2015 Reading Roundup
Hey folks!
I know it's already a month into the new year, so I'm well aware I'm already failing at my New Year's Resolution to be more consistent about posting on this blog, but here I am, ready to try. What better way to do that then give a rundown of all the books I got to read *FOR FUN* after graduating from college in 2015, and giving myself a list of books to get through this year?
This is in no particular order, as I can barely remember what I had for lunch yesterday, much less what I read last May in Spain.
- Interred with Their Bones, by Jennifer Lee Carroll. Imagine if The DaVinci Code and Shakespeare had a baby. It would be this book, except way better than The DaVinci Code, and not as good as Shakespeare. It was still a really fun read, though. It's about the hunt a Shakespearean scholar goes on for the lost manuscript of a real lost play of Shakespeare's called "The History of Cardenio."
- The Goose Girl, by Shannon Hale. This was a reread, as are some other books the will pop up in this list, but it's a reread for a reason. I love fractured fairy tales beyond all measure, and this is an especially good one, based on the fairytale of the same name by the Brothers Grimm. It's also the first in a series that is equally good, though I haven't reread the rest like I have this one. I'm still waiting on a movie; it is a mighty need of mine to see Sinqua Walls as Prince Geric.
- My Name is Asher Lev, by Chaim Potok. Easily one of my favorite books, full stop. I was introduced to the book through a play adaptation that was on Broadway a few years ago when I saw it with my dad, and haven't really stopped thinking about it since. The book also partially inspired my creative writing senior thesis, so it's always going to hold a special place in my heart for those reasons. It's about a young boy named Asher Lev who, while growing up in a repressive Ladover Hasidic community (a thinly veiled fictionalization of the Lubovitcher branch of Hasidism), feels more drawn to art than God. Also, in googling the book to remind myself of the fictional name, I have discovered there is a sequel that I'm going to have to pick up a copy of called The Gift of Asher Lev.
- City of Thieves, by David Benioff. Yes, that David Benioff. But regardless of how I feel about Game of Thrones, I loved this book beyond all measure. It's about a teenage boy named Lev Beniov who is arrested during the Nazi siege of Leningrad and given a chance to save his life with his cellmate, a young man named Kolya, by going on a mission to find eggs for the wedding of a Soviet colonel's daughter. (The only thing I didn't like was the ending, but that's for purely selfish reasons. Narratively, I understand it.)
- The Sherlockian, by Graham Moore. I'll be upfront in saying this wasn't my favorite book I read this year, but it was still a lot of fun. The story jumps between the present day, following Harold White, a new inductee into what's basically a Sherlockian scholar fanclub, in trying to figure out what happened to Arthur Conan Doyle's missing diary, and London in 1893, following Conan Doyle himself, who is trying to solve a mystery of his own while on his infamous hiatus from writing the Holmes stories. And even though it wasn't my favorite of the books I read, it was still a nice love letter to Sherlockiana, if you will, and an entertaining attempt at figuring out why Conan Doyle started writing the stories again, even after making it clear that he hated his own protagonist.
- The 100, by Kass Morgan. I feel like everybody has to know what this is about at this point, but I will say that the book is very different from the TV show. If I'm being honest, I like the TV show a lot better, for a number of reasons, but it was still a fun read. I don't think I'll be reading the rest of the series, though.
- Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, by Ransom Riggs. It took me way longer to read this book than it should have, considering the author is an alum of my college, but ah well. I finally did it, and it was so worth it. It's about a teenage boy named Jacob who, after his grandfather is murdered under suspiciously supernatural circumstances, follows said grandfather's collection of mysterious photos of supernatural looking children to an orphanage off the coast of Wales. The novel also uses the photography in its pages, as the author himself was inspired to write this story after spending years collecting old curio type photos. There are also sequels to this book, which I do plan on reading at some point this year.
- A Laodicean, by Thomas Hardy. The writer, not the actor. When I was abroad in England, I took an English called Hardy and Women Who Did, and predictably read a lot of Thomas Hardy. This book, however, was not on our reading list, despite having some very similar themes to his other novels that we read. My guess is that is because this book is actually much more similar to the romantic comedies of the present than it is to almost any other Thomas Hardy book you'll encounter. I loved it. A lot. I don't really want to say anything else other than go read it.
- The Harry Potter Series. Need I say more? I tend to reread these every couple of years, and it's really fun noticing new things each time around. I also really hated Draco this time around, which was different. Until I got to the sixth book, and then i loved him again. Also, when I was cleaning out my room to move to the city (oh yeah. That's a thing that happened), I found a list of predictions my friend, my cousin, and I had made for the seventh book after the sixth book came out, and let me tell you. We got a lot of things right. It was really cool.
- His Dark Materials Trilogy, by Philip Pullman. I first read these in middle school, and they were very formative for my preteen years, but rereading them now was like reading them again for the first time. I remembered a decent amount about The Golden Compass, but I had forgotten most of what happened in The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass, so it was a real pleasure to read them again in preparation for the BBC series that was announced back in November (Idris Elba for Lord Asriel, pls). Also, I cried on the train when I finished the last one. If you're a weeper, be prepared.
There were also two books that I started reading, and have not yet finished. So far, both are good. The first is The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Bronte. I'm about halfway through and it's amazing. It's definitely the feminist testament of the Victorian era, and well worth reading. The second is called Mermaids in Paradise, by Lydia Millet. It's best described as literary fiction with a fantasy bent. I'm only a few chapters in, but so far, I'm really enjoying it.
Obviously, those two are at the top of my list for books to read in 2016. I've got a few others as well, mainly consisting of books I've owned for a couple of years and still haven't touched. This list will also expand as the year progresses, so don't laugh at how short it is right now.
Again, these are in no particular order. We'll see how this goes.
- Death on the Nile, by Agatha Christie
- Between Shades of Grey, by Ruta Sepetys
- The Secret Sky, by Atia Abawi
- Children of the Jacaranda Tree, by Sahar Delijani
- The Raven Cycle, by Maggie Steifvater
- Mary, Queen of Scots, by Alison Weir
- Letter to My Daughter, by Maya Angelou
- a Haruki Murakami book. Which one?? I have no idea
- finishing Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo
- rereading the Anne of Green Gables books
- more nonfiction
I hope that this list gave you some suggestions if you've been looking for new books to read! I know I'm always looking for stuff, especially stuff written by women about women, and also stuff by people of color, so if you've got anything for me to check out, I wanna hear it!
Much love,
Rachel Shoshanna
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