Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme that currently resides at The Artsy Reader Girl and features bloggers sharing lists on various book topics.  The task for this week’s Top Ten Tuesday was originally to list the top Books That Make Me Smile, however I am going to go off topic and instead look at something else.  We have just crossed into the second half of what has been a rather interesting year, and while most aspects of 2020 have been pretty crummy, I think that we can at least agree that this year has been pretty amazing when it comes to books.  I have read some incredible novels so far this year, including impressive standalone books, amazing new entries in established series and fantastic debuts.  Because of this, and because it goes well with my recent Most Anticipated Releases for the Second Half of 2020 list, I thought that I would take the time to work out what my top ten favourite books from the first half of 2020 are.

Once I knew what I wanted to pull together for this week’s Top Ten Tuesday, I started taking a hard look at all the different novels that I have read this year.  To be eligible, a book had to be released between 1 January 2020 and 30 June 2020, and I have not included any novels released before or after this date even if I read them during this period.  I have also excluded any books released during this period that I have not so far read, although I imagine The Obsidian Tower by Melissa Caruso or Cyber Shogun Revolution by Peter Teiryas would have appeared on this list somewhere if I’d had the chance to read them before now.

Coming up with this list proved to be a rather bigger task than I originally intended, as I ended up amassing nearly 20 different releases, all of which I consider to be some pretty outstanding reads.  I ended up being able to eventually whittle this down to an acceptable Top Ten list, although I did include my typical generous honourable mentions section.  I am rather happy with how this list turned out, although I am surprised at some of the great releases that ended up being excluded.  Still, the books below represent what I considered to be some of the best books from the first half of 2020, and I would strongly recommend each and every one of them.  So let us see what made the cut.

Honourable Mentions:

To the Strongest by Robert Fabbri – 2 January 2020

The Holdout by Graham Moore – 18 February 2020

House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas – 3 March 2020

Lionheart by Ben Kane – 28 May 2020

Top Ten List (By Date of Release):

 

Into the Fire by Gregg Hurwitz – 28 January 2020

Song of the Risen God by R. A. Salvatore – 28 January 2020

One Minute Out by Mark Greaney – 20 February 2020

The Grove of the Caesars by Lindsey Davis – 2 April 2020

The Girl and the Stars by Mark Lawrence – 20 April 2020

Race the Sands by Sarah Beth Durst – 21 April 2020

Usagi Yojimbo: Bunraku and Other Stories by Stan Sakai – 21 April 2020

Firefly: The Ghost Machine by James Lovegrove – 28 April 2020

Fair Warning by Michael Connelly – 26 May 2020

Devolution by Max Brooks – 16 June 2020

 

That turned out to be a rather exciting and diverse group of books, and I am surprised about how many different genres are represented amongst them.  I think that this list is a fantastic example of some of early 2020’s top releases, and each of these books is really worth checking out.  Overall, I happy with how this list turned out, and I look forward to seeing which of these books end up being amongst my top reads of 2020.  In the meantime, what do you think about the books that made my Top Ten List?  Let me know if you enjoyed these books in the comments below and what your favourite releases from the first half of 2020 are.