2013 has come to an end and so it’s time for my
yearly reading wrap up.
This year I read 65 books, which is a little
bit less than my yearly average based on the past seven years.
Here is the list of books in the order I read
them with a link to their Amazon page:
The biggest change for me this past year is
that I got a car radio with an auxiliary outlet so I am once again able to
listen to audiobooks. So of the 65 books I “read” in 2013, 25 were audiobooks I
listened to, 25 were e-books I read on my Kindle, and 15 were either paperbacks
or hardcovers.
Another change for me was that thanks to my
enabling friend, CK, I discovered the world of digital advanced reader copies.
An advanced reader copy (ARC) is a copy of a book released by its publisher
before the book’s publication date. The two sites I use are Netgalley and Edelweiss. In 2013 I read five ARCs but I already
have many more waiting for me on my Kindle.
Of the 65 books I read, six were Young adult
books and only one was non-fiction. One of my goals for 2014 is to read more
non-fiction. I find it much more difficult to read non-fiction but I have several
books that I’d really like to read. These are the non-fiction books which are
already waiting for me on my Kindle and that I am hoping to read in 2014:
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of
Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Men We Reaped: A Memoir by Jesmyn Ward
The Prime Ministers: An Intimate Narrative of Israeli
Leadership by Yehuda Avner
Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged
Hospital by Sheri Fink
Riding the Bus with My Sister by Rachel Simon
In 2013 I read 13,950 pages altogether and I
listened to 287 hours of audio. The longest book I read was Wolf Hall at 650
pages (In One Person was a close second with 624 pages) and the shortest book
was The Middlesteins, at 201 pages. The longest book I listened to was The
Magicians, at 17 hours and 24 minutes and the shortest book was My Abandonment,
at six hours and one minute (narrowly beating When It Happens to You, which is
six hours and 18 minutes).
Some of my favorite books this year were Velva
Jean Learns to Drive, The Fault in Our Stars, Me Before You, The Elephant
Keepers' Children, When Crickets Cry, Where'd You Go, Bernadette, The Story of
Beautiful Girl, A Tale for the Time Being, Orange is the New Black, My
Abandonment, and The Interestings.
I went through a spell this year where I was
reading books I really disliked. Why do I not abandon books I don’t like
despite all the lip service I’ve paid to it (most notably here)?
I don’t have an answer. The book I most despised was The Frozen Rabbi.
Sometimes, I’ll read a book which I don’t like but then in the end it somehow
redeems itself and I think, okay, that ending saved it a bit (Noah’s Compass,
for example). The Frozen Rabbi was the opposite. I disliked the book the entire
way through but the ending made it even more awful. And the reason I kept up
with this book was because I felt guilted into it by my friend, CK, who wound
up paying a lot for this hardcover edition she forgot to return to the public
library when she made Aliyah and consoled herself by saying, well Fern will
read it. So how could I not?
Another book I really disliked was Woke Up
Lonely which I listened to on audio. It was very convoluted and strange, and
again, the ending did not help its cause at all. A book which I can’t say I enjoyed
exactly but I’m not sorry I read is The Orphan Master's Son, which won the 2013
Pulitzer Prize for fiction. This book takes place in North Korea and offers a
fascinating view into the lives of a citizenry of a country that we know little
about.
I’ve already started my first 3 books of 2014
(an audiobook, an e-book for during the week, and a paperback on Shabbat) and
if you’d like to follow what I’m reading in real time, you can find me on Goodreads or
Librarything.
“We don’t need to have just one favorite. We
keep adding favorites. Our favorite book is always the book that speaks most
directly to us at a particular stage in our lives. And our lives change. We
have other favorites that give us what we most need at that particular time.
But we never lose the old favorites. They’re always with us. We just sort of
accumulate them.” ~ Lloyd Alexander
2 comments:
So you got all the way through Wolf Hall? Dare you to read The Investigations!
Ummm, I don't think so mother in israel
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