If It's January, It Must Be Time for a Roundup of Book Lists

This was supposed to be a December list (I started it in December, but then something happened. Hmm, maybe it was...the holidays, visitors, celebrating...or something along those lines). At any rate, we're hopefully all back into our routines, so I'm making this a January list. For those of you who have been around here for awhile, it will come as no surprise that I love books. I love looking at books, buying books, looking at the covers of books, thinking about books and...there's not much I don't like about books.

A book list--whether it is a list of the best books of the year, the best books on a particular subject or simply one individual's childhood (or adulthood) favorites--is like treasure to me. I dive right in and envision myself having the time to read all those books, even though I know I won't get to many of them. After all, I have my own favorites and there are tons of new books published each year. Still, a person can look...and dream. So here are just some of the latest book lists.

Smithsonian's Best Books of 2018. I like the fact that these are divided into subject areas, such as the best history books, the best science books, the best books about travel or food or children's books.

NPR's Guide to 2018's Great Reads. These are divided into even more categories. Plus, you can easily click through to "the best books" from prior years.

This next list names the winners of the 2018 Goodreads Choice Awards. I'm a big fan of Goodreads, because the reviews are done by readers.

And here's the best books list by The Washington Post.

Publishers Weekly (Again, you can easily access prior years)

Bustle's 30 Best Fiction Books of 2018

A list from Thrillist

Mental Floss 56 Best Books of 2018

Lit Hub's 59 Favorite Books of 2018

Best Books (various categories) chosen by the Chicago Public Library

And even though I'm not a fan of slideshows (just give me a list), I love libraries and librarians, and they often find things the rest of us miss, so here's a great group by Library Journal. You can choose your genres.

If you're a science fiction fan, here's a list from the Chicago Review of Books.

Fantasy? Here's a list from Bookbub.

Some mysteries and thrillers from Bookish

A Young Adult best of 2018 book list from Paste

Notable childrens' book by the Association for Library Service to Children (there are no covers shown, but they are divided by age group, which is nice). You can also click through to other parts of the site if you're interested in checking out past and present Newbery and Caldecott winners.

You'll note that I haven't included any dedicated romance novel lists for 2018, my own field. That's because every list that I looked at had me thinking, but what about...? There are just too many that I've loved that haven't made the lists, and the field is just too wide (contemporary, historical, fantasy, steampunk...the list goes on). That said, I'm sure that some of them show up on some of the lists above. Also, many of the websites above , as well as others (BookBub, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo...) have ever changing lists of the best of romance. But I will add one that isn't really a best of 2018 list. This one by All About Romance was a list of the Top 100 Romances (decided by a poll), and though it says 2018, many of these have been around a long time. I thought it was fun to look at some old favorites, I hope you do, too.

So, I think my To Be Read pile has grown too large after all of that. I'm not even going to look at those upcoming 2019 book lists yet. At least not until tomorrow. <smile>

I hope you found something here. Enjoy!

Myrna