{"id":1628,"date":"2009-12-27T21:37:47","date_gmt":"2009-12-28T03:37:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/?p=1628"},"modified":"2009-12-27T21:38:21","modified_gmt":"2009-12-28T03:38:21","slug":"top-5-reads-of-2009","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/2009\/12\/27\/top-5-reads-of-2009\/","title":{"rendered":"Good Reads: Best Books of 2009"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve got a couple “Best of 2009” posts planned for the next few days, hopefully in addition to my regular posting.\u00c2\u00a0 First up, the best books I read in 2009!\u00c2\u00a0 (I know that makes this the 3rd post in a row about books…I promise to talk about something different tomorrow!)\u00c2\u00a0 Reading is my way of winding down at the end of each and every night and sometimes during naptime too.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s rare that I’m without a stack of books to read sitting on my nightstand, and with the new blog format, I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing some of the books I’m reading over there in the side bar on the right.<\/p>\n

Here are the Best Books of 2009<\/strong> (they may not be new to you or published in 2009, but they were new to me<\/em> this year):<\/p>\n

1.\u00c2\u00a0 Outlander Series, by Diana Gabaldon<\/a><\/strong>: Ok, I’m only on #1 and I’m already cheating by giving you a whole series instead of an individual book!\u00c2\u00a0 Since reading Outlander in September, I’ve devoured the first 6 books in this series.\u00c2\u00a0 Each book is LONG-600 to 1,000 pages each-so we’re talking thousands<\/em> of pages.\u00c2\u00a0 I just can’t get enough!\u00c2\u00a0 In fact, I’m currently reading The Outlandish Companion<\/a>…a book about the Outlander series, also by Diana Gabaldon.\u00c2\u00a0 I have previously reviewed the first book, Outlander<\/a>, so start there if you’re interested.<\/p>\n

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

2.\u00c2\u00a0 The Twilight Saga, by Stephanie Meyer<\/a><\/strong>: (Yup, another series!) I resisted reading Twilight for the longest time, thinking that I would never enjoy a book about teen vampires.\u00c2\u00a0 Then I finally picked up the first novel, and couldn’t put it down.\u00c2\u00a0 I promptly rushed out to buy the other 3 books in the series!\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve read the entire series multiple times since this summer.\u00c2\u00a0 Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably read it too or seen the movie (or at least the trailers), so I won’t bore you with a summary.\u00c2\u00a0 If you haven’t read this series yet, what are you waiting for?<\/p>\n

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

3.\u00c2\u00a0 The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipes From an Accidental Country Girl, by Ree Drummond<\/a><\/strong>: My favorite cookbook of the year!\u00c2\u00a0 Ok, so I just got this cookbook<\/a>, but some of the recipes are ones that I already knew about from her blog.\u00c2\u00a0 Delicious, easy, down home cooking, with beautiful photographs and stories of life on the ranch.<\/p>\n

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

4.\u00c2\u00a0 The Total Money Makeover, by Dave Ramsey<\/a><\/strong>: I’m planning an extended review of this one sometime soon, but this was a life changing read for me this year.\u00c2\u00a0 I admire Dave’s no nonsense approach to money, and his baby steps toward financial freedom seem simple enough.\u00c2\u00a0 We’re working through the baby steps now (though we’re still very early on in our journey), and I’m planning to re-read this book as needed to maintain my motivation to follow a budget, pay down debt, and create an emergency fund.<\/p>\n

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

5.\u00c2\u00a0 Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver<\/a><\/strong>: #5 was a tough choice for me…I knew I wanted it to be one of the real food books I read, but I had trouble deciding between Animal, Vegetable, Miracle<\/a>, Real Food<\/a> by Nina Planck, and What to Eat<\/a> by Marion Nestle.\u00c2\u00a0 I decided on Animal, Vegetable, Miracle<\/a> because I felt it was the easiest read, and I enjoyed all of the anecdotes Ms. Kingsolver shared about her family’s one year challenge to eat only local foods.\u00c2\u00a0 Check out my previous review of this book<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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

What was YOUR favorite read this year?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Disclosure:\u00c2\u00a0 Some of the links above are Amazon affiliate links, which means I MIGHT receive a tiny compensation from Amazon if a whole bunch of people click on those links and order books. (Hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t happened yet, doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t appear to be happening any time soon.)\u00c2\u00a0 I have not been asked to review any of these books.\u00c2\u00a0 These are just some of my favorites I wanted to share!<\/em><\/p>\n

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I’ve got a couple “Best of 2009” posts planned for the next few days, hopefully in addition to my regular posting.\u00c2\u00a0 First up, the best books I read in 2009!\u00c2\u00a0 (I know that makes this the 3rd post in a row about books…I promise to talk about something different tomorrow!)\u00c2\u00a0 Reading is my way of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53,52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1628"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1628\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1654,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1628\/revisions\/1654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}