**NOTE: This page was reformatted in 2025 and 2026 as part of #Sonderbooks25, my 25th year of posting Sonderbooks. Here is my Sonderbooks25 post about these Stand-outs. Here is the original page, which is not in phone-friendly format. I've kept the wording the same.**

It's time again for my list of my favorite books of the previous year. This list covers Sonderbooks 70 through Sonderbooks 90.

My selection process is not at all scientific. I look back over the list of titles I've reviewed. I choose as Stand-outs those that make me stop and smile and think, "Yes! What a good book!"

You'll probably notice that some of the books with only three stars made this list, some ranked higher than others to which I gave four stars. This goes to show how subjective the process is. My initial star rating reflects how I felt about a book after I had just finished reading it. These rankings reflect how I feel about the books after looking back on all those I read over the whole year. Every book on this list is highly recommended.

Please note that some books from series are listed here, not in the order that they were written, but in order of which book I liked best. Click on the book title to read my review, which will also tell you the order of the series.

I like some types of books more than others. It didn't seem fair to compare Fantasy books for Young Adults (my favorite genre) with Contemporary stories, since most of the contemporary stories would have been at the end of the list. So I divided all the books into categories to try to compare books with other similar ones.

Here are my favorite books of the year:
For Young Adults: Crown Duel, by Sherwood Smith
For Grown-Ups: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clarke
Nonfiction: The Beggar King and the Secret of Happiness, by Joel ben Izzy

I hope you enjoy these books as much as I did!

Happy Reading!

—Sondra Eklund