Top Ten Books I've Read This Year: Part I

Just finished turning the last page of your latest page-turner? Here's a list of the top ten books I've read in the last year that I would highly recommend to my fellow readers. They come from all walks of genres and a myriad of writers. Some of them you might have never heard of, and some of them are so popular there's a good chance they're the book you just finished—but all are worth reading.

10. The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann

Here's a work of non-fiction that will take you with legendary explorer Percy Fawcett into the deepest jungles of the Amazon. Fawcett and his son (as well as countless people who went looking for them) disappeared in 1925 while searching for an ancient city supposedly untouched by civilization (labeled the "Lost City of Z"). The author himself journeyed into the Amazon to find out what he could about Fawcett's disappearance, and writes with the suspense of an action movie.

9. The Tempest by Shakespeare

I warned you that the list would be pretty far-reaching. I wanted to include this play because it's one of my favorites by Shakespeare, but it is often overshadowed by his other plays. The Tempest brings up one of my favorite themes in writing—the dichotomy of dreams and reality. It's also the last play Shakespeare wrote, and one of his wildest in terms of crazy magic and colorful characters.

8. How to Read Literature like a Professor by Tom Foster

This book was recommended to me by an old English professor. I picked it up and after an hour that felt like minutes, was surprised to see that I had already finished it. Funny and engaging, How to Read reveals the genius behind authors and how they write—how every word has a purpose, how every situation has greater meaning than you think. You will never look at a story the same way again.

7. In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick

This work of non-fiction is an account of the whaleship Essex, which was rammed and sunk by a gigantic, enraged sperm whale. Sound familiar? It's the real-life event that inspired Herman Melville to write Moby-Dick. The book describes not only the whale’s attack on the ship, but also the lives of eighteenth-century whalers, as well as the grueling weeks of starvation and eventual cannibalism the surviving crew had to endure at sea.

6. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

At first, Portrait was a difficult book to begin—I suggest buying the penguin classic, which has footnotes explaining the story's setting and background—but I soon became fascinated by the religious and philosophical awakening of the main character as he progresses through school and becomes a young man. The characters and events are a fictitious representation of Joyce’s own journey to spiritual awakening