The Even More Annual Book Post

For the third straight year, here are the 10 best books that I read last year. The list is in alphabetical order.

1. The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman
   I've been trying to catch up on some older sci-fi that I missed when I was younger and read more. Haldeman is the author of the classic "Forever War", which is quite often cited as the best war novel, period, sci-fi or not. This one is a lot less serious, but still interesting and fun. A grad student accidentally invents a time-machine that only goes forward and the amount of time that it jumps forward increases each time he uses it.
2. The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt
   An examination of why it seems that college age students in the West are incapable of handling dissent and seem to take offense at everything. Haidt, the author of the great "The Righteous Mind" (which if you haven't read, stop reading this and go get that done now), is a college professor, and so has seen this first hand, while Lukianoff was the founder of FIRE, a group that fights for free speech rights on campus. An excellent and balanced look into how we got into this situation and several great proposed solutions.
3. Don't Panic: Douglas Adams & The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by by Neil Gaiman, et al
   Just what it says on the tin. If you loved The Hitchhiker's Guide, you will probably love this too. 
4. Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
   A novel about a lonely and damaged young woman who doesn't really know how damaged she is or how to deal with the situation, but who, against her will, develops a couple of friendships that help her begin to right her ship. There were a lot of things about this to like. I especially liked that the novel avoided the usual sort of cheap romantic solutions and that the resolution isn't a cheap or easy thing.
5. Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance
   A non-fiction look at the plight of poor rural whites in America as they face addiction, joblessness and family breakdown. Vance grew up in this environment before he left to go to college, and he uses his family to demonstrate the troubles that this group is facing. Though the book is apolitical and was written and published prior to the 2016 election, it does give hints of why this group might have been willing to take a chance on a non-politician who seemed to be the only one who cared about them.
6. The Last Kingdom by Bernard Cornwell
   I first read this more than 10 years ago. It is a fictional retelling of the Danish invasion of what would become England and how Alfred the Great was able to begin to push the invaders back. Cornwell has now written several other books in this series (all of which I've read as well), and it has been made into a TV series, but this book still the best of the lot. It's told through the point of view of a young Saxon warrior who was raised by and is sympathetic to the Danes, but who is fated to fight for the Saxons.
7. The Library Book by Susan Orlean
   This book tells the story of the fire at the Los Angeles Public Library in 1986 that destroyed and damaged over a million books, as well as discussion the history of libraries and the LA Public Library system, the effort to repair many of the damaged books, and the importance of libraries in our lives.
8. Lost and Found by Orson Scott Card
   The hero of this story has a unique power which has caused him to become an outcast in school, as fellow students and authorities misunderstand him. He becomes the at-first unwilling friend of another high school outcast, who encourages him to learn more about his power and others like himself. And then he is compelled to use it to try to help rescue his friend from danger. 
9. Thank You, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
   The fifth book in the tales of the upper class dim-bulb Bertie Wooster and his brilliant valet Jeeves. The Jeeves and Wooster novels are delightfully funny and I'm working my way through all of them at the rate of a couple a year. 
10. World without End by Ken Follett
    A sequel to the brilliant "Pillars of the Earth", set two centuries after the building of the cathedral in Kingsbury. The story once again focuses on a builder who struggles to make the town better against the forces of ignorance and stupidity. 

I didn't read any terrible books this year. I one I most disliked was Wuthering Heights. I've been trying to read several classics that I either didn't read or didn't take seriously or understand when I was in school, and most of the ones I've read this year have been good to very good (namely Frankenstein, Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, Hunger, The Plague, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn). But this one is not. It's long, depressing, not much happens, and everyone in the novel is terrible. I don't understand how this one is a classic. However, your mileage may vary.