The books I read in 2016 – click on the image to see a bigger version
I’m not a great believer in making resolutions on New Year’s Day – any day will do. So I have decided to “sign up” for the Reading Challenge on Shaz’s Jera’s Jamboree blog. It’s a way of getting out of your comfort zone of always reading the same sorts of books.
As I never stick to the rules I am adapting the challenge, making it both more difficult and less difficult for myself. The challenge has six sections and you are asked to tick off ONE sort of book from each section – but I am planning to tick off EVERY box in each section. But as I have already been trying to read outside my comfort zone, I am going to allow the books I have read in 2016, where they fit the categories. Please don’t call me a cheat – this is my own idea of great fun!
Click on the image to go to Shaz’s blog post and download the challenge for yourself…
Firstly you will notice at the top of this post an image of all the books I read in 2016 – click on it if you want to see a bigger version in which you may actually be able to see what the books are.
I always think of myself as mainly a fan of sci-fi, but my favourites of the year don’t reflect that. They were:
Frances Hardinge: The Lie Tree
Vanessa Diffenbaugh: The Language of Flowers
Gillian Flynn: Gone Girl
Robin Hobb: Farseer trilogy and Tawny Man trilogy – six books in one year!
I like to read books in ‘pairs’ – these two both have a sense of place (Porlock, Exmoor, 1361, during the Plague, and Blackwater, Essex, 1890s) and in a way pit myth against religion…
So far in 2017 I have read:
Lynne Truss: The Lunar Cats (in hardback, not on my Kindle, for a change)
Lian Hearn: Across the Nightingale Floor
Karen Maitland: The Plague Charmer
Sarah Perry: The Essex Serpent
Anne Fine: The Tulip Touch
A couple of them allow me to tick off categories in the Reading Challenge list – in particular, The Essex Serpent is “A book with a predominantly green cover”!
One question for you all before I shunt this challenge over to a static “page” that I can update during the year. Can you recommend to me “A book that changed your life”? Nothing too heavy, please…
To see my checklist so far, which also invites other suggestions from you, please go to my Reading Challenge page here.
The Squirrelbasket 
Susan Howatch’s Church of England series has seriously mitigated my negative view of organized religion. ‘Absolute Truths’ is perhaps the most powerful of the series. Just now finishing my third re-read of the entire series. Still an atheist though.
Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi, for that “plus ca change” lesson.
Amy Tan, The Bonesetter’s Daughter.
Carol Tarvis, The Mismeasure of Woman – self explanatory!
Masanobu Fukuoka, The One Straw Revolution, about appropriate organic agriculture. That’s an old one, it was undergrad reading in the 80s.
I must make a note of ALL those!
My challenge is becoming greater!
Thanks and best wishes 🙂
You’re much more organised than I am Pat. I keep forgetting to add at the bottom of my reviews what I’m ticking off! I’m going to do an update during half term …
Thank you for joining in 🙂
I probably won’t be able to keep it up – the updating, that is! But I WILL do the reading.
I’m loving the prospect of getting some of my “physical” books read and taking them to the charity shop after all these years.
Thanks again so much for the challenge 🙂
I joined in just such a challenge a couple of years ago and it was fun – not to mention educational. Thing is I’m having trouble reading anything at the moment I just don’t seem to be able to settle into what I’ve attempted so far this year. Perhaps I’ll try again in a couple of months. Meanwhile, good luck with your challenge, and I hope you find lots of books to enjoy!
I have only managed to read again since I got my Kindle – it passes the time on my bus commute to and from work…
Thanks for your wishes – and I hope you get back into it again soon 🙂
Oh and you might like Canadian naturalist David Suzuki’s ‘Tree’, where he imagines the life history of a Douglas-fir tree on Vancouver Island.
Oooh! I like that one. Although I had better not count it as a “biography”…
Thanks again 🙂