2013 Book Awards and Reading List

Happy New Year, everyone! Those who have read my blog for a while know that at the beginning of the year I list all the books I read in the past year and pick my favorites. Remember, these are books I read last year, not books that were published last year. It's not like the Academy Awards. Also, if I read a book last year for the second or third (or fourth, etc.) time I don't consider it eligible. I'm only rating books I read for the first time in 2013. This year, there were a couple of ties.
Here's the list:

Best Fiction Book I Read This Year: TIE 
Possession by A.S. Byatt
The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana by Umberto Eco

Best History Book I Read This Year: TIE
The Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan
Alfred the Great: The Man Who Made England by Justin Pollard

Best Nonfiction, Nonhistory Book I Read This Year:
Quiet! The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain

Most Difficult Book I Read This Year:
The Early Greeks by R.J. Hopper

 Best Children's Book I Read Out Loud to My Kids This Year:
The House of Arden by E. Nesbit

And just for kicks, here's the list of books I read this year:

• Medea, Hippolytus, and The Bacchae  by Euripides (Philip Vellacott, trans.) 12/13
• Fire From Heaven by Mary Renault 12/13
•  The Nutcracker by E.T.A. Hoffman 12/13
•  The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken 12/13
•  The Iliad and the Odyssey of Homer by Alfred J. Church 11/13
•  The Early Greeks by R.J. Hopper 11/13
•  Crispin: The Cross of Lead by Avi 11/13
•  The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman 11/13
• Greece and Babylon: Early Contacts Between the Aegean and the Near East by Edwin M. Yamauchi 10/13
•  The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes by Neil Gaiman 10/13
•  Pure Water: the Beauty and Mystery of Baptism by Chase McMaster 10/13
•  Merlin by Stephen Lawhead 10/13
• The Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan 10/13
• The Story Girl by Lucy Maud Montgomery 10/13
• Hood by Stephen Lawhead 10/13
• The Complete Peter Rabbit Library by Beatrix Potter 10/13
• Death by Living by N. D. Wilson 9/13
• A Companion to the Iliad by Malcom Willcock 9/13
• Crossing the Threshold of Hope by John Paul II 9/13
• The Twelve Caesars by Suetonius (Robert Graves, trans.) 9/13
• Paul: Jewish Law and Early Christianity (Margaret Warker, ed.) 9/13
• Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer 8/13
• Emma by Jane Austen 8/13
• The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana by Umberto Eco 8/13
• The Death of King Arthur (James Cable, trans.) 7/13
• Alfred the Great: The Man Who Made England by Justin Pollard 7/13
• Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome 7/13
• Richard II of England by Jacob Abbott 7/13
• The Viking Tales by Jennie Hall 7/13
• Life of King Alfred by Johannes Asser (Albert S. Cook, trans.) 7/13
• King Alfred of England by Jacob Abbott 7/13
• The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers 7/13
• Heimskringla by Snorre Sturlason (A. H. Smith, trans.) 6/13
• Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain 6/13
• Bourbon for Breakfast: Living Outside the Statist Quo by Jeffrey Tucker 6/13
• Moominpappa at Sea by Tove Jansson 6/13
• Divorce and Remarriage in the Church by David Instone-Brewer 5/13
• The House of Arden by E. Nesbit 5/13
• Possession by A.S. Byatt 5/13
• Between Babel and Beast by Peter Leithart 4/13
• Uncle by J.P. Martin 4/13
• In the Beginning: The Story of the King James Bible by Alister McGrath 4/13
• The Histories: The Landmark Herodotus (Robert Strassler, ed.) 4/13
• The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder 4/13
• Hans Brinker; or, The Silver Skates by Mary Mapes Dodge 3/13
• The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket 3/13
• Damn! A Book of Calumny by H. L. Mencken 3/13
• The Postmaster General by Hilaire Belloc 2/13
• The Little Flowers of St. Francis (Thomas Okey, trans.) 1/13
• All I Survey by G. K. Chesterton 1/13
• Beowulf (Seamus Heaney, trans.) 1/13
• The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett 1/13
• The House of the Wolfings by William Morris 1/13
• The Box of Delights by John Masefield 1/13