I read at least 25 books in 2013, and I liked most of them. (I very much did not like “1Q84” by Haruki Murakami, which was by most accounts the most wonderful thing in the history of wonderment. I thought it was horrible.) But I loved three of them, and here they are:

“Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk” by Ben Fountain is a book about war and America and (as the National Book Foundation people put it) “the commodification of soldiers,” and it takes place largely at Cowboys Stadium.

I love Alan Bradley’s Flavia de Luce books. They’re kind of subversive “cozy” mystery novels about a young chemist-sleuth in the ’50s in the English countryside. “Speaking from Among the Bones” is Flavia’s most recent adventure. (The first was “The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie,” for those of you who like to begin things at the beginning.

“Tell the Wolves I’m Home” by Carol Rifka Brunt is a coming-of-age, families-are-difficult story. It made me cry. A lot.

“

My English-professor friend Hannah has been hosting a summer reading challenge for the last couple of years, and I’m determined to finish it this year. This summer’s challenge is to read one book from each of five categories between June 2 and September 2. I’m roughly 1 1/3 books in so far, so I think I might actually get it done this time.

Here’s the challenge:

A book from this century

Hannah suggested we choose from this goodreads list of the best books from this century. My friend Emily has been suggesting “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society” by Mary Ann Shaffer for a good long while, and she swore that it wasn’t as flighty as the title made it sound. And she was right! It was the first book I read for this summer’s challenge, and I enjoyed it.

A BBC “Big Read” book

At first I thought I’d just read the first book on the BBC’s “Big Read” list that I hadn’t already read. I started “Birdsong” by Sebastian Faulks a few weeks ago, and I could not get into it. There was a lot of talk of labor and unionizing and repressed romance, and I nearly fell asleep every time I opened the book. So I took it back to the library and went back to the list. Everything from “The Princess Diaries” to “Ulysses” is on there, but I’m leaning toward either “The Pillars Of The Earth” by Ken Follett or “The Colour Of Magic” by Terry Pratchett for this one.

A Pulitzer winner

I’m about a third of the way through Larry McMurtry’s “Lonesome Dove” (1986), and so far I’m really enjoying it. Rockford says the miniseries was great, but I never saw it so I don’t know what’s coming.

A North Carolina author

Hannah’s heart is in NC — literally and figuratively — so this was a nice fit for the challenge. North Carolina has produced a lot of great authors, so I’ve had a tough time narrowing it down. Right now I’m thinking about trying
“Salt: A Novel” by Isabel Zuber.

Reader’s choice

I have no idea what I’m going to do for this one yet. What do you think I should read?