Feed The Bookworm! My 2017 Reading Challenge Results

I am a big reader; regular, eBook, and audiobook. I don’t care how the information gets uploaded into my brain as long as it does. I keep track of my consumption on GoodReads (both the phone app and the website) and have been participating in their reading challenge since 2011. My goal for 2017 is 80 books, which I reached in August so I increased it to an even 100. I reached that goal at the end of October so I increased it again to 115. I ended up reading a grand total of 121 books.

Below is my ranking system when I blog about them. The categories are a bit broad because of the difficulty in categorizing books rather than the easiness of rating movies. I rate them on GoodReads on their 5-star scale with a minor review if you are interested (everything below is linked). It comes down to: I really recommend, I recommend, or I do not recommend. I separate out the fiction, non-fiction, and series that I read. Have a look and let me know your thoughts on these. Enjoy!

Books That Are Apart Of A Series I Am Reading (And Love)

• The Serpent of Venice (The Fool, #2) – Christopher Moore

• Murder in Montparnasse (Phryne Fisher #12) – Kerry Greenwood

• Side Jobs: Stories from the Dresden Files – Jim Butcher

• The Castlemaine Murders (Phryne Fisher #13) – Kerry Greenwood

• Queen of the Flowers (Phryne Fisher #14) – Kerry Greenwood

• Me Before You (Me Before You #1) – Jojo Moyes
• After You (Me Before You #2) – Jojo Moyes
• Death by Water (Phryne Fisher #15) – Kerry Greenwood
• The Thousand-Dollar Tan Line (Veronica Mars #1) – Rob Thomas, Jennifer Graham
• Dead as a Doornail (Sookie Stackhouse #5) – Charlaine Harris
• The Bad Beginning (A Series of Unfortunate Events #1) – Lemony Snicket
• Murder in the Dark (Phryne Fisher #16) – Kerry Greenwood
• Definitely Dead (Sookie Stackhouse #6) – Charlaine Harris
• The Reptile Room (A Series of Unfortunate Events #2) – Lemony Snicket

• The Night Eternal (The Strain Trilogy #3) –  Guillermo del Toro, Chuck Hogan

• Secondhand Souls (Grim Reaper #2) – Christopher Moore

• A Feast for Crows (A Song of Ice and Fire #4) – George R.R. Martin
• Stiletto (The Checquy Files #2) – Daniel O’Malley
• A Dance with Dragons (A Song of Ice and Fire #5) – George R.R. Martin

• The Wide Window (A Series of Unfortunate Events #3) – Lemony Snicket

• The Miserable Mill (A Series of Unfortunate Events #4) – Lemony Snicket
• The Austere Academy (A Series of Unfortunate Events #5) – Lemony Snicket

• All Together Dead (Sookie Stackhouse #7) – Charlaine Harris

• Murder on a Midsummer Night (Phryne Fisher #17) – Kerry Greenwood

• The Ersatz Elevator (A Series of Unfortunate Events #6) – Lemony Snicket

• The Last American Vampire (Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter #2) – Seth Grahame-Smith

• Dead Man’s Chest (Phryne Fisher #18) – Kerry Greenwood

• The Vile Village (A Series of Unfortunate Events #7) – Lemony Snicket

• Shakespeare’s Landlord (Lily Bard #1) – Charlaine Harris

• Unnatural Habits (Phryne Fisher #19) – Kerry Greenwood

• From Dead to Worse (Sookie Stackhouse #8) – Charlaine Harris 

• Murder and Mendelssohn (Phryne Fisher #20) – Kerry Greenwood

Fiction Awesome:

• A Head Full of Ghosts – Paul Tremblay

• Maybe in Another Life – Taylor Jenkins Reid

• The Circle – Dave Eggers

• Tell Me Three Things – Julie Buxbaum

• The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb – Melanie Benjamin

• The Coincidence of Coconut Cake – Amy E. Reichert

• Before I Fall – Lauren Oliver

• A Hundred Thousand Worlds – Bob Proehl

• The Maltese Falcon – Dashiell Hammett

• A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving [BBC Must Read Book]

• The Last Days of Night – Graham Moore

• A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute [BBC Must Read Book]

• The Unseen World – Liz Moore
• Black Beauty – Anna Sewell
• The Impossible Fortress – Jason Rekulak
• Beneath a Scarlet Sky – Mark T. Sullivan

• Dark Matter – Blake Crouch

• Today Will Be Different – Maria Semple

• The Nix – Nathan Hill

Non-Fiction Awesome:

• F*ck Feelings: One Shrink’s Practical Advice for Managing All Life’s Impossible Problems – Michael Bennett, Sarah Bennett

• Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls – David Sedaris

• What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast: And Two Other Short Guides to Achieving More at Work and at Home – Laura Vanderkam

• Norse Mythology – Neil Gaiman

• A Life in Parts – Bryan Cranston

• 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think – Laura Vanderkam

• The Power of a Positive No: How to Say No and Still Get to Yes – William Ury

• What the Dog Saw and Other Adventures – Malcolm Gladwell

• Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age – Sherry Turkle

• When Breath Becomes Air – Paul Kalanithi

• Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World – Cal Newport

• The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes – and Why – Amanda Ripley

• Born to Run – Bruce Springsteen
• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks – Rebecca Skloot
• Master of Ceremonies: A Memoir – Joel Grey

• Books for Living – Will Schwalbe

• Emily Post: Daughter of the Gilded Age, Mistress of American Manners – Laura Claridge

• The Amityville Horror – Jay Anson

• Lab Girl – Hope Jahren

• If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face?: My Adventures in the Art and Science of Relating and Communicating – Alan Alda

• The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload – Daniel J. Levitin

• The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, the Greatest Bad Movie Ever Made – Greg Sestero

• Churchill and Orwell: The Fight for Freedom – Thomas E. Ricks

Fiction Recommended:

• Vanity Fair – William Makepeace [BBC Must Read Book]

• The Paying Guests -Sarah Waters

• The Light Between Oceans – M.L. Stedman

• One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel García Márquez [BBC Must Read Book]

• Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens [BBC Must Read Book]

• My Name Is Lucy Barton – Elizabeth Strout

• War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy [BBC Must Read Book]

• Make Something Up: Stories You Can’t Unread – Chuck Palahniuk

• Commonwealth – Ann Patchett

• We Are Called to Rise – Laura McBride
• Les Miserables – Victor Hugo [BBC Must Read Book]

• Your Heart Is a Muscle the Size of a Fist – Sunil Yapa

• A Fall of Marigolds – Susan Meissner

• The Princess Diaries (The Princess Diaries #1) – Meg Cabot

• The God of Small Things – Arundhati Roy 

• A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth [BBC Must Read Book]

• Version Control – Dexter Palmer

• Turtles All the Way Down – John Green

Non-Fiction Recommended:

• Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race – Margot Lee Shetterly

• My Life on the Road – Gloria Steinem

• Girl in a Band – Kim Gordon

• The Zookeeper’s Wife: A War Story – Diane Ackerman

• Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption – Laura Hillenbrand

• Getting to Yes: Negotiating an Agreement Without Giving In – Roger Fisher

• The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing (Magic Cleaning #1) – Marie Kondō

• Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 1 – Mark Twain

Fiction NOT Recommended:

• The Aeronaut’s Windlass (The Cinder Spires #1) –by Jim Butcher

• Possession – A.S. Byatt [BBC Must Read Book]

• The Nest – Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney

• The Beach Club – Elin Hilderbrand

• This Side of Paradise – F. Scott Fitzgerald

• The Secret History – Donna Tartt [BBC Must Read Book]

• Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad [BBC Must Read Book]

• Did You Ever Have a Family – Bill Clegg

• The Buried Giant – Kazuo Ishiguro

• The Signature of All Things – Elizabeth Gilbert

• The North Water – Ian McGuire

• A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens [BBC Must Read Book]

• The Patron Saint of Liars – Ann Patchett

• Our Kind of Traitor – John le Carré

• The Natural – Bernard Malamud

• Katherine – Anya Seton

• Exit West – Mohsin Hamid

Non-Fiction NOT Recommended:

• The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York – Deborah Blum

• One Year to an Organized Life: From Your Closets to Your Finances, the Week-by-Week Guide to Getting Completely Organized for Good – Regina Leeds

Books Re-read:

• World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War – Max Brooks

Past Rankings from old blog:

• 2011
• 2012
• 2013
• 2014
• 2015
• 2016

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