2017 may not have been my personal best year ever, but reading-wise, it was pretty good. My reading game was upped a bit mostly because I chose not to take any vacations (except one day in Chicago to see Hamilton), instead I worked on my house. My vacations were stay-cations and I read a lot.
I subscribed to the New York Times and the local paper this year. I wanted to make sure I was pretty on top of the craziness that is the world now. I devoured those for a while, especially the books section of NYT, but soon dropped off. I have some stacks of papers I want to read, again the book sections and I'm back to working through those. I dropped off reading them because reading is my form of escapism and I ended up in a sad and sour mood after reading the papers. Where was my escape? Yes, I was informed of how things are, how horrible people can be, and how bad the world was. But it hurt my heart. I have a friend who doesn't like to watch movies or shows that hurt her soul. I feel her. Except in my case, movies and shows are escapism from the soul-crushing real world. And books are my ultimate escape.
Goodreads is awesome in that it puts all of your stats for the year together. My goal was to read 50 books this year and I was sure I would not hit it. So I did what I do and I started reading my comics and graphic novels (they count!). I ended the year with 52 books read and reviewed.
Click to see my reading challenge results
I like looking back on what I've read. Was it out of my comfort zone? Why did I pick that book? I really tackled that monster of a tome??
I can easily say some of the best books I've read this year were courtesy of book clubs. Either my IRL book club or my postal book clubs. My current PBC is 4 years strong this coming year. Same group of ladies. I tried a new PBC and found I didn't enjoy those books as much. A Before They Were Films club, the books I would have loved, I had already read. The others were ok. Cold Comfort Farm was the stand out to me.
I'm surprised how much I liked Call of the Wild. And I ended up missing that book club night. Boo. Disgrace, Kindred, and Shadow Tag were other Book Club books that rocked my socks.
I think my all time favorite audio book was Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders. A friend didn't care for it, so I insisted he tell me why. The footnotes. I got used to them but I imagine others would dislike them, so in that case, read the book!
I learned I really can get into Sci-Fi with The Collapsing Empire. That sometime Hollywood CAN do right by a favorite book (American Gods). I learned that someone named Jack Reacher is someone I should follow. And I learned that the alphabet stops at Y and that it can hit hard when you lose a favorite character because you lose a favorite author. RIP Sue Grafton.
So....where are we going in 2018?
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