One of my favorite programs at Redmond Public Library is our monthly Library Book Club.

Held the second Thursday of each month at noon, it’s full of interesting and engaging people who have a variety of opinions and thoughts on the titles we read. It’s always fun to hear what someone else thought, especially when it’s the opposite of how you felt about a book.

My favorite LBC meeting each year is our annual Book Party. Instead of discussing any one book in December, we meet and share our own favorite reads of the year. Here’s a sampling from this year’s list:

“A Man Called Ove” by Fredrik Backman

At first sight, Ove is almost certainly the grumpiest man you will ever meet. His well-ordered, solitary world gets a shake-up one November morning with the appearance of new neighbors in this funny and heartwarming tale.

“The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry” by Gabrielle Zevin

A middle-age bookseller mourning his lost wife, a feisty publisher’s rep and a charmingly precocious abandoned child come together on a small island off the New England coast in this utterly delightful novel of love and second chances.

“Inside the O’Briens” by Lisa Genova

Genova, a neurologist as well as author, once again brings life and humanity to those suffering a debilitating illness. The O’Briens are an Irish Catholic family living in Boston. When father and policeman Joe is diagnosed with Huntington’s, he must somehow tell his family and learn to live with the disease.

“The Girl on the Train” by Paula Hawkins

Rachel is a washed-up 30-something who creates a fantasy about the seemingly perfect couple she sees during her daily train ride into London. When the woman goes missing, Rachel manages to insert herself into the investigation in this fast-paced, psychological thriller.

“The Wright Brothers” by David McCullough

David McCullough once again tells a dramatic story of people and technology, this time about the courageous brothers who taught the world how to fly, Wilbur and Orville Wright. McCullough’s warm, evocative prose conveys both the drama of the birth of flight and the homespun genius of America’s golden age of innovation.

“In the Kingdom of Ice” by Hampton Sides

In a masterful retelling, Sides chronicles American naval officer George Washington De Long’s harrowing 1879 expedition to the North Pole, an account as frightening as it is fascinating. Each page envelops readers in the bravery of De Long and the crew of the Jeannette, their indefatigable quest for the “Polar Grail” and their dogged will to survive.

“Early Warning” by Jane Smiley

This is the second book of the Langdon trilogy begun in “Some Luck.” The Langdon family’s patriarch has died and Smiley follows the next generation from 1953 to 1986, through the Cold War, ’60s rebellion and escalating wealth into the ’80s.

“A Spool of Blue Thread” by Anne Tyler

In this book, we come to know three generations of Whitshanks — a family with secrets and memories that are sometimes different from what others observe. The book’s timeline moves back and forth with overlapping stories, just like thread on a spool, in this enchanting novel.

“The Martian” by Andy Weir

An edge-of-your seat debut thriller with laugh-out-loud dialogue mixed in. After a bad storm cuts his team’s Mars mission short, injured astronaut Mark Watley is stranded. Now he has to figure out how to survive without air, shelter, food or water on the harsh Martian landscape until the next mission in four years.

— Jenny Pedersen is a community librarian at Redmond Public Library. Contact her at jenniferp@dpls.lib.or.us.