s Tales by Greer Gilman
Dictionary of the Khazars by Milorad Pavić
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard
Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson
The Notebook of Malte Laurids Brigge by Rainer Maria Rilke

When the Moon Was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore
Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor
The Refrigerator Monologues by Catherynne Valente
A Stranger in Oolondria by Sofia Samatar
The Crusades Through Arab Eyes by Amin Maalouf
The Museum at Purgatory by Nick Bantock
The City of Saints and Madmen by Jeff VanderMeer
Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness by Peter Godfrey-Smith