Books of 2016

It's been a hot minute since I talked about the things I've read (last post was for 2013!!), but I have been keeping track. I finished 19 books last year. Not spectacular, but hey, at least I'm reading!

First, the list:

1. Quite a Year for Plums by Bailey White, finished 2/9/16 - meh. Didn't really connect with the characters.
2. Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson, finished 2/20/2016 - (reread for book club) hilarious (for the second time) because, duh, it's The Bloggess. Also discussion at church book club made me realize there are fewer mentally ill people than I thought?? At least, I feel like I know a higher than average number of people fighting mental illness. And also it's possible the Bloggess appeals mostly to those battling mental illness and she is not quite as hilarious/accessible to those without such issues.
3. Spooning by Darri Stephens & Megan DeSales, finished 3/5/2016 - Spent most of the book being frustrated with Charlotte for her inability to accept that a guy is not into her, and regardless he's incapable of acting like a decent human being in his interactions, so she should ditch him. And also maybe be a little less shallow/more accepting of the state of her human body. I don't really need to read hundreds of pages of inner monologue of an insecure woman's hate for her own body, I get enough of that sort of message from media and advertising.
4. Free Food for Millionaires by Min Jin Lee, finished 3/5/2016 - Wouldn't call it absorbing, but it was very interesting. And well-written, because I found myself sympathizing with the majority of the characters who, if I'd met them in real life, I'd probably dislike. The most weird thing was the narration in third-person omniscient voice. Maybe it's because I'm so used to a limited voice in novels, but it gets rather confusing to constantly know the internal states of almost every character in a scene. Still, overall, a good book.
5. The Tiara Club by Beverly Brandt, finished 3/28/2016 - A fun read! Categorized as "Chick Lit", meaning it's focused on female characters who have romantic interests in the story, because we all know guys would never want to read something where women are the subjects of the narrative, making their own decisions about love and life. (Yes, heavy sarcasm in that sentence!) Had some mystery elements thrown in, and the big reveal at the end was definitely a surprise. I could complain that it came out of nowhere, but honestly life is like that sometimes, so it seems reasonable enough.
6. Crescent by Diana Abu-Jaber, finished 4/21/16 - Pretty good. Lots of talk about food, and love and relationships. Kind of makes me want to visit the Middle East (slash I feel like I almost have been there). Nice to read a love story that focuses on middle aged people, as well. And romance novels have their time, but it was good to read a love story with literary depth.
7. He's Got To Go by Sheila O'Flanagan, finished 4/23/2016 - Cute! Managed to capture a realistic dynamic between three grown sisters. A fun read.
8. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling, finished 4/27/2016 - Amazing, obviously! And totally counts, even if it is a reread.
9. Second Nature by Alice Hoffman, finished 5/8/2016 - Fine. Sort of an interesting cross between a romance and mystery novel, although the "mystery" wasn't really developed until the very last bit of the book. And also it was super easy to figure out. I guess it just felt too predictable, although the writing was very good. And I did learn there are actually mountains in Michigan, so there's that.
10. What is the What by Dave Eggers, finished 7/1/16 - Good. Intense, as you might expect a novel/autobiography of a Lost Boy of Sudan to be. Something about the narration, though, made it feel kind of… distant? Dissociated? I dunno, just not very vivid. Still a really great book.
11. Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford, finished 7/2/16 - So good! Very sweet, very romantic, and also very sobering re: what people do in the name of patriotism. It really highlights the tension that can arise in relationships across social boundaries. And definitely brings up some knotty questions about privilege and what those with privilege (of any kind) can/should do to aid those with less privilege. Seems especially fitting to have read this story in days when the news is full of people calling for the ghettoization (if not internment) of fellow citizens who happen to follow a different faith, and crying for the exclusion of refugees in the name of "national security," as though keeping out one particular Other will really solve all our problems.
12. Stupid Cupid by Arabella Weir, finished 8/3/16 - Meh. Not really captivating. Or surprising. Or relatable. Supposedly it's "laugh-out-loud funny" but maybe you have to be British to find the humor in it…
13. Shaken and Stirred by Colette Caddle, finished 8/30/16 - pretty good. Light, but fun!
14. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, finished 9/25/16 - (for book club) So good! Beautifully written, and also a fascinating look at identity and assimilation. The dialogue really brought the story to life.
15. The Bread of Angels by Stephanie Saldaña, finished 10/23/16 - (for book club) really good! Made me want to learn Arabic, and also do a month-long retreat of silence in order to figure out what to do with my life.
16. The Name of The Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, finished 10/27/16 - Awesome! But so many mysteries and questions to be answered…
17. Hogfather by Terry Pratchett, finished 11/24/16 - (reread for book club) Probably my favorite Discworld novel :-)
18. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, finished 12/2/2016 - bleh. Generally I enjoy magic realism, and possibly it was the translation that made this novel drag on so, but I just could not get into this book! Which feels weird to me, because GGM is widely acknowledged as the "father" and quintessential author in the genre.
19. The Twelve Clues of Christmas by Rhys Bowen, finished 12/3/2016 - fun and quick! An intriguing mystery, but not too creepy. And quaintly British. If I came across other books in the series and read them, I wouldn't be mad about it!

Ultimately, I'd recommend 5 of these books to just about anybody - Furiously Happy (Lawson), Crescent (Abu-Jaber), Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet (Ford), Americanah (Adichie), and Hogfather (Pratchett). Of course I'd recommend the whole Harry Potter series to everyone, and for people who know they like long, involved fantasy stories The Name of The Wind (Rothfuss) is an A+ choice, even if the final book in the trilogy hasn't yet been published.

Books of 2013

I've been keeping track of the books I finish in a given year for a couple years now. Here are the books I read in 2013:

1. Undead and Unemployed by MaryJanice Davidson
2. The Neverending Story by Michael Ende (translated by Ralph Manheim)
3. M or F? by Lisa Papademetriou and Chris Tebbetts
4. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
5. In the Stone Circle by Elizabeth Cody Kimmel
6. Five Little Peppers Midway by Margaret Sidney
7. Selected Poems by Robert Browning, ed. William C. DeVane
8. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling
9. Many Waters by Madeleine L'Engle
10. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
11. The Book of Animal Ignorance by John Lloyd and John Mitchinson
12. Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons by Bill Waterson
13. North to Thule by John & Harriet Frye
14. Friendship Cake by Lynne Hinton
15. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
16. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
17. Black and Blue by Anna Quindlen
18. Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon
19. Eight Cousins by Louisa May Alcott
20. To Be or Not to Be: A Choosable Path Adventure by Ryan North and William Shakespeare
21. Poor Yorick by Ryan North
22. Changes by Danielle Steel
23. An Altar in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor
24. Little Men by Louisa May Alcott
25. Five Children and It by E. Nesbit
26. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
27. Jo's Boys by Louisa May Alcott
28. Swift Rivers by Cornelia Meigs
29. The Law of Love by Laura Esquivel

Honestly, I had hoped to read a few more… (I did get partway through Middlemarch by George Eliot, but about 200 or 300 pages in, I just wasn't invested enough in the characters to continue. I looked up the plot summary because I was interested in how things worked out, but I just couldn't stomach wading through another 400 pages to get to those resolutions!) I've been hoping for a while that I might manage to get to 50 books in one year, but I seem to be stuck right around 29 or 30. I think if I'm not getting distracted by work or other obligations, I'm distracted by the internet. It's possible it would help to only read one book at a time, instead of constantly being in the middle of 3 or 4 books at once, ha.

General reviews:

Favorites were, I think (excluding Harry Potter because that's not even fair), The Secret Life of Bees, and the Calvin & Hobbes collection. The Lovely Bones was really good, although incredibly creepy and unsettling. Oh, and of course the choose-your-own-Hamlet was amazing. (Not that I'm biased because I helped fund its publication or anything…)

I did not like the Danielle Steel novel at all, which I was a little surprised by. Not that I'm huge into romance novels, but I like a trashy novel every once in a while, and I assumed I couldn't really go wrong with something by someone so successful. Big mistake. I might as well have picked up Twilight. The characters started out relatable enough, but as the plot progressed it just lost me. And then I got to the scene where the father character slapped his oldest son across the face. And I was just done. I don't care that the book was written in the 80's or whatever, that's not really acceptable to me. And to have the female protagonist not say a word about it… Ugh. Just… over it. (There might also be a scene where the same guy hits the female protagonist? Again, not okay. It just made me want to throw the book across the room.) This was definitely a book I finished by dint of sheer stubbornness. I was also kind of disappointed with the conclusion of Black and Blue, but I guess things can't always end happily if you're trying to write "realistic" novels.

Books of 2012

I managed to finish 28 books in 2012. (I think the max I've read in one year - at least since I've been keeping track of them - has been 39. And that was one of the years I spent my summer in a place with sporadic internet access, so I fell back on my first love to pass the time.) Some of them (particularly the more YA-type novels) I read as part of a personal effort to try and actually read every book on my shelf, a goal made more difficult when I can't always remember whether I've read something or not! I've included notes on some books, which you might or might not be interested in. The 28 books were:


1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling, finished 1/9/2012
• Part of my quasi-annual reread. It was just as good as always!
2. Troubling a Star by Madeleine L'Engle, finished 1/23/2012
• Because it was on my shelf and I didn't remember reading it. On finishing, I definitely had read it before. But I enjoyed the reread anyway.
3. Switcheroo by Olivia Goldsmith, finished 2/11/2012 
• Not that I only read romance novels for the sex, but when I read something that has clearly been marketed as a romance novel and there turns out to be no sex scene, it's kind of disappointing. This book was kind of like a PG-13 movie - you get some kissing, but then it fades to black, so you're aware that sex has (probably) happened but you're not explicitly (Heh, see what I did there?) informed.
4. Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millenium by Carl Sagan, finished 2/25/2012
5. Peter Pan by J. M. Barry, finished 3/6/2012
6. True North by Kathryn Lasky, finished 3/10/2012
7. A Wind in the Door by Madeleine L'Engle, finished 3/16/2012
8. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, finished 3/19/2012
• A pre-movie reread.
9. Dogs and Goddesses by Jennifer Crusie, Anne Stuart, and Lani Diane Rich, finished 3/27/2012
• Infinitely superior to Switcheroo! Actually, probably the best of the romance novels I read this year. There was a halfway decent plot with interesting characters, good writing, and, yes, actual sex scenes.
10. The Night Life of the Gods by Thorne Smith, finished 4/30/2012
• I remember being… not so impressed with this one. Maybe I'd have liked it more if I read it when it was initially published back in the 1920s.
11. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen, finished 5/23/2012
• I've really grown to like Austen (and other more character-driven novels). It gives me hope that I'll enjoy J. K. Rowling's new novel when I get around to obtaining and reading it!
12. A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L'Engle, finished 5/25/2012
13. The Moon by Night by Madeleine L'Engle, finished 6/4/2012
14. Fifty Shades of Grey by E. L. James, finished 6/20/2012
15. Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath and Dan Heath, finished 6/24/2012
• Read as part of a book club with some other grad students (until they gave up for the summer, and I finished it). Some sound ideas, overall, and definitely a useful book to keep around for reference! I should probably dig it out to help myself with writing blog posts and telling stories...
16. Fifty Shades Darker by E. L. James, finished 7/1/2012
17. Fifty Shades Freed by E. L. James, finished 7/12/2012
• The infamous Fifty Shades series! Honestly, the "thrill" kind of wears off… well, even before you finish the first book. Those stories about these novels being slightly modified Twilight fanfiction? Pretty darn believable - and, let's be real, I've seen fanfiction with better writing, and that's all free. There is a slight possibility I got so bored with the series because I have issues with Bella Ana's character - many of her decisions just made me want to scream with frustration. Funny (relevant, I promise!) story: I picked up Twilight at Target once and got roughly 10 pages in before I had to put it down because I was so disgusted with Bella as a character. (I regularly read teen-directed books, and she reached unprecedented levels of angst and self-pity almost immediately. It was unbearable.) So, yeah, it's possible I would have enjoyed this more if it weren't (allegedly) based on characters I already couldn't stand reading about (or even watching in movies).
18. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J. K. Rowling, finished 7/20/2012
• For the read-along guided by the "Alohomora" podcast. If you're a total Potter-head like me, you should check them out!
19. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins, finished 7/23/2012
20. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins, finished 8/6/2012
• Both of these were rereads, because I have problems not finishing a series once I've started it.
21. Five Stories by Willa Cather, finished 8/18/2012
• "The Enchanted Bluff," "Tom Outland's Story," "Neighbor Rosicky" - my favorite!, "The Best Years," and "Paul's Case"
22. Winged Pharoah by Joan Grant, finished 11/7/2012
• An interesting and thought-provoking read! Perhaps it's sacrilegious, but I regularly reevaluate my ideas regarding faith and religion based on secular media. This book definitely inspired some reflection!
23. Isaac Asimov's Book of Facts, finished 11/10/2012
• The facts I found most interesting were the ones that were obviously outdated - the book was published in the late 1980s.
24. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, finished 11/25/2012
• So good! My mom and her neighbor are both hooked on these books, and I'm afraid they may have made a new convert in me.
25. Taggerung by Brian Jacques, finished 12/1/2012
• Stolen from my sister's bookshelf - after the "tidying" of my book boxes into a few stacks in one corner, such that they are incredibly difficult to access. I hadn't realized how much I missed Redwall until I (re?)read this!
26. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling, finished 12/6/2012
• To go along with "Alohomora." Now my problem is that, as they move on to PoA, my copy is buried in the previously mentioned pile of boxes. I don't know which box it's in, and I'm not sure I have the wherewithal to go searching!
27. The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy, finished 12/19/2012
• Another of those character-driven British novels! Parts of it dragged a bit, but the story overall was a good one, if a bit tragic.
28. Eragon by Christopher Paolini, finished 12/20/2012
• Also stolen from my sister's shelf. Perhaps I'm too harsh in my judgement, but I was… less than impressed. I doubt I'll bother reading the other books in the series. This one just seemed to drag on f-o-r--e--v---e---r. Maybe I was overly influenced by some criticism I read/heard of when the book was first published, but it (like Fifty Shades) did in some cases just seem like poorly-adapted fanfiction of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. (Seriously, "urgals" versus "orcs." Are we really fooling anyone there?) Plus, did I mention that it seemed to drag? I could not believe how long it took me to read. I suppose it could be from the "world-building" necessary in this kind of epic fantasy. And world-building is all well and good! But it generally requires an ability to, y'know, build worlds. Preferably without making your book feel tedious. It feels kind of wrong to say it, but I just didn't care about the characters or what happened to them, either. I'll admit, I'm idly curious about what happens in the next books, but not curious enough to actually put myself through the torture of reading them.


So, that was what I managed to get finished in 2012! I'm currently working on a couple more books stolen from my sister's shelf - The Neverending Story and Undead and Unemployed. Hopefully I'll be moving into my own place soon - which means I'll once again have access to my books and can really work on getting them read!


I usually set a goal for myself as far as how many books I'd like to read in the next year. Considering I don't have to worry about grad school anymore (school in general is a tremendous drain on reading-for-pleasure time!), I'll be ambitious and set a goal of 35 books. Books I'd like to read include The Casual Vacancy and Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl. And probably a reread of Let's Pretend this Never Happened, because it's so damn hilarious! (And recommendations are always accepted!)