Even with all the hours of cycling, building a chicken coop, learning how to care for chicks and then fully grown chickens, and gardening, I still managed to read quite a lot in 2016. I’m not certain how I managed it, but I did. Perhaps it was through a simple combination of long and short books, easy reads and thoughtful reads. In the end it doesn’t matter. What matters is that I enjoyed what I read. In the past I have made a half-hearted attempt to keep track of books I started but didn’t finish for various reasons. This year I didn’t even bother because I have decided those did-not-finish books are not important to me, if they were, I would have finished them. I have not yet written about all the books I finished at the end of the year so you can expect a few reviews to pop up over the next week or so.
Without further ado, the 2016 breakdown.
Books Read: 78
Fiction: 40 (thanks to comics!)
Nonfiction: 28
Poetry: 10
Breaking down the fiction and nonfiction even further:
Biography/Memoir: 9
Children’s: 1
Comics/Graphic Stories: 17
Culture/Social Science: 2
Essays: 5
Environment/Climate Change/Nature: 3
Economics: 2
Politics: 1
Science: 1
Writing/Creativity: 3
Climate Fiction: 1
Science Fiction: 5
Fantasy: 3
Literary Fiction: 9
Literary Criticism: 1
Horror: 1
Thriller: 1
Short Stories: 1
Novella: 1
Books written by…
Women: 44
Men: 34
In translation: 5 (Finnish, Spanish, Korean, Italian, Bengali)
Authors whose books I read more than one of: 6 (Mike Carey, Ryan North, Kim Stanley Robinson, Rebecca Solnit, Brian Vaughan, G. Willow Wilson)
Rereads: 1
Book Source:
ARCs: 6
Library Journal: 4
Project Gutenberg: 2
Own: 2
Library: 64
Publication Dates:
2016: 28
2015: 18
2000 – 2014: 23
1950 – 1999: 7
1900 – 1949: 1
1800s: 1
Favorite Fiction:
The Vegetarian by Han Kang
The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
Nimona by Noelle Stevenson
The Sundial by Shirley Jackson
My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferranted
Favorite Nonfiction:
Neoliberalism: A Very Short Introduction by Manfred Steger and Ravi Roy
Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit
Between the World and Me by Ta-Neshi Coates
We Should All Be Feminists by Adichie Ngozi Chimamanda
The Small Heart of Things: Being At Home in a Becksoning World by Julian Hoffman
Favorite Poetry:
The Book of Medicines by Linda Hogan
To Keep Time by Joseph Massey
Seasonal Works with Letters on Fire by Brenda Hillman
I really thought I was doing better reading books in translation this year, but I must have confused the actual reading with the number of books in translation I added to my TBR. So who knows? Maybe 2017 will be the year of translations!
As far as goals for 2017 go, I am not much on making them for my reading these days since I never seem to keep them. How I can be so disciplined in some things and completely wild in others I have no idea. Perhaps I can only take so much discipline so rebel when I can? That doesn’t mean there aren’t things I would like to try to do. I want to continue to read more about economics. It would be really great if maybe I could read a few books from my reading table — oh how they taunt me! I will be reading Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace along with Danielle later this year. My poetry focus with my friend Cath is on activist poets (living or dead) so if you have any favorites, I’d love to hear about them. Otherwise my reading choices will be whim-tastical and who knows where that might lead me? That is a good deal of the fun right there.
Happy Reading Everyone!
a suggestion for poetry/poets: Get Up, Please by David Kirby–thoughtful, urbane and wittty!
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booksandbuttons, thanks for the suggestion!
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I’m amazed by your list of books you’ve read in 2016. I know you probably don’t have answer to my question but I can’t help to ask: How do you read that much?
Maybe you write that in your new post?
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Mymaximumeffort, how do I read so much? I read in all my free moments, on the bus and train to and from work, during my lunch break, before bed, on weekends. It adds up 🙂
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A great reading year Stefanie! I really liked reading your list and am impressed at the number of nonfiction and poetry books you read. I’m hoping to do better this year. Here’s to a great reading year ahead!
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Iliana, I actually thought there would end up being m ore nonfiction, at times it felt like that is all I was reading! Saved by all those comics 🙂 Happy New Year and happy reading!
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How you can like both my least favorite of the year (The Vegetarian) and one of my very favorites (The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet)… is one of the joys of getting to know other people who love books, I guess!
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Jeanne, heh, funny how things work out like that! I am looking forward to Kang’s Human Acts. My library has it on order and I am almost first in line for it. I am also early in line for Chamber’s new book coming out this spring. 🙂
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Making it through Infinite Jest is goal enough for 2017. I have twice tried, but failed to finish, that one. 🙂
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Sam, heh, I’ve had it on my shelf for years and decided it is time to try. You are welcome to join Danielle and I, your third try might be the one! We’ll probably be starting February/March.
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If I can find the courage and endurance, I may just do that. Oh…and I need to find the book, too, since it has rather conveniently disappeared.
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Heh, yeah I have to find the book as well. I know I have it somewhere… It is looking like we will start reading in March.
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What a great reading year Stefanie!! I think for me, you are single handedly responsible for the amount of non-fiction I read this year! Besides Big Magic, which was a personally one of the more useful self help stuff you introduced me to, I loved Rebecca Sonlit and Adichie Ngozi Chimamanda!! Thank you for making me read authors, I would not have ideally ventured out too! Happy Reading for 2017!
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Thanks cirtnecce! I am so glad to hear you enjoyed several of the books I blogged about! And even though Home and the World didn’t make my best of list, I still very much enjoyed it and thank you for hosting the readalong!
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I had Elena Ferrante and Han Kang on my Top Reads of 2016 list, but not the same books 🙂 I read The Days of Abandonment by Ferrante and Human Acts by Han Kang, I also read The Vegetarian later, but Human Acts was the stand out of the two for me. Happy Reading for 2017!
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Claire, my library has Human Acts on order and I am looking forward to reading it! Maybe it will show up on my list at the end of 2017 🙂 I am also in the middle of Ferrante’s Story of a New Name and liking it very much. I think after I finish the series I will definitely be reading her other books. Happy New Year!
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Good to hear about your reading year, Stefanie! Here’s to more good reads in 2017 🙂
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Thanks Andrew! Happy New Year to you!
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Enjoyed your wrap-up as usual Stefanie. Your female/male ratio is similar to mine (though mine is just a little higher than yours). And you think your translated fiction record was not great. Mine was woeful, just one, and that right at the end of the year. I read two non-anglo writers but one, the African Chinua Achebe whom I thought might double my achievement actually wrote his classic in English! That wasn’t very helpful of him was it?
Anyhow, as always I’ve enjoyed the very different books and authors you’ve introduced me to this year. You have provided me with more gift ideas over the years that any other blogger.
I look forward to continuing our conversations this year.
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What with the Dashwoods and cycling and everything else that total of 78 books read is wonderful. Of the books you recommend I would like to tackle The Vegetarian and read some Rebecca Solnit and Shirley Jackson in 2017!
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Ian, I was rather surprised by the total, I didn’t realize i had managed to squeeze in so much! Oh, if/when you read The Vegetarian let me know what you think! Same with Solnit and Jackson!
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Aw shucks! Thanks! I had the same “problem” you had with Achebe. I thought for sure Ghosh and Adichie would be translated but they both wrote in English too. At least they are still foreign (to me and you) authors. That’s worth something! I too look forward to another year of conversation here and at your place 🙂
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yes, I think it’s worth something BUT I would have liked some more translated works under my belt all the same!! (Then again, in one sense I don’t really like reading translated works because I know the writer didn’t actually write the words I’m reading, so what am I complaining about!?)
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Heh, you just can’t win! 😉
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Oh how I love yearly reading stats posts! It’s so fun to bask in all the glory of tallies and categories and reading figures! This post also reminded me that I still really want to read The Small Heart of Things. Sigh – the TBR pile is never-ending. 😉
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Emily, heehee, I know. The quantitative geek and the book nerd get to have fun working together for a change! And that TBR pile, I totally understand! 🙂
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I mean, huge props on the Infinite Jest plan. After several efforts I’ve given up on David Foster Wallace’s fiction. The fact is that I love his essays and his fiction makes me want to scream, and I just have to accept that there’s not enough of his essays and way too much of his fiction to suit my tastes. :p
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Jenny, I have yet to actually read DFW fiction so I am going all in!
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I thought I had read more books in translation as well, so I am going to ‘try’ to be more thoughtful in choosing translated works. Easy to say that now and forget it later when I am in the thick of my reading. You had a great reading year–I sometimes think (at least for me) I do much better accomplishing things when I am busy rather than when I think I have lots of free time. I think I just manage my reading better when I know it is limited. Wow, you really read a lot of library books. I certainly borrowed a lot of them! I tend to lug them back and forth and look at them longingly and then pick books from my own shelves. It is a weird game I play without realizing I am doing it apparently. And yay about reading Infinite Jest. I was just looking at it this weekend…. (looking at it as I had to move it to get to another book in the pile–lol).
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Danielle, I am starting 2017 off well with the translated fiction since I am in the middle of two books and just started a third that has been translated! We’ll see if it lasts the whole year. I agree, it seems the busier I am the more reading I manage to do. Less time to fritter away so I put more of it to good use I guess. I was surprised by the number of library books. It’s really crazy! I am proud to say I am actually reading a book I have owned for a number of years at the moment. One book in a sea of library books 🙂
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Happy new year, well done on 78! Enjoyment is most important, agreed! I never know what to do with unfinished books; at the moment they’re languishing on my 2017 list.
I’m envious of the number of non-fiction books you read. Something I’ve got to work on this year, again. regarding goals, I’m going to be using the word ‘try’, I’ll try to get to certain/certain types of books. It’s difficult keeping goals, easier if they aren’t set in stone!
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Charlie, I love nonfiction almost as much as fiction so I always have one or two of them on the go. Yeah, I used to make lists of what I was going to read and all sorts of goals and it would last for maybe two months before I’d start going off plan and by June the whole thing would be in shreds. 🙂
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