Usually for my top ten list I like to split it evenly between fiction and nonfiction, or at least 6/4. This year it's 8/2; can't be helped. I'm including the stuff after the colon in the titles to give a sense of what the books are about.
- Browned Off and Bloody-Minded: The British Soldier Goes to War 1939-1945 by Alan Allport
- Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815 by Gordon S. Wood
- Courtesans and Fishcakes: The Consuming Passions of Classical Athens by James Davidson
- Veritas: a Harvard professor, a con man, and the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife by Ariel Sabar
- Messalina: Empress, Adulteress, Libertine: The Story of the Most Notorious Woman of the Roman World by Honor Cargill-Martin
- Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom by Ilyon Woo
- Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War by Mark Harris
- Six Tragedies by Seneca (Emily Wilson trans.)
- Flashman and the Redskins: A classic historical western novel set in the untamed American frontier by George MacDonald Fraser
- A Wreath of Roses by Elizabeth Taylor
For me, what's most striking about this list is that six of the eight nonfiction books were part of my 2024 challenges and that the remaining two were about WWII. Moreover, one of the novels was set during a challenge period and the other was set in the immediate postwar period. Obviously I like what I like...
My challenges for next year are already set but I'd like to keep this in mind for 2026 and have at least one breakout category!