Saturday, December 30, 2017

My Year in Books

I've crunched numbers this morning, and here's what my 2017 reading habits were:
I read 62 books (Goodreads says 63, but it's counting one it shouldn't for reasons I can't quite figure out).
88.7% of them were works of fiction, and of those, 30.9% were mysteries/thrillers.

I read 43 books on Kindle (formerly referred to by me as Spawn of the Evil Empire); 9 hardcovers, 2 paperbacks, 4 paperback advance reader copies, and listened to 4 via audiobooks.
19.3% of these were checked out from from either the Montgomery City-County Public Library or the Autauga-Prattville Public Library, some in hardcover, some in eBook format on my Kindle.
8 books came to me like manna from the sky: 2 through Goodreads' Giveaway promotions, 5 from Netgalley, and 1 borrowed from my sister-in-law.
I ditched 5 books this year(not included in the above number), 3 of which I intend to put back in rotation for another time. (Sometimes a book doesn't grab you when you grab it).
The oldest book I read was published in 1911, and the "newest" was an advance copy of one that will be published in 2018.
My five star books aren't all created equal(ly) well; they just struck me as the best of their sort when I read them, or maybe they were just the right book at the right time, but I believe they are of special merit to most readers. If one isn't comparing genre to genre, there are plenty of four star books that are better (in a critical literary way) than some of those with five stars.


MY 2017 FIVE STAR READS
(The top 5 are linked to my reviews. Other five stars are listed in no particular order.)



Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple -Jeff Guinn, read by George Newbern

Fierce Kingdom - Gin Phillips

Educated: A Memoir - Tara Westover

I Liked My Life - Abby Fabiaschi


Wonder  (R.J. Palacio)
Rage Against the Dying  (Becky Masterman)
Keepers of the House  (Shirley Ann Grau)
The Last Ballad  (Wiley Cash)
The Risen  (Ron Rash)
The Lewis Man (Peter May)
The Scarred Woman (Jussi Adler-Olsen)
Robert B. Parker's Little White Lies  (Ace Atkins)
Before the Fall (Noah Hawley)
The Grownup (Gillian Flynn)
Olive Kitteridge (Elizabeth Strout)



MY 2017 FOUR STAR READS
(The "nearly fives" are linked to reviews, listed in no particular order.)

Dodgers - Bill Beverly

A Chance in the World  - Steve Pemberton

The Book Thief  (Markus Zusak)
If I Forget You (Thomas Christopher Greene)
Number the Stars (Lois Lowry)
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand (Helen Simonson)
The Best Kind of People (Zoe Whittall)
I Will Send Rain (Rae Meadows)
A Morbid Taste for Bones (Ellis Peters)
The Rules of Magic (Alice Hoffman)
The Dry (Jane Harper)
The Time Traveler's Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
Eveningland: Stories (Michael Knight)
Love and Other Consolation Prizes (Jamie Ford)
Fear the Darkness (Becky Masterman)
Because of Winn-Dixie (Kate DiCamillo)
Edgar & Lucy (Victor Lodato)

****

I'm currently reading this one, and hope it'll be a great kick off to my list of books read in 2018!



2 comments:

  1. I really got caught up in Fierce Kingdom. I need to print off your list. There were many on it that I've read and enjoyed. I want to try more. Thanks for posting.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Gin Phillips, the author of that book, is a Montgomery gal! Her first book, The Well and the Mine, remains one of the finest I've ever read.

    ReplyDelete