A Year In Books - 2016

I am never without a book or an audiobook anymore, and while I didn't push to read a crazy amount of books like I did last year, I still managed to read 48 books :) I'm very pleased with that number. I almost don't know what to do with myself when I'm between books, so I keep a pretty steady stream going which leads to lots of things read. I love how Goodreads makes these nice infographics of the books you've read, so I blatantly reposted them here, lol. It's some cool information.

Not surprised at all with the highest rated book I read or with what my average rating was, lol. Lots of 4s and 3s, only the truly amazing ones get 5s, and if I bother to finish it but didn't love it it gets a 2. 1s are reserved for books so bad I didn't even finish them - this is rare. Anyway, it's a system that works for me :)

Here are all the books I read this year:

1. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
2. Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
3. West of Sunset by Stewart O'nan
4. The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
5. The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley
6. Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
7. Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith
8. Committed: A Skeptic Make Peace with Marriage by Elizabeth Gilbert
9. The Magician's Assistant by Ann Patchett

10. Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl by Carrie Brownstein
11. The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien
12. The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien
13. The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien
14. Dad Is Fat by Jim Gaffigan
15. Hard Questions, Prophetic Answers by Daniel K. Judd
16. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
17. Marie Antoinette: The Journey by Antonia Fraser
18. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

19. The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
20. Rising Strong by Brené Brown
21.The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
22. Bleak House by Charles Dickens
23. Home: A Memoir of My Early Years by Julie Andrews. 222

24. The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King
25. North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
26. Spark Joy by Marie Kondo
27. Me Before You by Jojo Moyes
28. The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare
29. Food: A Love Story by Jim Gaffifan
30. Fluke by Christopher Moore
31. The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
32. Bullfinch's Mythology by Thomas Bullfinch

33. Dress Your Family In Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris
34. Swann's Way by Marcel Proust
35. The Day of the Trifids by John Wyndham
36. The Art of Asking by Amanda Palmer
37. The Girl With All the Gifts by M. R. Carey
38. Smarter Better Faster by Charles Duhigg
39. Tess of the D'Urbevilles by Thomas Hardy
40. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

41. The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason
42. But What If We're Wrong? by Chuck Klosterman
43. The Secret History by Donna Tartt
44. In Such Good Company by Carol Burnett
45. Love Warrior by Glennon Doyle Melton
46. The Histories by Herodotus
47. The Chimes by Charles Dickens
48. Atonement by Ian McEwan

And my 5 star books of the year were: 

• Committed
• The Lord of the Rings books
• The Bell Jar 
• Me Before You
• Love Warrior

And The Secret History gets honorable mention with the 5 stars because it's still great, but since this was my second time reading it I'm not going to add it to this year's 5 star list "officially". It was already on the 5 star list, lol. Some of the books that I gave lower star marks to have really stuck with me though. Example: I didn't completely love the book of The English Patient, but I have become completely obsessed with the movie. It's one of my favorite films now. Same with North and South - the book was fine, but the miniseries is fantastic. That may or may not be entirely because of Richard Armitage, but I digress...  Also I talk about Marie Antoinette, Rising Strong, The Art of Asking, Smarter Better Faster, Tess of the D'Urbevillles, The Richest Man in Babylon, and But What If We're Wrong? all the time in conversation, so clearly they made an impression. Eventually I will have to do reviews on at least those. Just know that I highly recommend them. 

Earlier this year I gave myself a pass on writing book reviews for everything I read, and while it made things less stressful at the time I really wish I had stuck with it. Many of these books were really good and I wish I had taken the time to collect my thoughts while they were still fresh. I'm recommitting myself to the book reviews in 2017 :) So expect to see more book posts throughout the year. 

So many books, so little time! I recently took a quiz to see how many of the "300 Books Everyone Should Read At Least Once" list I'd read and I'm up to 99! I felt pretty smart, lol. If you'd like to take the quiz too, go here, then be sure to let me know your score :) Yay for expanding our knowledge with books!