2016 - Your Best Five Reads of Q2 (April - June)

Another quarter gone, and half the year is over already!

What were your 5 favorite books, fiction or non-fiction, you read in the last 3 months? Please share with any comments you care to add!

I had a good reading quarter. Some of my favorites, in the order I read them, are:
Sapiens
Britt-Marie was Here
To Say Nothing of the Dog
The Life We Bury
The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint

Runners-up are:
The Witches
The Notorious RBG
Vinegar Girl
Mystic River

All the Light We Cannot See
Redemption Road
The Sense of an Ending
Dimestore
The Secret Game

A lot more good four-star reads, including I Am One of You Forever, The Quiet Game, Ice Chest, and Wilde Lake

>2 TooBusyReading: I enjoyed The Notorious RBG in the first quarter!

>3 Jim53: Yes, The Notorious RBG is great. I also enjoyed Redemption Road and All the Light We Cannot See, read earlier. I haven't read the others you mentioned but now I'll have to check them out.

>2 TooBusyReading: I loved The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint! I have The Lonely Polygamist in my tbr pile, but I think the size has kept it there too long.

>3 Jim53: I keep hearing recommendations for All the Light We Cannot See. Thank you for the reminder to pick it up!

I have 4 favorites from this quarter. In the order I read them:

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
Angela's Ashes: A Memoir by Frank McCourt
Wonder by R. J. Palacio
Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore: A Novel by Robin Sloan

I don't read many Young Adult novels, so it's unusual for me to have 2 on my favorites list.

>5 PaperbackPirate: I first read The Lonely Polygamist, which was written after Edgar Mint, because it was the first book of his I knew about. I thoroughly enjoyed it - polygamy from a male's viewpoint, funny and sad and engaging. I haven't read his short story collecting but I want a new novel by him.

I enjoyed three of the books you listed, too, but haven't read Wonder.

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin
Little Mercies by Heather Gudenkauf
Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner by Judy Melinek
As I Knew Him: My Dad Rod Serling by Anne Serling
The Little Girl Who Fought the Great Depression: Shirley Temple and 1930's America by John F. Kasson

I am not sure of the dates since I moved from Leafmarks but these were very good.

It's been a great reading quarter for me too. In order of preference, here are my five best books:

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson
Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain
Zero K by Don DeLillo
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

So many books to choose from -- a very difficult decision this time:

The Beginning of Spring by Penelope Fitzgerald
Mothering Sunday by Graham Swift
The Noise of Time by Julian Barnes
LaRose by Louise Erdrich
Waiting for the Barbarians: Essays from the Classics and Pop Culture by Daniel Mendelsoh

I didn't consider these books for the top five because they were rereads, but they deserve to be "bests", too.

Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner
Night Soldiers by Alan Furst
84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff

I'd say, in the order I read them:

Dimestore - Nice to see this book appear on Jim53's list too, as I don't think it got the attention it deserved
Atomic Weight of Love - Another Algonquin title!
Grief is the Thing with Feathers - Unlike anything I have read before - highly recommend
Lab Girl - Perfect mix of science and memoir. Observant and funny.
On Turpentine Lane - Quintessential Lipman. Probably shouldn't include it here, since it won't be published until Feb of 2017, but I loved it.

>11 alphaorder: Grief Is the Thing with Feathers looks fascinating. I'm guessing the title refers to Emily Dickinson? I've put it on hold at the library.

In order of preference...

Thirteen Ways of Looking 5 stars to this book of stories
Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer
Enchanted Islands
Before the Fall
The Never-Open Desert Diner

My list in the order I read them:

My Name Is Lucy Barton
The Story Hour
Everyone Brave Is Forgiven
The Wild Robot
My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry

Runner up:

The Death of Bees

Second Quarter Best Reads (April - June 2016)

I had a lot of reads this quarter, but only three .

In no particular order:

A Cold Red Sunrise by Stuart M. Kaminsky
Caliban's War by James S. A. Corey
Joy in the Morning by Betty Smith

One mystery, one SciFi, and one novel about a newlywed couple in the early 1900s.

I've too many to list, but several of them were Rostnikov mysteries by Stuart M. Kaminsky.

Top 5 Second Quarter 2016

A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin
The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanthi
Without: Poems by Donald Hall
Lab Girl by Hope Jahren

Top 5 recent books:

The Truth and other Lies
The Girl on the Train
Along Came the Rain
Little Face
The Art of Peeling an Orange

The first four are all suspense/domestic noir. The fifth one is a kinda literary romance.

Top 5 Books from the Quarter:

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams
The Enchanted by Rene Denfeld
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo
Through the Narrow Gate: A Memoir of Spiritual Discovery by Karen Armstrong

Honorable mention to:

The Scarlet Pimpernel by Emmuska, Baroness Orczy

I also re-read three favourites, which I didn't count, but which deserve mention: Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, and I Am The Messenger by Markus Zusak.

>18 ahef1963: I loved The Scarlet Pimpernel when I read it a couple years ago.

In reverse from June to April:

Court of Thorns & Roses by Sarah J. Maas
Britt-Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman
Queen of Shadows by Sarah J. Maas
We Should All be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Stiletto by Daniel O'Malley