Bleak House by Charles Dickens. I have a goal of reading one books that I haven’t already read by Dickens each year until I’ve read all of his novels. I’ve already read Pickwick Papers, Nicholas Nickleby, Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield, A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, and now, Bleak House. Any suggestions for a Dickens novel for 2020?

The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner. I actually read several of the books in Turner’s Queen’s Thief series this year and enjoyed them all. The first time I read The Thief, I wasn’t that impressed, but this time I really dived into the series headfirst and found it fascinating in its treatment of personality, relationship, and political intrigue.

Great Northern? A Scottish Adventure of Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome. I highly recommend the Swallows and Amazons series. I also read We Didn’t Mean To Go To Sea this year and it was just as good as the others in the series. I just have one or two more Swallows and Amazons books to read, and then I’ll have to throw a party or something Finishing the series seems to require a party or something.

Forward Me Back to You by Mitali Perkins. Great YA fiction, published in 2019.

A Lantern in Her Hand by Bess Streeter Aldrich. I just finished this family saga/woman’s life story novel a week or so before Christmas, and I loved it it. I want to read more books by this author.

Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers. This was a re-read along with the Literary Life Podcast with Angelina Stanford and Cindy Rollins, and I enjoyed it just as much as I did the first time I read it.

Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton. This was also a re-read for me, this time in conjunction with my in-person book club that just started this fall. Such a good, but heart-rending story.

The Iron Lily by Barbara Willard. I enjoyed reading all of the Mantlemass Chronicles by Willard this year, but this one may have been my favorite.

The Friendship War by Andrew Clements. Deceptively simple story about a button-collecting fad that reveals a lot about character and friendship in a group of elementary age children. Mr. Clements died late this year, after having published a number of solidly entertaining middle grade fiction titles over the course of his career. His most well-known book is probably Frindle, about a class of fifth graders who make up a new word and campaign to have it accepted into the language.

A Dawn in the Trees: The Thomas Jefferson Years, 1776-1789 by Leonard Wibberley. This book, too, was a part of a series of mildly fictionalized biographical novels about our illustrious third president. I like Jefferson better in fiction than in fact. I did enjoy these books about the story of Jefferson’s life.

What are the best fiction books you’ve read this year? What fiction are you looking forward to reading in 2020?