Top "Reads" of 2010

As of today, I read 92 books in 2010, many of them during my period of enforced rest as I got over swine flu and then pneumonia. A lot of what I read was in the cozy mystery genre, and this year I read all of the "Evan" books by Rhys Bowen, all of the Cedar Cove series by Debbie Macomber, all of the Inspector Gamache books by Louise Penny (who lives right over the border in Canada), and most of the "The Body in the..." series by Katherine Hall Page. It was impossible to pare my list of favorites down to ten, so I ended up with these 13:

• Bury Your Dead - Louise Penny (I liked all of hers, but this was the latest)
• The Lace Reader - Brunonia Barry
• The Lacuna - Barbara Kingsolver
• Shadow Tag - Louise Erdrich
• So Brave, Young, and Handsome - Leif Enger
• The Aloha Quilt - Jennifer Chiaverini
• The Day of the Pelican - Katherine Paterson
• The Killer Angels - Michael Shaara
• Echoes of Vermont - Thomas C. Davis
• The Girl Who Chased the Moon - Sarah Addison Allen
• Fun Home - Alison Bechdel
• The Help - Kathryn Stockett
• A Mercy - Toni Morrison

Now I see that two of the books were written by neighbors (Tom and Katherine), and about half of the books were published before 2010. It's quite a mixed bag, but each offered a story or ideas that I thought about long after finishing.