It's hard to keep up with books as they come out. It's not unusual that I will discover a great book more than a year after it is released, at which point it's too late to call it "the best book of the year" in a year-end list. So I make this list with the understanding that there are probably books that I will discover this year that should have ended up on this list.

However, there are books that I catch right as they come out, either because I follow the author on Twitter or because of a recommendation by someone that I trust enough to push a book to the top of my ever-growing stack.

The books on this list are the ones that were released in 2013 that made an impact on me in one way or another. Feel free to comment below and add any books that were released int he past 12 months that deserve a hearty recommendation. (They are listed alphabetically by author because I didn't want to rank them. That said, Pastrix was my favorite)