What is is about the month of January that makes everyone decide they should start anew? Like revisit a blog they started over four years ago to track/blog and monitor their reading habits??
Welp...I'm back! Lol! I suppose I never really left, but I am here to attempt this whole writing/reflecting on my "Reading Recess," which has taken me on so many wonderful journeys over the last couple of years.
Perhaps a summary is in order.
In early 2015, I went to Scotland with Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series. I spent most of that year reading through that series. I finished Book 7, Echo in the Bone, and Book 8, Written in My Heart's Own Blood in 2016. To say, I'm in love with the series would be an understatement. I'm pretty sure I've told all of my reader friends to read it, and I most definitely encourage anyone who stumbles across this blog to pick up the series and give it a read.
2015 & 2016 also had me reading the Divergent series by Veronica Roth. I found it enjoyable, but for me, not as beloved as The Hunger Games series that I had read a few years back. Perhaps if I had discovered the Divergent series before HG, I would feel different.
I picked up Stephen King's 11.22.63. Read it in nearly one sitting. I admit that I've wanted to read this one since it came out in 2011, but I had never gotten around to reading it. This was only my second brush with Mr. King, and I have to say, it was fantastic. And at the recommendation of a friend, I picked up King's Dark Tower series this last fall. I finished The Gunslinger, and am now about halfway through The Drawing of Three. I am immensely enjoying the journey to the "Dark Tower." It's like The Hobbit, King Arthur's Knights, and a science fiction western all rolled into one. I never once envisioned myself taking this reading journey, but it has been awesome so far.
I feel now would be an appropriate time that I have declared myself a "Historical Fiction Junkie." I mean obviously the Outlander series, and 11.22.63 fall into that category. But then there has also been some stellar gems that I've randomly found: The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah, All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, Brooklyn by Colm Toibin, Restless by William Boyd (I totally plan to read more of his novels), and The Color of Secrets by Lindsay Ashford. And at the recommendation of a friend, I started reading Ken Follett's Century Trilogy. I finished Fall of Giants a couple weeks ago. It is probably in my EVER evolving Top 5 of books I've read. I cannot wait to start the next book in the series.
I stumbled into the world of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, and am currently finishing up the third one in the series.
I also read some tearjerkers. Emma Donoghue's Room and JoJo Moyes Me Before You...as well as the sequel After You.
I laughed my ass of reading Mother, Can You Not? by Kate Siegel, who runs the CrazyJewishMom page on Instagram. If you aren't following her, then YOU SHOULD BE!
I finally finished out my 2016 reading journey on Mars with Andy Weir's The Martian. Check it out. It's even better than the movie, and the movie was pretty freaking good!
2016 Totals...according to Goodreads equalled: 36 books and 12,574 pages. At the time it felt like many books, but I know I can do more. I set my 2017 goal for 40 books. I know...it's low, but I aim to beat it. Hoping more for the 50 book range. We'll see how it goes and hopefully I'll keep up/remember to post after each book I read.
Cheers to 2017!
No comments:
Post a Comment