Aussie Readers discussion

With July fast approaching it's time to reflect on all the books you have read so far this year and try and come up with your top 5 - 10 International books for the 2021 halfway point. By international we mean books written by authors who are not recognised as Australian by either birth or adoption.

The books don't have to be released this year but only to be read. We will have another thread at the end of the year so we can see how many from this list have stood the test of time.

To get things started - here is my list:

The Kingdoms by Natasha Pulley

What the Devil Knows C.S. Harris

The Burning Girls by C.J. Tudor

One Day All This Will Be Yours by Adrian Tchaikovsky

The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin

My International top 10 - so hard to choose!!

Her Last Breath by Linda Castillo

Happy Dreams at Mermaid Cove by Marie Laval

Cracks in the Sidewalk by Bette Lee Crosby

The Girl from the Mountains by Chrystyna Lucyk-Berger

Chasing the Pain by Matthew Iden

The Longest Echo by Eoin Dempsey

Chasing the Shadows by Maria V. Snyder

The Guardian of Lies by Kate Furnivall

The Girl from Berlin by Kate Hewitt

Heartbreak Bay by Rachel Caine

and many more!

My top books are:
Who Is Maud Dixon? by Alexandra Andrews
Truth Be Told by Kia Abdullah
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

My 5* internationals this year:

Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell

Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer

The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

After Dark by Haruki Murakami

Half Life by Jillian Cantor

Love and Fury: A Novel of Mary Wollstonecraft by Samantha Silva

The Ones We're Meant to Find by Joan He

The Light Through the Leaves by Glendy Vanderah

The Antarctica of Love by Sara Stridsberg

Thought I hadn't given out many 5 star reviews this year but I was wrong!
Beartown by Fredrik Backman

The Law of Innocence by Michael Connelly

One for the Money by Janet Evanovich

Still Life by Val McDermid

The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes

Leverage in Death by J.D. Robb

The Coffin Maker’s Garden by Stuart MacBride

The Duke and I by Julia Quinn

The Innocent by David Baldacci

So hard to choose, but my top 10 (no particular order). A very fantasy heavy year so far, it seems...

The Kingdoms by Natasha Pulley
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison
The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater
Legendborn by Tracy Deonn
Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse
Sistersong by Lucy Holland
Ten Thousand Stitches by Olivia Atwater
The Story of Silence by Alex Myers
A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine

My top reads so far:

Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

Slough House by Mick Herron

The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue (audiobook)

The Incredible Winston Browne by Sean Dietrich

Falling by T.J. Newman

Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

What the Devil Knows by C.S. Harris

My top non-Australian reads so far this year are:-

Death in Delft by Graham Brack
The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell
Untouchable by Sibel Hodge
Anxious People by Fredrik Backman
Never Forget by Michel Bussi
The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
The Shape of Darkness by Laura Purcell
1Q84 #1-2 1Q84: Book 3 by Haruki Murakami - the whole trilogy!
We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker
Closer Than You Know by Brad Parks

Not too many books are leaving their mark on me this year!

That being said, looks like the non-fiction stuff is entertaining more than fiction again, just like with Aussie authors.

1. Ego is the Enemy: The Fight to Master Our Greatest Opponent by Ryan Holiday

2. The Concise Laws of Human Nature by Robert Greene

3. FantasticLand by Mike Bockoven

My favourite reads for the first half of 2021:

A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman

The Stationery Shop of Tehran by Marjan Kamali

Regeneration by Pat Barker

Nine Lessons by Nicola Upson

by Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

Have also really enjoyed the books in these series:

Matthew Shardlake by C.J. Sansom


Blanche White by Barbara Neely


Ryder & Loveday by Faith Martin

My Top 5 for the year so far are

Romancing the Duke by Tessa Dare
Faking Friends by Jane Fallon
The Viscount Who Loved Me by Julia Quinn
Undertow by Lisa Clark O'Neill
Dead and Gone by Charlaine Harris