Around the Year in 52 Books discussion
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Your Top 10 for 2016
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1. Richard Wright - Black Boy
2. Octavia Butler - Kindred
3. Maya Angelou - Gather Together in My Name
4. Kurt Vonnegut - Mother Night
5. Nick Hornby - High Fidelity
6. Ken Kesey - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
7. Stephen King - Misery
8. P.G. Wodehouse - The Inimitable Jeeves
9. Dan Simmons - Hyperion
10. Neil Gaiman - The Graveyard Book
Any interesting new authors you discovered in 2016?
Octavia E. Butler, Nick Hornby, Ken Kesey, P.G. Wodehouse, Dan Simmons, Gary K. Wolf, Richard Hooker, Joseph Heller, Kazuo Ishiguro, Oscar Wilde, and Franz Kafka
Are there books you'd like to NOT recommend?
Bottom 9 of the Year:
9. The Hound of the Baskervilles
8. The Gods of Mars
7. Go the Fuck to Sleep
6. Furies of Calderon
5. The Sword of Conan
4. The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare
3. The Hour of the Dragon: Conan the Conqueror
2. A Princess of Mars
1. Conan the Barbarian

1. Americanah - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
2. O Pioneers! - Willa Cather
3. Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys
4. Breath, Eyes, Memory - Edwidge Danticat
5. Dracula - Bram Stoker
6. The Summer Before the War - Helen Simonson
7. Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things - Jenny Lawson
8. Breakfast at Tiffany's - Truman Capote
9. Swing Time - Zadie Smith
10. The Muse - Jessie Burton
Any interesting new authors you discovered in 2016?
Zadie Smith, Edwidge Danticat, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Wilkie Collins, Jean Rhys
Are there books you'd like to NOT recommend?
Not really. I gave a couple books only 2 stars but someone else might really like them.

1:The Red Rising Trilogy, Brown
2: The Death of Ivan Ilyich,Tolstoy
3: The Kite Runner, Hosseini
4: Lies of Locke Lamora, Lynch
5: Through the Woods, Carroll
6: The Virgin Suicides, Eugenides
7: The Metamorphosis, Kafka
8: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Dick
9: Red Queen, #1 & #2, Aveyard
10: Bowl of Fruit [1907], Cacoyannis
Interesting new authors? TONS of them! Pierce Brown and Scott Lynch being at the top of the list, Jeffrey Eugenides is another and Victoria Aveyard is a new favorite.
Not Recommended: Hm, I don't really NOT recommend things because my tastes seem to be so very different from everyone elses. If I hated it, someone else is bound to love it!

In no particular order, and from all of my 4 challenges:
1. A Monster Calls
2. Me Before You
3. Rebecca
4. The Thirteenth Tale
5. The Rosie Project
6. The Whole Golden World
7. Room
8. Enter Title Here
9. The Madman’s Daughter
10. Everything, Everything
Tough choice! There are at least 5 other books that I really wanted to list.
Any interesting new authors you discovered in 2016?
Aside from all of the authors of my top 10, I also discovered: Jennifer Niven, Becky Albertalli, Kristin Hannah, Erin Morgenstern, Teresa Medeiros, Jandy Nelson, Chevy Stevens, Malorie Blackman, Tahereh Mafi, Marissa Meyer
Are there any books you'd like to NOT recommend?
My least favourite books of the year:
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court - I just could not get through this book. It took forever!
The Five Times I Met Myself - It was Christian fiction, which is not really my thing.
Inkheart - I expected so much more from this, but I was bored the whole way through. I had to start listening to it as an audiobook just to finish in a reasonable amount of time.
The Deep End of the Ocean - For some reason, I completely mixed up what this book was supposed to be about. I had a very vivid memory of reading a plot summary that ended up not being what it really was at all.

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New authors I discovered this year:
Anthony Ryan - I definitely plan on reading more of his books! I will continue with the Raven's Shadow as well as a new series coming out in 2017, The Waking Fire.
Ben H. Winters - I also plan on continuing with his books in the Last Policeman series.
V.E. Schwab - I really, really enjoyed A Darker Shade of Magic and can't wait to read the next in the series.
Mark Alpert - I'd be interested in reading some of his other books, but they are not a priority right now.
Jim Butcher - I was really not impressed by The Aeronaut's Windlass, but I'm conflicted because I've heard really good things about Jim Butcher... I might give one of his other books a shot eventually to see if I just picked the wrong book.
Jandy Nelson - Blaaaahhhh..... Awful writing. I couldn't stand her writing style, dialogue or plot. I will not be picking up another one of her books.
These are the books I could not stand and would NOT recommend:
I'll Give You the Sun
The Aeronaut's Windlass
Alice in Wonderland

See if you can see a pattern here ... seems I like the books that give me the emotions.
1. Charlotte's Web (E.B. White) - it was a reread, but it is, IMO, close to perfect. Read this to my spider. Made me cry. Actually it made me cry just thinking about what was going to happen.
2. Les Misérables (Victor Hugo) - what an epic. Loved almost all of the characters. Thought I'd managed to get through it, but right at the last sentence ... made me cry.
3. Jude the Obscure (Thomas Hardy) - absolutely gutwrenching. Made me cry. Actually, sob. First classic to have done this. If you've read it, you'll know why.
4. Flowers for Algernon (Daniel Keyes) - unexpectedly powerful. Broke my heart. Made me cry.
5. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry) - incredible book, incredible characters. Made me cry.
6. Brokeback Mountain (Annie Proulx) - short but powerful. And of course, made me cry.
7. More Than This (Patrick Ness) - fell in love with Ness's writing. Made me cry.
8. The Exorcist (William Peter Blatty) - this one took me by surprise. I really didn't expect to love this one. And believe it or not, it made me cry.
9. The Importance of Being Earnest (Oscar Wilde) - hilarious!!
10. Cinder (Marissa Meyer) - a totally fun read, a great start to the series, which hasn't quite lived up to the first book for me. But the rest have still been 4-star reads.
Any interesting new authors you discovered in 2016?
Thomas Hardy, Oscar Wilde, Patrick Ness, Marissa Meyer.
Are there books you'd like to NOT recommend?
These were all of my one-star reads in 2016.
Redwall (Brian Jacques)
The Time Traveler's Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
The Bridges of Madison County (Robert James Waller)
Still Foolin' 'Em: Where I've Been, Where I'm Going, and Where the Hell Are My Keys (Billy Crystal)
The Fault in Our Stars (John Green)
Stuart Little (E.B. White)
The Executioner's Song (Norman Mailer)
Fuck It. The Ultimate Spiritual Way (John C. Parkin)
Honorary mention to Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Parts One and Two, which I found to be a load of crap. In retrospect, I should have given this one star.

1. Amazonia
2. Water for Elephants
3. The Notebook
4. The Girl on the Train
5. Still Alice
6. A Thousand Pieces of You
7. Memoirs of a Geisha
8. The Martian
9. Black Beauty
10. The One
Any interesting new authors you discovered in 2016?
Tess Gerritsen
Claudia Gray
Sara Gruen
Are there books you'd like to NOT recommend?
Garden Spells
The 5th Wave
The Godfather

1. And Then There Were None
2. Around the World in Eighty Days
3. The Screaming Staircase
4. Carry On
5. The Knife of Never Letting Go
6. The Girl with All the Gifts
7. The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly
8. All the Bright Places
9. Ptolemy's Gate
10. What Alice Forgot
An special mention for these Graphic Novels:
1. Vinland Saga, Omnibus 1
2. Drama (or any by Telgemeier)
3. Nimona
Any interesting new authors you discovered in 2016? Terry Pratcher in books and Raina Telgemeier in Graphic Novels.
Are there books you'd like to NOT recommend? I was really disappointed with The Sword of Summer. I like Rick Riordan, but I found the story repetitive. Also Old School, I find the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series funny, but I didn't like Old School, the funny things were too forced and not funny.

What are your favorite 10 books for 2016?
The Smell of Other People's Houses
The Night Circus
Kindred
The Girl with Ghost Eyes
More Than This
Fangirl
The Categorical Universe of Candice Phee
The Sun Is Also a Star
Okay for Now
The Last Policeman










Top other reads:
Picture books: Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs, The Day the Crayons Came Home, Explorers of the Wild
Manga series: Orange, Daytime Shooting Star
Short stories: The Fluted Girl, Little Knife, Burnt Sugar, Un piano en hiver









Any interesting new authors you discovered in 2016?
Many! To give a few: Nicola Yoon, Enid Blyton, Ben H. Winters, Marissa Meyer, Paolo Bacigalupi, Octavia E. Butler, Neal Shusterman, Adam Silvera, Becky Chambers.
Are there books you'd like to NOT recommend?
I tried to keep the list short! I know I'm the unpopular opinion for some of them, but they were all really disappointing.
Heartless, Oryx and Crake, We, Red Queen, The 5th Wave, Shelter, The Nest, Truly Madly Guilty








Bonus question:
I started to follow some booktubers this year and my fav is probably because he also reads middle-grade books and I always need recommandations for them :)

Shatter Me
The Wonder
The Sun Is Also a Star
Great American Short Stories: From Hawthorne to Hemingway
Lilac Girls
The Crown
Tarnished
The Young Elites
The Jewel
The Black Key
Any interesting authors you discovered in 2016?
Emma Donoghue Amy Ewing
Are there books you'd like to NOT recommend?
Comfort & Joy
This book was SO weird. I read it as part of a reading challenge.

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk
Kidd
Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
My Ántonia by Willa Cather
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom
The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion by Fannie Flagg
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
Midwives by Chris Bohjalian
The Johnstown Flood by David McCullough
New 2 Me authors in 2016:
Hamlin Garland who apparently in his time was quite well known! His best known book was A Son of the Middle Border
Armine Von Tempski who wrote about growing up in Alaska in Born in Paradise
Robert Morgan who wrote The Road from Gap Creek
Pearl S. Buck who wrote The Good Earth
Kim Stanley Robinson who wrote Red Mars
Karen Armstrong who wrote about being a nun and leaving her order in Through the Narrow Gate: A Memoir of Spiritual Discovery
Books I would not recommend:
The Gilded Life of Matilda Duplaine by Alex Brunkhorst
H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Rabbit, Run by John Updike

Rebecca
Batman, Volume 1: The Court of Owls
Homegoing
The Palace of Illusions
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Salt to the Sea
Behold the Dreamers
East of Eden
Barkskins
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Aside from the authors of the books above, I also enjoyed novels by George Eliot and Kasie West.
Books I would not recommend:
The Madwoman Upstairs
This Census-Taker
Glass Sword
The Sea of Tranquility
As Simple as Snow

To Kill a Mockingbird
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
For the Term of His Natural Life
Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster
Ada Blackjack: A True Story of Survival in the Arctic
Britt-Marie Was Here
The Sword in the Stone
Go Set a Watchman
The Night Strangers
Child 44
Books I would not recommend:
The Songlines
Lilac Moon: Dreaming of the Real West
What are your favorite 10 books for 2016?
In no particular order:
You by Caroline Kepnes
Bird Box by Josh Malerman
I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak
Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys
All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda
Little Black Lies by Sharon Bolton
Duma Key by Stephen King
The Blue by Lucy Clarke
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Faithful Place by Tana French
Honorable mentions: Zoo Story: Life in the Garden of Captives by Thomas French, The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion, Dangerous Girls by Abigail Haas, Columbine by Dave Cullen
Any interesting new authors you discovered in 2016?
Josh Malerman (Bird Box)
Megan Miranda (All the Missing Girls)
Sharen Bolton (Little Black Lies)
Joan Didion (The Year of Magical Thinking)
Markus Zusak (The Book Thief and I am the Messenger)
Are there books you'd like to NOT recommend?
Ten by Gretchen McNeil
The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware
Alice by Christina Henry
In no particular order:
You by Caroline Kepnes
Bird Box by Josh Malerman
I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak
Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys
All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda
Little Black Lies by Sharon Bolton
Duma Key by Stephen King
The Blue by Lucy Clarke
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Faithful Place by Tana French
Honorable mentions: Zoo Story: Life in the Garden of Captives by Thomas French, The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion, Dangerous Girls by Abigail Haas, Columbine by Dave Cullen
Any interesting new authors you discovered in 2016?
Josh Malerman (Bird Box)
Megan Miranda (All the Missing Girls)
Sharen Bolton (Little Black Lies)
Joan Didion (The Year of Magical Thinking)
Markus Zusak (The Book Thief and I am the Messenger)
Are there books you'd like to NOT recommend?
Ten by Gretchen McNeil
The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware
Alice by Christina Henry











Any interesting new authors you discovered in 2016?
Geraldine Brooks, Neal Stephenson, Annie Proulx, Elena Ferrante, David Sedaris, Elizabeth Strout, Patrick Ness, Kate Atkinson, Hannah Kent
Are there books you'd like to NOT recommend?
The Deep by Nick Cutter
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

Ready Player One
The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Hollow World
The Way of Kings
The Girl with All the Gifts
The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly
Uprooted
You're Never Weird on the Internet
Congo Requiem
Any interesting new authors you discovered in 2016?
I discovered I love graphic novels thanks to the Saga series!
Other authors I want to read more of: Michael J. Sullivan, John Scalzi (who is also hilarious on Twitter), Brandon Sanderson, Naomi Novik, Patrick Ness, Kate Morton, Liane Moriarty, Jonas Jonasson, Ernest Cline, M.R. Carey.
Are there books you'd like to NOT recommend?
I tried to read Kurt Vonnegut (Cat's Cradle and Slaughterhouse-Five) and I can say his books aren't for me! I also couldn't finish Oryx and Crake.
Bonus question: Are there Goodreaders/bloggers/booktubers you'd like to recommend because you enjoyed following their reviews this year?
I like watching BookTubes videos by (her GR page). She also does a podcast with 2 other BookTubers called which is amazing.


1st A Thousand Pieces of You
2nd The Girl You Left Behind
3rd Twelve Years a Slave
4th The Last Jew of Treblinka
5th Go Set a Watchman
6th The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
7th Blackbird
8th The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side
9th The Alchemist
10th Invisible Murder
Books I'd like to not recommend:
- The Best of Me
- The Girl on the Train
- Inkheart
- Secrets of a Summer Night
- The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

1.Tales of Mystery and Imagination
2.All the Light We Cannot See
3.Providence
4.Witch Song
5.Witch Born
6.Witch Fall
7.Mindbend
8.Unleashed
9.The Terror
10.State of Wonder
Are there books you'd like to NOT recommend?
1.The Complete Poems and Plays, 1909-1950
2.Italian Folktales

I have had a good year of getting back into reading more, but I still haven't read enough to pick 10 books. I am going to list my top favourites from this year:
Midnight's Children - This could easily be the best book I have ever read. It's hard to even describe it, it's literally an experience. It's not the most accessible book and it took me forever to finish it, but I didn’t know that words could be used so delightfully, so magically. (I do think this book is enjoyed more if you have some familiarity with India's independence and partition as it is an allegory of those times.)
Atonement - Wonderful wonderful book and much more accessible compared to Midnight's Children.
The Complete Maus - Ode to the relentless human spirit, this is one heartbreaking book.
The Calculus Affair - Tintin is the best, this is a really good one.
The Night Circus - This book transported me to other worlds, I loved the atmospheric dreamy descriptions.
Change Places with Me - This was an unexpected find. A YA novel set in the near future, this is a very touching story.
Up to This Pointe - Another touching contemporary YA novel.
Slade House - Spooky and gripping.
Any interesting new authors you discovered in 2016?
Read many new authors including Salman Rushdie, David Mitchell, Ian McEwan, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.
Are there books you'd like to NOT recommend?
Not really, I tended to not finish the ones I wasn’t enjoying.

Moon Tiger
Out of Africa
Thus Bad Begins
All the Light We Cannot See
11/22/63
The Story of the Lost Child
Dracula
In Other Words
Lies We Tell Ourselves
The Tusk That Did the Damage
Any interesting new authors you discovered in 2016? Definitely Javier Marías, Penelope Lively, Jhumpa Lahiri, Ivy Pochoda, William Trevor, Marilynne Robinson, Rachel Cusk and Sally Roth, to name but a few.
Are there books you'd like to NOT recommend?
Extremely polarizing for me was A Little Life. I wanted to get its brilliance, I really did. But instead, I felt like taking a shower after each reading session; in the end, I found it to be torture porn. It was pretty disturbing and it left me waking up anxious in the middle of the night for days after I'd finished it.
Nightwood
One Year After
Chelsea Girls
Its Head Came Off by Accident: A Memoir
A Fall of Marigolds

Pines (the whole Wayward Pines series was a five-star read)
The Wheel of Darkness (generally, the Pendergast series is enjoyable; this was one I especially liked)
The Likeness (IMHO better than the first one in the series, In the Woods)
Mother of Eden (not quite as good as the first one - Dark Eden - but still a fine read)
The City of Mirrors (rounded up the series nicely)
Bird Box
Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog: The Amazing Adventures of an Ordinary Woman
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
To Kill a Mockingbird (I was very surprised that I liked this, as I usually don't enjoy classics; the narration by Sissy Spacek was very good)
The Troop
Any interesting new authors you discovered in 2016?
I read books by over a hundred new-to-me authors, most of which were rubbish.
Are there books you'd like to NOT recommend?
Not really. Just because I think they're rubbish doesn't mean that somebody won't like them.

In no particular order, here are my 10 favorites that I read this year:
Another Brooklyn
All the Wrong Places
The Song of Achilles
Cold Comfort Farm
A Monster Calls
Girl Waits with Gun
The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder
The Soldier's Scoundrel
The End of the Perfect 10: The Making and Breaking of Gymnastics' Top Score—from Nadia to Now
Wanted, A Gentleman
Any interesting new authors you discovered in 2016?
Really looking forward to reading more by Cat Sebastian and Amy Stewart.
Are there books you'd like to NOT recommend?
SO MANY. But as I do not wish to book-shame, I'll refrain :)

The Martian, by Andy Weir
All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, by Catherynne M. Valente
The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern
The Emperor's Soul, by Brandon Sanderson
Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman
A Strange and Ancient Name, by Josepha Sherman
Stardust, by Neil Gaiman
A Little Princess, by Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Wright Brothers, by David McCullough
Any interesting new authors you discovered in 2016?
I've read many new authors this year but the one I'm most enjoying is Neil Gaiman, especially as audiobooks, since he narrates and has a fabulous voice.
Are there books you'd like to NOT recommend?
Well, there are some that I didn't particularly enjoy, such as:
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
Dracula, by Bram Stoker
Around the World in Eighty Days, by Jules Verne
Kiss of Steel, by Bec McMaster
Undead and Unwed, by MaryJanice Davison

In no particular order:
1. Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh
2. Ten Thousand Skies Above You by Claudia Gray
3. Carry On by Rainbow Rowell
4. Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas
5. A Madness So Discreet by Mindy McGinnis
6. Drums of Autumn by Diana Gabaldon
7. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Parts 1 & 2 by Jk Rowling, John Tiffany, Jack Thorne
8. Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas
9. Voyager by Diana Gabaldon
10. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Any interesting new authors you discovered in 2016?
Yes! I discovered the amazingness that is Sarah J. Maas.
Are there books you'd like to NOT recommend?
This is difficult and I feel like I'll get some flack for this BUT I found 1984 by George Orwell like pulling teeth to read. That being said, I think the idea behind it is something that should be discussed.

2. The Snowman by Jø Nesbo
3. The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill
4. Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
5. The Best Laid Plans by Terry Fallis
6. The Humans by Matt Haig
7. The Leopard by Jø Nesbo
8. Sharpe's Rifles by Bernard Cornwall
9. The Illegal by Lawrence Hill
10. The Reason You Walk by Wab Kinew
I read like 8 books by both Jø Nesbo (Harry Hole series) and Bernard Cornwall (Sharpe series)

1. The Heart: A Novel (Réparer les vivants) by Maylis de Kerangal
2. Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
3. The Wonderful Adventures of Nils by Selma Lagerlöf
4. Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson
5. Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel
6. Affliction by Russell Banks
7. Le Boulevard périphérique by Henry Bauchau
8. Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
9. Here by Richard McGuire
10. Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery
Any interesting new authors you discovered in 2016?
Maylis de Kerangal, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Henry Bauchau, Jacqueline Woodson...
Are there books you'd like to NOT recommend?
I didn't like What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast: A Short Guide to Making Over Your Mornings-and Life by Laura Vanderkam. I made over my mornings, but now I need to make over my evenings. There is always a time you just need to sleep... ;-)
Bonus question: Are there Goodreaders/bloggers/booktubers you'd like to recommend because you enjoyed following their reviews this year?
!

My longest book

My Shortest

Favorite Books I can't choose between these three:



Thriller:

YA or maybe fantasy:

Graphic Art:

NF:

Classics:

Humor:

Memoir:

Any new authors you discovered in 2016? Besides the ones above, Harlan Cohen writes some whiz bang thrillers
Are there books you'd like to NOT recommend? I don't usually finish books I don't like. My lowest rating was a 2 star for

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Authors mentioned in this topic
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (other topics)Henry Bauchau (other topics)
Maylis de Kerangal (other topics)
Jacqueline Woodson (other topics)
Claudia Gray (other topics)
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What are your favorite 10 books for 2016?
Any interesting new authors you discovered in 2016?
Are there books you'd like to NOT recommend?
Bonus question: Are there Goodreaders/bloggers/booktubers you'd like to recommend because you enjoyed following their reviews this year?