{"id":40028,"date":"2021-09-10T22:31:57","date_gmt":"2021-09-11T02:31:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=40028"},"modified":"2021-09-10T22:31:57","modified_gmt":"2021-09-11T02:31:57","slug":"celebrating-20-years-of-sonderbooks-top-20-fiction-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=40028","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating 20 Years of Sonderbooks: Top 20 Fiction Books"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

20 years ago in August 2001, I began writing Sonderbooks<\/a>!<\/p>\n

I’ve been celebrating by posting highlights from each year of my website, but now I want to celebrate one more way. Since I’ve been looking over and remembering favorites, I decided to make a list of my 20 favorite books I read for the first time over the last 20 years.<\/p>\n

This was possible only if I split it up between Fiction and Nonfiction, so expect a Top 20 Nonfiction Books post next. I also did my best to let first books represent their whole series.<\/p>\n

You’ll see that I’m a big fan of fantasy. These are all books that still warm my heart when I think of them. Almost all of them I’ve read more than once or plan to read more than once, because they’re that good.<\/p>\n

I couldn’t bring myself to rank them, though, so I will list them in alphabetical order by author. Click on the titles to read my reviews.<\/p>\n

20 Novels I love which I met in my last 20 years of reading:<\/p>\n

The War That Saved My Life<\/a><\/em>, by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Sand-Reckoner<\/a><\/em>, by Gillian Bradshaw<\/strong><\/p>\n

Enchantment<\/a><\/em>, by Orson Scott Card<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Truth As Told By Mason Buttle<\/a><\/em>, by Leslie Connor<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Hollow Kingdom<\/a><\/em>, by Clare Dunkle<\/strong><\/p>\n

Enchantress from the Stars<\/a><\/em>, by Sylvia Engdahl<\/strong><\/p>\n

Book of a Thousand Days<\/a><\/em>, by Shannon Hale<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Goose Girl<\/a><\/em>, by Shannon Hale<\/strong><\/p>\n

Midnight in Austenland<\/a><\/em>, by Shannon Hale<\/strong><\/p>\n

Grave Mercy<\/a><\/em>, by Robin LaFevers<\/strong><\/p>\n

Daughter of the Forest<\/a><\/em>, by Juliet Marillier<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Flight of Swans<\/a><\/em>, by Sarah McGuire<\/strong><\/p>\n

For Darkness Shows the Stars<\/a><\/em>, by Diana Peterfreund<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Name of the Wind<\/a><\/em>, by Patrick Rothfuss<\/strong><\/p>\n

Crown Duel<\/a><\/em>, by Sherwood Smith<\/strong><\/p>\n

Beyond the Limit: The Dream of Sofya Kovalevskaya<\/a><\/em>, by Joan Spicci<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Scorpio Races<\/a><\/em>, by Maggie Stiefvater<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Screaming Staircase<\/a><\/em>, by Jonathan Stroud<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Thief<\/a><\/em>, by Megan Whalen Turner<\/strong><\/p>\n

Code Name Verity<\/a><\/em>, by Elizabeth Wein<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

20 years ago in August 2001, I began writing Sonderbooks! I’ve been celebrating by posting highlights from each year of my website, but now I want to celebrate one more way. Since I’ve been looking over and remembering favorites, I decided to make a list of my 20 favorite books I read for the first […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[411,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-celebration","category-stand-outs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40028"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40028\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40037,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40028\/revisions\/40037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}