2019 on Goodreads

Close enough to the end of the year for me to have a crack at this.

Some “Best of the Year” books I have read:

Best Travel- Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: On the Tracks of the Great Railway Bazaar, by Paul Theroux.
A tightly contested category this one, as 90% of my books fit in here. Closely followed by Madman's Island , by Ion L. Idriess and First Overland , by Tim Slessor.

Best History - Dictatorland: The Men Who Stole Africa, by Paul Kenyon.
Closely followed by Too Many Spears, by Peter Pinney & Estelle Runcie.

Best Military - Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan, by William Dalrymple.

Best Biography - El Raisuni: Sultan Of The Mountains, by Rosita Forbes.

Best Nautical - Pacific: The Ocean of the Future, by Simon Winchester.

Best Photography - Sir Edmund Hillary's Sagarmatha, by Ed Hillary.

Best Published by The Travel Book Club - Wind in the Sahara, by Ronald Victor Courtenay Bodley.

Best New Zealand Authored - Himalayan Hospitals: Sir Edmund Hillary's Everest Legacy, by Michael Gill.

Best Non-fiction Short Story Collection - Adventures Today, by W.M. Smyth (Editor), Jane Goodall, Bruce McLaren, William R. Anderson, Susan Terry, Peter Markham Scott, Hans Hass, Marika Hanbury-Tenison, Doddy Hay, Thor Heyerdahl, Helen Klaben, Jacques Piccard, Robert S. Dietz, Farley Mowat, Alain Bombard, Edmund Hillary, Nicolette Milnes Walker, Vivian Fuchs, James J. Haggerty Jr.
Closely followed by The Yellow Joss and Other Tales, by Ion L. Idriess.

Nearly there.

Best Fiction - The Comedians, by Graham Greene.
Closely followed by Colombiano, by Rusty Young.

Best Fiction Short Story Collection - Trouble is My Business, by Raymond Chandler

Best Ebook or online read - The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate, by Ted Chiang.

And downer of the year:

Biggest Disappointment: Try Nothing Twice: The Story of Two Dozen Jobs, by Frank Clune.

Some Statistics - Read 106 books this year, at around 27,100 pages. I had dropped in number of pages last year, and thought that was an anomaly, but have trended down again this year. It has been another busy year with work and home.

My average rating for books is a healthy 3.9 stars.

Longest book: Colombiano, by Rusty Young.

Of the 106 Books I rated:
23 books 5 stars
51 books 4 stars
28 books 3 stars
3 books 2 stars
1 book DNF and not rated

So these are the five star books from the year:
El Raisuni: Sultan Of The Mountains, by Rosita Forbes.
Gold Dust and Ashes, by Ion L. Idriess.
The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity and My Fight Against the Islamic State, by Nadia Murad.
Sir Edmund Hillary's Sagarmatha, by Ed Hillary.
Himalayan Hospitals: Sir Edmund Hillary's Everest Legacy, by Michael Gill.
The Comedians, by Graham Greene.
Arabian Sands, by Wilfred Thesiger.
The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler.
Wind in the Sahara, by Ronald Victor Courtenay Bodley
Colombiano, by Rusty Young.
Too Many Spears, by Peter Pinney & Estelle Runcie.
First Overland, by Tim Slessor.
Ring of Bright Water, by Gavin Maxwell.
The Cattle King, by Ion L. Idriess.
Trans-Himalaya: Discoveries and Adventures in Tibet: Vol. 1 (of 2), by Sven Hedin.
Dictatorland: The Men Who Stole Africa, by Paul Kenyon.
Trekking in the Himalayas, by Tomoya Iozawa.
Try Anything Once, by Frank Clune.
Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: On the Tracks of the Great Railway Bazaar, by Paul Theroux.
The Castaways of Disappointment Island, by Herbert Escott-Inman.
Pacific: The Ocean of the Future, by Simon Winchester.
Madman's Island, by Ion L. Idriess.
Land of Dahori, by Olaf Ruhen.

And so, to my overall Book of the Year, although I read it in early January, is El Raisuni: Sultan Of The Mountains, by Rosita Forbes.
It has probably just Pipped Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: On the Tracks of the Great Railway Bazaar, by Paul Theroux.

Thanks to those who labour through my reviews, and bear with my obscure reads.