Favorite Reads of 2013

As a book reviewer for Shelf Awareness, I read and review at least three titles per month. Those titles are culled from an often eclectic list of nonfiction and fiction (mysteries and romances) - books I might not normally choose for myself, per se, but titles I have enjoyed reading that broaden my range. This blog tends to highlight a majority of those titles. However, I read a lot more than what I post on this blog.

Below is a list of my favorite reads from 2013. Please note: there is no special ranking. Each book is vastly different in content, form, tone and subject matter, and I feel it is unfair to qualify them in that manner. The numbers are simply there to keep the list orderly. 

To learn more about any of the selections, click on the highlighted titles for additional information:

Fiction:

1)      The Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout

2)      The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

3)      The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult

4)      Someone Else's Love Story by Joshilyn Jackson

5)      The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

6)      Tapestry of Fortunes by Elizabeth Berg

7)      Three Graves Full by Jamie Mason

8)      Mad About the Boy by Helen Fielding

9)      The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion by Fannie Flagg

10)    The Widow Waltz by Sally Koslow

Nonfiction:

11)    This is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett

12)    Saltscapes: The Kite Aerial Photography of Cris Benton by Cris Benton

13)    Killing Jesus: A History by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard

14)    Things that Matter: Three Decades of Passions, Pastimes and Politics 

          by Charles Krauthammer

15)    The Kid: The Immortal Life of Ted Williams by Ben Bradlee      

Three Graves Full

"The world was short one human being because of Jason Getty," a lonely widower and "crackerjack wallflower" who, on a moonlit October night, was pushed too far and killed a man who had it coming. Jason may have hidden the body, burying the corpse in his suburban backyard, but he can't live with himself. For seventeen months, he goes through the motions of living his life, most nights "watching through the dining-room window for the unavoidable squad car to turn down the street and ruin his life." 

When landscapers come to do a routine clean-up of Jason's property, they discover not one body, but two, that of a man and a woman, buried in the flower bed in the front of Jason's house. (Uh-oh!) The guilt-ridden nightmare of Jason's life suddenly flares. He is thrust into a harrowing investigation to identify the two corpses--how and why they got there--and he is forced to shed his isolated existence. Will the authorities find the third body?

Jason's destiny becomes intertwined with a jilted woman looking for the missing pieces of her own life, an upstanding small-town detective and his astute police dog and a mysterious loner whose own actions and past may very well dictate the fates of all involved.

In Three Graves Full, Jamie Mason has crafted an off-beat, menacing tale about a criminal with a conscience. Irony and dark humor propel the plot in ways that reinvigorate the crime novel, revealing sharp insights into the complexities of the human heart and mind.

Three Graves Full by Jamie Mason

Gallery Books, $24.99, Hardcover, 9781451685039, 320 pp

Publication Date: February 13, 2013

To order this book via INDIEBOUND link HERE

Please note: This review is a reprint and is being posted (in a slightly different form) with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (2/15/13), click HERE.