Writing is many things to many people—a job, a career, a calling, or perhaps a hobby or a fantasy. Paula Munier says writing is so much more. “Writing is nothing less than a path to enlightenment,” she says in this ruminative and inspiring book. And the best writers are those who write with quiet hands, she adds.

It’s December—time for year-end roundups. In this article, I’m highlighting the five most popular book reviews posted on this blog. I review only books I like. I don’t always choose new books. I’ve reviewed some books written by authors I know, although they didn’t ask me to do it. Most of my choices were recommended by friends. The rest caught my attention after reading about them.

At first glance, Rachel is just like the thousands of people who ride the train to and from London daily. Anyone who commutes, as I have done for almost a decade traveling from New Jersey to Manhattan and back every day, will appreciate her experience. But, unlike most commuters, Rachel has an enormous emotional and psychological baggage that slowly unravels in this excellent thriller.

Miles, a struggling novelist, is divorced and depressed, while his best buddy, Jack, is a moderately successful actor who is about to get married. Together they embark on a weeklong wine-tasting trip in Rex Pickett’s raucous and hilarious debut novel, “Sideways.”

Robert Louis Stevenson, author of “Treasure Island” and “Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” is the star of this historical novel. But it was his wife, Fanny Osbourne, and their adventurous life together that kept me reading until the last page.

In my debut romance book, I chose a young ER doctor as my heroine. She has stirred up strong reactions, both good and bad. Perhaps I should have written about a teacher or a caterer or some other profession commonly used in romance, but reading this excellent novel by Perri Klass reinforced my belief that physicians make great heroines.

In 1782, it was illegal for a woman to dress as a man in Massachusetts. Deborah Samson, the 22-year-old heroine of Alex Myers’s literary novel, not only dresses as a man but fights as a soldier during the American Revolutionary War.

A priceless Maltese falcon figurine is at the center of Dashiell Hammett’s seminal detective novel set in foggy San Francisco. The story opens with a mysterious woman named Miss Wonderly hiring private eye Sam Spade and his partner Miles Archer to follow Floyd Thursby, who supposedly eloped with her sister.

A mother-daughter relationship is at the heart of “The Fiction Class,” but thankfully, this book is nothing like “Mommie Dearest.”

In keeping with the book’s title, Paula Munier doesn’t flinch when she states, “If you want to write commercial fiction, you need to be about plot.”