I’m posting my Favorite Books of the Year list a week early.

I’ve read so many lists that I feel behind, though I’m ahead of myself. I’ve read the 100 Notable Books of the Year list, dozens of Best Books of the Year lists, some behind paywalls so I only see the top of the list, and even Books That Almost Made My List lists. On my list, all the fiction writers are dead, but only one of the four nonfiction writers is dead. I’m not quite ready for the 21st century, though we’re a quarter of the way through.

I hope you had a good Christmas and Happy Reading! I plan to read some more lists… seriously.

FAVORITE FICTION (in no particular order)

Kingfishers Catch Fire, by Rumer Godden

The Middle Age of Mrs. Eliot, by Angus Wilson

The Vicar of Wakefield, by Oliver Goldsmith

Vile Bodies, by Evelyn Waugh

The Corner That Held Them, Sylvia Townsend Warner

The Way We Live Now, by Anthony Trollope

The Underground Man, by Ross MacDonald

The Moonlight, by Joyce Cary

Cecilia, by Frances Burney

Don’t Tell Alfred, by Nancy Mitford

FAVORITE NONFICTION (in no particular order)

The AI Con, by Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna

The Good Word and Other Words, by Wilfrid Sheed (essays)

The Sirens Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource by Chris Hayes

Electric Spark: The Engima of Dame Muriel Spark, by Frances Wilson