I have read over 100 books this year -- currently at 109 -- (my
Goodreads goal was 100 and I finished that just after Thanksgiving - woohoo!). Only a few of those books were published in 2016. The rest were older and many of them were ebooks I checked out of my 'local' (U.S. library).
I enjoyed doing the Goodreads Reading Challenge (my second year - last year I committed to and finished 80 books, plus a few more) because it gives me a reference frame for viewing my addiction to books and also is - to me - interesting to see my reading journey over the course of a year. I'll definitely be doing another one next year. I may have missed cataloging a couple of books I read -- especially non-fiction since I don't always read those books linearly and extra especially don't for the ones I use for my novel researches. I also don't list the dnfs - the did-not-finish books -- for the obvious reason that I did not manage to finish them.
The books range from fiction to biographies, memoirs, writing craft, and fantasy to Regency romance (a recent but enduring addiction - I'd like to find more of these that are to my taste, i.e., clean -- I'm eager also to find some good gay Regencies -- recommendations are welcome), mystery, quantum physics and science fiction to self-help, U.S. history to Celto-Germanic history (gee, I wonder why I read that? hmmm....) and many historical novels (a recently rediscovered addiction).
This was the first year since 2012 that I personally did not publish a book. More about that -- no, I don't really want to dwell on it -- but the six-word, happy-for-now-ending short story is:
I was sick. Now I'm better.
Barring any major life catastrophes, the lack of publishing will change in 2017. So, yes, I have plans to publish stuff next year.
Here are my top ten favorites of 2016, not necessarily in order, but who cares? It was hard enough just to pick ten,
thank you very much. The links goes to the Goodreads page for the books because I don't want to influence your buying power. Some of these may also be available through your local library - I obtained many of them through mine.
