Julia Antopol Hirsch

As a movie, "The Sound of Music" ranks as one of the biggest box office champs of all time. When it was released in 1965, the blockbuster Rodgers and Hammerstein musical about Austria's singing Von Trapp family during the Nazi takeover of Europe was an international hit, packing theaters from Paris to Manila. It went on to win five Academy Awards, including Oscars for best picture and director, and displaced "Gone with the Wind" as the No. 1 box office attraction of all time.

It's been a year in which a San Juan Capistrano incest victim wrote about the dark family secret she had kept hidden for four decades, a Lake Forest woman chronicled the enduring popularity of "The Sound of Music," and a retired Irvine history professor eloquently described regaining his sight after years of blindness. It was also a year in which Orange County lost one of its brightest literary lights, the county's best-known author had his fifth suspense thriller in a row reach the No.