What I Read Last Year

If you've been following these posts since Monday, you already know that I had an insanely productive reading year. If you're just joining for the summary: I had an insanely productive reading year.

I read 75 books in 2016, and while many of those were very short, you'll see at the bottom of the list that the amount of pages I read per day was, frankly, astounding. Through constant vigilance I was also able to get the percentage of books that I read by women up to 39% (from 22% in 2015, based on page count, not number of books), which is excellent.

Anyway, the following is just the list of titles and authors of what I read in 2016. I've put plus signs in advance of the titles that were my absolute favourites and provided links to any reviews that have gone up on the blog so far. The links in the list headings will take you to what I've posted over the last few days detailing more about each book.

Top 100



Random/Romance



Other Novels



Non-Fiction



Graphic Thingies


  • (+) My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf
  • Sheltered Vol. 3 by Ed Brisson and Johnnie Christmas
  • (+) Anatomy of Melancholy by Joey Comeau and Emily Horne
  • Attack on Titan Vol. 1 by Hajime Isayama
  • Attack on Titan Vol. 2 by Hajime Isayama
  • I Kill Giants by Joe Kelly and J. M. Ken Niimura
  • Scott Pilgrim vs The World by Bryan Lee O'Malley
  • (+) Hildafolk by Luke Pearson
  • Wonder Woman: The Hiketeia by Greg Rucka and J. G. Jones
  • Bad Houses by Sara Ryan and Carla Speed McNeil
  • (+) Nimona by Noelle Stevenson
  • Rat Queens Vol. 2 by Kurtis J. Wiebe, Roc Upchurch, and Stjepan Sejic

Short Fiction


  • (+) Pump Six and Other Stories by Paolo Bacigalupi
  • Tales from The White Hart by Arthur C. Clarke

Drama


  • (+) Peter and Alice by John Logan
  • (+) Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare

Total pages in 2016: 22700
Total pages per day: 62


If you're still reading, I have to start off by saying thank you, because at this point, if you also read the previous three posts, you've now been with me on a 7500 word odyssey through the reading I did last year, which is amazing and also sort of hilarious.

I'm adding this bit to address the fact that, when I summarized my 2015 reading, I mentioned how I had no idea how a person could read 75 books in a year. And then I turned around and read 75 books in a year. And here's how I did it:

I haven't had a full time job since March 2016. This is my first time mentioning it here because it's terrible and I'd hoped to avoid writing about it.

Because I'm so vague about my actual life and movements on the blog, it may not have been obvious, but I was working out of town pretty much constantly from November 2013 until March 2016 (and also between July 2012 and May 2013). It is impossible to explain how awful and exhausting that was, because unless you've done it, you'll never understand what it's like. This isn't really the time or place to try to articulate it further, so suffice it to say that I've looked back, but I'm still fairly convinced that I made the right choice for my emotional and physical wellbeing, if not for my bank account.

I came home in March and finally got a chance to live in my house for more than the two weeks at once that had been my previous record. I came home to find out whether any of my friendships had managed to survive the separation and stress. Some of them did, but not all of them. The graduate program I applied to didn't want me. My sister moved away. The local economy isn't doing great right now, and I've have a couple of temporary part time jobs, a handful of interviews, and not much else. It's been lonely and scary and crushing and a thousand other things.

Of course it hasn't all been bad. I'm healthier than I've been in years. Reconnecting with friends I neglected for too long has been great. Being able to make weekly commitments has been great. Actually living in my home and finally taking on various maintenance and improvement projects has been great. Reading all those books in a year was great.

I suppose that I just want to say that last year wasn't my best, and I look forward to 2017 with a sense of fear more than of promise. For the time being I'm trying to stay hopeful.

At the very least, I'll continue catching up on my blog reading and posting.

Here's hoping.

Posted by at
Labels:

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)