My Year in Reading

Here is a little picture of the books I read this year and how I rated them on Goodreads:



For more specifics you can click here and see a more detailed list.

I ended the year by reading three absolutely amazing novels that are completely different from one another; Possession, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World and A Storm of Swords. Possession was extremely literary but also accessible and human. I have the film on my DVR currently but Aaron Eckhart and Gwynneth Paltrow seem like pretty terrible casting choices for Roland and Maud so I'm not expecting it to live up to the book. I am excited to see Lena "Cersei Lannister" Headey as Blanche Glover though. And speaking of George R. R. Martin properties A Storm of Swords has been my favorite of the series so far. Even though by being on Tumblr I had some major plot points spoiled there were still so many other things that came at me from nowhere. It was exciting, I started to like characters I had hated and think twice about characters that I loved and it makes me really happy that such a popular novel does things like that.

I ended the year with my first Murakami and loved it. It's the kind of novel that would have made me feel so cool to read in High School or college but I feel now I can just really enjoy it on its own merits as a thoughtful and ambiguous experience. I feel like I didn't really read enough books that left a lot unexplained and this kind of made up for it. It managed to be exciting, existential, sad, wacky, and very real all at the same time. I listened to the version of Danny Boy from Straight to Hell, Like a Rolling Stone, Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again, and Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands on repeat through the last few chapters and it enhanced the experience.

I had challenged myself to read 50 books this year and managed to surpass that once I decided to branch out into YA territory and realized it was faster for me to read 3 books concurrently than reading one-at-a-time. I wasn't sure if I'd make it because I started the year with the long and dense 2666 and even though it seemed like a bad idea at the time it was a great way to start the year off.

My completist tendencies came out and I read all the books in Gail Carriger's Parasol Protectorate series, Kristin Cashore's Seven Kingdoms series, the last two Dragon Tattoo books, the last two Eagle and Jaguar books, and the Hunger Games trilogy. I read as many A Song of Ice and Fire books as I could, having started in November and made progress towards having read the complete works of Kurt Vonnegut and Isabel Allende.

I became a Margaret Atwood and Neil Gaiman devotee, polished off some neglected classics, and took on some YA must reads. I read the Sookie Stackhouse series up to what the HBO show is up to because unlike Game of Thrones where I NEED to know everything that happens ASAP being surprised by True Blood appeals more to me than knowing Sookie's future (even though the show has strayed WAY off from the novels).

Through Allende and Andrea Levy I further explored the love of historical fiction I've had since I read all the Scott O'Dell I could get my hands on as a child. I learned the kinds of histories you don't learn in school by reading The Warrior Queens and When Jim Crow Met John Bull and kept up on modern posh London society with Detmar Blow and Liza Cambpell's memoirs.

Overall I'm really happy with my reading output this year. Next year I want to finish ASOIAF, starting the year with A Feast for Crows and maybe try to read some more non-fiction. I can't wait until Bitterblue and Timeless come out. I want to read more Atwood and Gaiman and Bolaño, Allende and Vonnegut, Lessing and Murakami.

Finally I'd like to thank the Nassau County Public Libraries without which all of this reading would not have been possible.