This past year I read 41 books, the fewest since I've started keeping track.
I think there were a few factors which negatively affected the number of books I read in 2016. Even though I prefer my books depressing and my literary families dysfunctional (they always make me feel so much better about my own life), I read a lot of very heavy books in 2015, particularly young adult novels. I think this made me wary in 2016 and also made me doubt myself when I chose books. Secondly, after many years of watching TV shows on the computer, we got a screen, media streamer, and Kodi. Please don't ask me to explain any further than that. All I can tell you is that it allowed me to binge watch 3 and a half seasons of Blacklist from the comfort of my couch. And lastly, the auxiliary hookup in my car stopped working so I couldn't listen to audio books. This was rectified, thankfully, when my co-worker brought me a JBL Flip 3 Bluetooth speaker when she flew to England and I am now happily listening to audio books on my commute to and from work.
Here is the list of books I read in the reverse order I read them. I've linked to their pages on Amazon and linked to the author's homepage, Facebook page, or Wikipedia page if that was what was available.
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Some of my favorite books (in no particular order) were The Mathematician's Shiva, A Hundred Thousand Worlds, The Unseen World, The Two-Family House, The Forgetting Time (intriguing), All Who Go Do Not Return, The Secret Wisdom of the Earth, Dear Committee Members (funny), Everything, Everything (pleasantly surprised by the turn of events), Code Name Verity (even though I try to avoid WWII or Holocaust books), and My Heart and Other Black Holes (because you just can't quit depressing young adult literature cold turkey).
I liked Commonwealth and Redemption Road but they weren't as good as the authors' previous works. Grief is the Thing with Feathers and I Let You Go got a lot of buzz but they didn't do it for me. And I was inspired by a Facebook friend, RZ, to try another Neil Gaiman book. I snared a copy of American Gods, considered his best book, from Rebooks/סיפור חוזר and it was not an easy read.
I read 22 books by male authors and 19 books by female authors. Seventeen books were by authors I've previously read.
Here is the breakdown of books per month and genres:
In 2016 I read 11,817 pages and listened to 108 hours and 56 minutes of audio. The longest book I read was Nemesis at 695 pages and the shortest was Grief is the Thing with Feathers at 129 pages. The longest book I listened to was The Unseen World with 14 hours and 22 minutes and the shortest was Dear Committee Members with only 3 hours and 55 minutes.
Hopefully 2017 will be a good reading year. I've got three books under my belt and if you want to follow what I've read, check out my Goodreads page.
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