February was a good reading month. I read a fantastic non-fiction book by an author who I’ve enjoyed listening to on a number of podcasts, a book that started off slow but turned into a striking and complex historical journey, a beautifully poetic novel with an interesting artistic style, and the start to a series that I’ve been meaning to pick up for ages. What have you read this month?
One of my mini goals for the year is to write a review on Goodreads for every book I read. I usually look at Goodreads for recommendations of books to read, but I don’t usually bother to write reviews myself. I’m trying to change that because I get so much use out of other people’s reviews so I figure I should try to provide some, too. And then I thought that I’d share them here as well. A fairly quiet January meant that I had a lot of time for reading and read five books, four fiction and one non-fiction. Four were by female authors, and two are continuing my goal of reading all of the Women’s Prize for Fiction winners. Years/decades of voracious reading means that I am generally very good at selecting books I’m going to love, so all of them ranged from pretty good to excellent. Here they are:
Every year I set my Goodreads Reading Challenge goal at 52, an average of one book a week for the entire year. Ideally I would like to spread out my reading in just that way, reading one book each and every week. Of course, that never happens. Sometimes I fly through three books in three months; sometimes it takes me just as long to read a single, long, dense book (for example, last year’s reading choice of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susannah Clarke). Sometimes life gets in the way—I’ve read as almost twice as many books in the month I’ve been home as I did in the nearly three months I spent on the road. However, I’m more or less on track; last night I finished reading Anne Helen Petersen’s Too Fat Too Slutty Too Loud and Goodreads informed me that I have finished 27 books and am therefore halfway to my goal. Next up is Amelia Gray’s latest novel, Isadora, but first, here is a ranking and short review of all the books I’ve read so far this year.
Note 1: I’ve read two series or multiple volumes of a series this year; I’ve grouped them together rather than ranking each separate book.
Note 2: Books published in 2017 marked with a *
Note 3: You’ll notice that I say mostly positive things about all the books on this list. I’m pretty good at this point at guessing whether I’m going to enjoy a book before I pick it up, so I don’t tend to start many duds (which is good, because I’m also determined to finish even a dull book once I’ve opened it).
Continue reading “Every Book I’ve Read So far in 2017, Ranked”
One of the goals on my 101 Things in 1001 Days project (2 goals complete and another 5 in progress so far!) is to start a blog dedicated to reviews. Unfortunately, at the moment I’m hardly seeing enough new films or reading enough new books or listening to enough new albums to make it worthwhile—it can be fun to read reviews of older works, but not fun enough to create a whole blog around it unless there’s some sort of theme other than “what I’ve read/seen/listened to.” However, in the meantime I’m going to do a microreview roundup each month of all the books, films, and anything else old or new that I’ve consumed (for the first time). Sure this month is a little late, but there’s still plenty of time before I’ll need to write February’s entry.
If you’re interested in seeing what pop culture I’m looking at as it happens, you can follow me on Goodreads or take a look at my 2014 scrapbook. What have you read, watched, or listened to in the last month? Tell me about it!
January books
The Letters by Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg (2012): A compilation of the correspondence between Kerouac and Ginsberg from 1944 to 1969, this book amazed me with the depth of the relationship between these two icons of the Beat generation. At times it is pretentious, of course, but in other instances there’s a rawness and sincerity that helps to explain the reason their writing still resonates so strongly.
While the Women are Sleeping by Javier Marías (1990): I’ve been wanting to read something by Marías for ages, but judging by the reviews on Goodreads for this collection, it’s not the one to choose as a first look at his work, and maybe that’s why I had trouble fully connecting with it. However, I did like the creepiness of the stories, whether it was due to a paranormal element or simply the weirdness of human nature.
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway (1929): I see why Bradley Cooper’s character threw this novel out the window at the start of Silver Linings Playbook. While I enjoy Hemingway’s style so I liked the writing as much as I have in his other works, the unresolved nature of the plot, particularly the ending, made the book lack closure and feel almost unfinished.
Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2013): Like a lot of people, I was introduced to Adichie’s work by Beyoncé’s ***Flawless, which samples one of her speeches. Americanah covers race, feminism, cultural and national identity, and does so through the wonderful character of Ifemelu. While some of the characters were somewhat one-dimensional, the protagonist was so compelling that I couldn’t set the book down.
thebestpossibletime 