The Ann Arbor District Library recently (January 2020) released lists of the most requested books in its collections. Of the top twenty fiction titles that Ann Arborites want to read, I’ve reviewed eight on the Cedar Park Book Blog:
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
The Overstory by Richard Powers
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout
Significantly, seven of these eight books were also included in one of my own end-of-the-year list of favorites, for 2017, 2018, or 2019.
I’m still waiting for my turn to read several other fiction titles on the library’s “most requested” list. A couple of other novels I’ve checked out and read but decided not to review. Why? Well, Jennifer Weiner’s Mrs Everything rubbed me the wrong way with its multitude of factual errors in its supposedly realistic setting. Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments, though masterful, was too dystopian for my taste. I wanted very much to review Tommy Orange’s There There, but I couldn’t get a handle on the narrative. On my blog, I review only books that I can strongly recommend to my followers.
Although I post primarily about fiction on the Cedar Park Book Blog, I managed to review five of the Ann Arbor District Library’s top twenty requested nonfiction titles also:
The Library Book by Susan Orlean
Reading with Patrick by Michelle Kuo
Women Rowing North by Mary Bray Pipher
And I loved another nonfiction title on the AADL list, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, by Marie Kondo. My reading selections seem to align pretty well with those of my neighbors!