A Year In Books: 2024

 

This year I didn't add as many books to my list as I usually try to, but in my defense I was busy getting married and joining lives and all that, so I'm giving myself a break lol. These are all the books I read this year and if you want to know my ratings and whatnot, Click Here t see my bookshelf on Goodreads :)

1. The Last Town by Blake Crouch

2. Clytemnestra by Costanza Casati

3. Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld

4. The Cancelling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott

5. The Unmaking of June Farrow by Adrienne Young

6. Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker

7. The Frugal Wizard's Guide to Surviving Medieval England by Brandon Sanderson

8. The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller

9. Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

10. Weyward by Emilia Hart

11. The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle

12. The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt

13. The Dutch House by Anne Patchett

14. Jamaica Inn by Daphne Du Maurier

15. Women's Work by Elizabeth Wayland Barber

16. The Seamstress of Sardinia by Bianca Pitzorno

17. Barrel Fever by David Sedaris 

18. Simple Dreams by Linda Ronstadt

19. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving

20. The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis

21. The Prestige by Christopher Priest

22. Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery (unfinished)

23. The Fragile Threads of Power by V.E. Schwab (unfinished)

The final 2 books I only managed to get about half way. I decided to start listening to Anne of Green Gables with my kids and they can only go so long so it is taking quite a while, and my check out on The Fragile Threads of Power ran out before I could finish.

I think my favorite book of the year was The Unmaking of June Farrow or Remarkably Bright Creatures. I really enjoyed a loot of these and then some were just duds. Such is the life of a reader. 

What were your favorite books this year? Maybe I can add them to my list :)

A Year In Books: 2023

 

I'm always delving into stories to escape my own life. I love to listen to audiobooks when I'm doing things around my house or tedious things at work, etc. I love being able to have the best of both worlds with reading great stories and still getting other things done. I was just shy of my yearly goal of reading 30 books, but 28 books is still pretty darn close. Here are the books I read this year:

1. Crossroads of Twilight by Robert Jordan
2. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
3. Trigger Warning by Neil Gaiman
4. Knife of Dreams by Robert Jordan
5. New Spring by Robert Jordan

6. Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
7. The Gathering Storm by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
8. Dying of Politeness by Geena Davis
9. Towers of Midnight by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
10. The Cloisters by Katy Hays

11. The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith
12. A Memory of Light by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
13. All the Beauty in the World by Patrick Bringley
14. Hooked by Sutton Foster
15. The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell

16. Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell
17. The Running Grave by Robert Galbraith
18. Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
19. Piranesi by Susanna Clark
20. Pines by Blake Crouch

21. The Signalman by Charles Dickens
22. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
23. Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
24. Someone Else's Shoes by Jojo Moyes
25. The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab

26. Wayward by Blake Crouch
27. The Woman in Me by Brittney Spears
28. Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

I finished the entire Wheel of Time series in 2 years, which I'm pretty surprised by honestly, and it left a hole after I finished because I could always fall back on reading the next book in the series. I've never been a series gal, but I did like that I didn't have to think about what I wanted to read next because there was more to the story. I also read the first 2 books of Wayward Pines and I'm waiting my turn with the final book there. The only series I'm reading that is still actively going is the Cormoran Strike books and I anxiously await the next installment all the time. I just love Rowling's writing style and will read everything she does. Some of the books I read were duds, but overall I enjoyed most everything I read in 2023. Here's hoping that 2024 brings more insights and great stories to enrich us all :)

A Year In Books - 2019

So, like my making output, my book reading also had a slump. I was cooking right along, but with the beginnings of divorce proceedings I found myself just not in the mood for books at all in any form. So I took a break for several months, trying not to be too hard on myself. So this is the first time in 5 years I did not meet my reading goal for the year :/ But that's ok! I set out to read 50 and I managed 31, which is still not a number to sneeze at. I enjoyed what I did read, and while there weren't any enormous classic books like I am prone to choose, there were quite a few books that have been on my "to read" list for years. I can be happy with that. And while I did not write a single book review (bad Megan!), I would be happy to let you know about any of these books if you're interested. Just leave a comment below. So here are the 31 books I read this year:

1. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
2. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
3. Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood
4. The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt
5. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

6. On Liberty by John Stuart Mill
7. An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
8. The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
9. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

10. The Library Book by Susan Orlean
11. Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield
12. An American Princess by Annejet van der Zijl
13. Tangerine by Christine Mangan
14. Jaws by Peter Benchley

15. The Story of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting
16. About a Boy by Nick Hornby
17. Florida by Lauren Groff
18. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
19. Normal People by Sally Rooney
20. Noir by Christopher Moore
21. The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan
22. How to Raise an Adult by Julie Lythcott-Haims

23. A Woman is No Man by Etaf Rum
24. The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo
25. The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt
26. The State of Affairs by Esther Perel
27. Everything is F*cked by Mark Manson

28. Maybe You Should Talk To Someone by Lori Gottlieb
29. The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis
30. The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern
31. Going To Pieces Without Falling Apart by Mark Epstein, M.D.

As far as my top books, I added 3 more to my 5 star list:

• The State of Affairs
• Maybe You Should Talk To Someone
• The Problem of Pain

I also find it interesting the books that I didn't give 5 stars to but they stuck in my mind and I talk about a lot. There were several this year:

• The Coddling of the American Mind
• The Feminine Mystique
• The Happiness Hypothesis
• The Starless Sea
• Going To Pieces Without Falling Apart

So, while I didn't hit my goal, I did get a lot out of the books that I read. I will say, I also had the problem of starting a few books and not finishing them. I have a goal to finish them all this coming year. 

Anyone else out there find they want to read less at a certain time? I'm very curious if I'm a weirdo. Every other time I've had craziness in my life over the past 6 years or so, I've turned to reading as an escape and read voraciously. It was very indicative of the total upheaval and change I went through though, I guess. I still love to read and look forward to learning more in the coming year :)

A Year In Books - 2018

Another year, another reading challenge. This year I managed to beat my goal of 50 books by a whole 2 books! lol There were some really good books on the list this year. But first - here's the nice Goodreads infographics :)

And now for the books themselves :) As always, I've linked all the reviews I managed to post (and as always, I only managed to get about halfway down the list with reviews). So here is what I read this year:

1. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven R. Covey
2. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
3. Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote
4. The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
5. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

6. My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante
7. Postcards From the Edge by Carrie Fisher
8. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
9. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
10. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain
11. The Queen of Spades by Alexander Pushkin
12. The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker
13. State of Wonder by Ann Patchett

14. Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis
15. Secondhand Time by Svetlana Alexievich
16. Flat Broke with Two Goats by Jennifer McGaha
17. Thérèse Racquin by Émile Zola
18. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

19. Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
20. Circe by Madeline Miller
21. Howard's End by E.M. Forster
22. Two on a Tower by Thomas Hardy

23. The Odyssey by Homer
24. East of Eden by John Steinbeck
25. Les Liasons Dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Lasclos
26. Seven Years in Tibet by Heinrich Harrer
27. The Practicing Mind by Thomas Sterner

28. A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean
29. At the Water's Edge by Sara Gruen
30. Calypso by David Sedaris
31. The Martian by Andy Weir
32. How Eskimos Keep Their Babies Warm by Mei-Ling Hopgood

33. I Remember Nothing by Nora Ephron
34. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer + Annie Barrows
35. Women & Money by Suze Orman
36. Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol

37. The Little Friend by Donna Tartt
38. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Other Stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald
39. Five by Fitzgerald by F. Scott Fitzgerald
40. Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks
41. Stay With Me by Ayọ̀bámi Adébayọ̀

42. The World of Lore: Monstrous Creatures by Aaron Mahnke
43. A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
44. No Country For Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
45. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

46. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
47. Artemis by Andy Weir
48. Lethal White by Robert Galbraith
49. A Million Little Pieces by James Frey
50. The Green Mile by Stephen King

51. Something in the Water by Catherine Steadman
52. The Love of the Last Tycoon by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Out of the 52 books I read, I gave 4 of them 5 star ratings. The best books were:

• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
• Gone with the Wind
• Secondhand Time
• East of Eden

And the easy winner on this list for me is East of Eden. Wow, what a great book. I can't believe I hadn't heard it spoken of more on the big lists of books you should read. This really makes me excited to read more Steinbeck next year, to say the least. I also finally read something by Stephen King (I know, right?), and I knocked Crime and Punishement and Gone with the Wind off my list. All in all I'm happy with the mix of books for fun and books with purpose.

So that's my year in books :) I definitely recommend some of these. To get my full reviews or my star ratings (if you're interested), head over to My Goodreads Profile. Now I get to start on the next 50 books for 2019 :)

A Year In Books: 2017

It's that time again - time to look at all the books I managed to read last year. And since I love the graphics Goodreads puts up, that's what you see here (thanks, Goodreads!). Speaking of, if you are on Goodreads, drop me a line (click here for my profile).

I made it a point to diversify what I read this year. I read everything from giant classics (War and Peace, David Copperfield), to super popular (The Lovely Bones, Into the Water), from self help (You Are A Badass, The Millionaire Next Door ), to brain science (Who's In Charge?). I didn't have as many books knock me off my chair this year (as you will see in my 5 star list), but I enjoyed quite a lot and still contemplate things about their stories long after I've read them. Others were total throw aways that I couldn't wait to finish. Definitely an interesting mix!

I did pretty well with writing reviews on the books I read until about halfway through the year (as you will see - I've linked each title to blog post review if it had one). Maybe I can blame this on the hurricane as well? lol Man that this really messed up my schedule. Moving on! I also changed my posting format to have one review post for every 5 books, which I much preferred because it made each review feel less ominous to write. Did you like this set up better? Should I include more reviews in each post so you can skip them? lol Let me know what you thought. 

So here are my books from 2017:

1. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon
2. Joy on Demand by Chade-Meng Tan
3. You Are A Badass by Jen Sincero
4. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
5. The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

6. The Once and Future King by T.H. White
7. Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman
8. Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
9. The Complete Tales of Beatrix Potter by Beatrix Potter

10. The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff
11. Naked by David Sedaris
12. Brooklyn by Colm Toibin
13. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
14. My Week With Marilyn by Colin Clark

15. Kim by Rudyard Kipling
16. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by J.K Rowling
17. The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley
18. Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer

19. The Remains of the Day by Kasuo Ishiguro
20. Tenth of December by George Saunders
21. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*** by Mark Manson
22. My Ántonia by Willa Cather
23. Who's In Charge? by Michael S. Gazzaniga

24. The Little Book of Hygge by Meik Wiking
25. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
26. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
27. Into the Water by Paula Hawkins

28. Good Omens by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
29. Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
30. We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
31. Theft By Finding by David Sedaris
32. Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen

33. White Oleander by Janet Fitch
34. Salt Sugar Fat by Michael Moss
35. The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan
36. To Rise Again at a Decent Hour by Joshua Ferris

37. Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson
38. You Are a Badass at Making Money by Jen Sincero
39. The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman
40. The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman
41. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke

42. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
43. MirrorMask by Neil Gaiman
44. The Lovely Bones by Alice Siebold
45. Believe Me by Eddie Izzard

46. The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo
47. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
48. Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
49. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
50. Braving the Wilderness by Brené Brown

51. Children Playing Before A Statue of Hercules by David Sedaris
52. To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
53. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

I really squeaked out the 53rd book - I finished it at about 9 pm on New Year's Eve. I tried to focus on reading a balance of new fiction with books on the Books Everyone Should Read type lists. Click that link to take an epic quiz and see how many you've read. I found it last year and was at 99, now I'm up to 109 - not bad in my opinion. 

• You are a Badass 
• The Subtle Art
• We Should All Be Feminists
• The Omnivore's Dilemma

I didn't get a chance to write a review of The Omnivore's Dilemma, but seriously it's so good. I'm not sure if I just need to be more discerning of what I read to get more 5 stars or if I've read so much that it takes more to impress me on that level. Who knows?

I managed to yet again beat my goal on Goodreads :) I really love keeping track of everything there - I can look back on when I read something and what I thought of it. I can also see who I read the most (David Sedaris and Neil Gaiman this year) and other interesting statistics. I'm obviously a nerd (in case you didn't know) so I like things like this, lol. 

So that's my year in books! I've set a goal of another 50 books in 2018 (I've decided this will be the year for Crime and Punishment at last), so stay tuned for what I decide to read and my reviews if you're interested.