2015 End of the Year Book Survey

It’s almost 2016, the perfect time to take a bookish survey. I love these because they make me think about all the books I've read over the past 12 months, especially ones I may have forgotten about from the beginning of the year. 

Any books I reread this year are not eligible for this list, but I will say that this was a big rereading year for me. Being pregnant made reading more difficult because I was so tired! I found myself returning to old favorites like Lord of the Rings, Rebecca, Emma, the Harry Potter series, Empire Falls and others. It was such a treat. I also don’t limit myself to one book per answer if there are two or three that really fit perfectly.

Number of Books You Read: 164 
Number of Pages You Read: 53,043
Number of Re-Reads: 17 
Genre You Read The Most From: Literary Fiction  
Percentage of Female Authors: 56% 
Percentage of Library Books: 50% 
Percentage of New to Me Authors: 50% 
Percentage of Nonfiction: 28%

1. Best Book You Read In 2015?
Classics — A Girl of the Limberlost, Tess of the D'Urbervilles 
Historical Fiction — The Nightingale 
Mystery —Career of Evil, The Stepford Wives 
Literary Fiction —Go Set a Watchman 
Nonfiction — Dead Wake, Tiny Beautiful Things, and The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio 
Fantasy —The Invasion of the Tearling, Salem’s Lot 
Play — Inherit the Wind 
Science Fiction — Station Eleven 
YA — The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, Pollyanna, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry 
Graphic Novel — The Marvels and Out on the Wire

2. Book You Thought You Were Going To Love More But Didn’t?

Master and Commander, meh, I’ve heard it gets better so I might give the next book in the series a shot. 

3. Most surprising book you read?  
Kafka on the Shore, my first Murakami book was so readable and I was expecting something much more intimidating.  

4. Book You “Pushed” The Most People To Read? 
Station Eleven and Tiny Beautiful Things, both are wonderful! 

5. Best series you started in 2015? / Best series ender? 

Erika Johansen’s Tearling series / Sisterhood Everlasting 

6. Favorite new author you discovered in 2015? 

Jojo Moyes and Ira Levin

7. Best book from a genre you don’t typically read? 
I read a few pregnancy/kid books this year, definitely out of my comfort zone, but I’m Pregnant was really helpful, Why Have Kids? and Bringing Up Bébé were both really interesting as well. 

8. Most action-packed/thrilling/unputdownable book of the year? 
Salem’s Lot, might have put it in the freezer. 

9. Book You Read That You Are Most Likely To Re-Read in 2016? 
Station Eleven

10. Favorite cover of a book you read in 2015?

 All The Light We Cannot See and As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust

11. Most memorable character of 2015? 
Elnora from A Girl of the Limberlost, so fierce an intelligent, I just loved her. 

  

12. Most beautifully written book read in 2015? 
Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Hardy gets me every time.

13. Most Thought-Provoking/ Life-Changing Book of 2015? 
7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess and The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, both made me seriously rethink the amount of stuff that is in our house. 

14. Book you can’t believe you waited UNTIL 2015 to finally read? 

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, can’t believe I didn’t read this when I was young.

15. Favorite Passage/Quote From A Book You Read In 2015? 
“I was born for a storm and a calm does not suit me.” – American Lion

“There is a mystery in silence that can never be matched by mere words. Silence is power.” - As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust

“Certain phrases fascinate me with their subtle implications.” - Bonjour Tristesse

“This is why they call it the heartland. In the summer, the fields on either side of Mrs. Colonel’s house glowed a brilliant green, rippling in the wind. The air stretched above like miles of blue canvas, and Mrs. Colonel pictured a center pole rising up from Indianapolis’s Monument Circle to hold up the endless sky.” – The Circus in Winter

"When Death is as close as he was then, the sharp agony of fear is not there; the thing is too overwhelming and stunning for that." – Dead Wake

“That's how you know you love someone, I guess, when you can't experience anything without wishing the other person were there to see it, too.” – The Descendants

"As sure as time, history is repeating itself, and as sure as man is man, history is the last place he'll look for his lessons." – Got Set a Watchman

“I’m sorry if I offend you. But I don’t swear just for the hell of it. You see, I figure language is a poor enough means of communication as it is. So we ought to use all the words we’ve got. Besides, there are damned few words that everybody understands.” – Inherit the Wind

“There’s something wonderful about drinking in the afternoon. A not-too-cold pint, absolutely alone at the bar.” – Medium Raw

“Monotony collapses time, novelty unfolds it.” – Moonwalking with Einstein

“People live through such pain only once. Pain comes again—but it finds a tougher surface.” – The Song of the Lark

“This world's a city full of straying streets, and death's the market-place where each one meets.” – The Two Noble Kinsmen

16. Shortest & Longest Book You Read In 2015?
The Curious Case of the Copper Corpse – 27 (A Flavia de Luce  Short Story) Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix – 870 

17. Book That Shocked You The Most? 

The Silent Land and We Were Liars 

18. One True Pairing (a couple that you ship)? 

Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott from Robert Galbraith’s series

19. Favorite Non-Romantic Relationship of The Year? 
Kelsea Raleigh Glynn and the Mace from the Tearling series

20. Favorite Book You Read in 2015 From an Author You’ve Read Previously? 
Love and Freindship, I always love Austen, but I wasn’t expecting much from her juvenilia. Turns out it's hilarious! 

21. Best Book You Read In 2015 That You Read Based SOLELY On A Recommendation From Somebody Else? 

Me Before You, I was expecting cheesy chick lit. 

22. Newest fictional crush from a book you read in 2015? 
Henry from Shotgun Lovesongs (And even though it’s a reread, Aragorn from Lord of the Rings)

23. Best 2015 debut you read? 
The Nightingale, beautiful WWII story about sisters.

24. Best Worldbuilding/Most Vivid Setting You Read This Year? 
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making

25. Book That Put A Smile On Your Face/Was The Most FUN To Read? 
As You Wish, a memoir about the making of The Princess Bride. 

26. Book That Made You Cry Or Nearly Cry in 2015? 
The Nightingale, I didn’t cry, but it was heartbreaking.

27. Hidden Gem Of The Year? 
The Circus in Winter, I read this because it’s set in Indiana, but I really enjoyed it! 

28. Book That Crushed Your Soul? 
Me Before You

29. Most Unique Book You Read In 2015? 
The Marvels and Kafka on the Shore, the first because it’s half text only and half graphic novel illustrations, the second because it’s Murakami and that’s all the explanation you need.

30. Book That Made You The Most Mad (doesn’t mean you didn’t like it)?
Tess of the D'Urbervilles, I was so mad at both of the men in the book; Alec because he’s awful and Angel because he’s so hypocritical.

1. Favorite review that you wrote in 2015? 
The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King. These weren’t my most popular reviews, but I loved reviewing them! They were rereads and I never reviewed them the first time around. 

2. Best discussion/non-review post you had on your blog? 
A Day in the Life and Baby Registries 

3. Best bookish event that you participated in? 
I loved co-hosting the Salem’s Lot readalong and participating in the spring and fall Dewey Readathons. 

4. Most challenging thing about blogging or your reading life this year? 
Being pregnant! It's been hard to concentrate on certain books and harder to get reviews written because I was so tired. 

5. Best bookish discover (book related sites, book stores, etc.)? 
LibraryThing finally has an app! 

6.  Did you complete any reading challenges or goals that you had set for yourself at the beginning of this year? 

I completed the Back to the Classics Challenge and the TBR Challenge. I also knocked some books off my lists for the Classics Club, Reading the States, and my Shakespeare Project. 

With a newborn baby due in January I'm not tackling any challenges next year. My plan is just to read whatever I want whenever I can! It will probably be a very different reading year (with a lot more children's books), but that's ok!

Tiny Beautiful Things

Tiny Beautiful Things 
Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar 
by Cheryl Strayed  
★★★★★

I was a bit wary of this book when I first heard about it. It’s a collection of advice columns about life and love, and I couldn’t think of why I needed to read someone else's advice about someone else's problems. But as I began to dig in to each letter I quickly realized that you don't read the book for Sugar’s advice. You read it because she manages to share intimate parts of her own life in a way that makes you feel connected to the entire human race in all its beautiful fallible glory.  

She is so honest and vulnerable in these columns. She uses examples from your own life to advise people on each of their issues. You don't have to be able to relate to her experience for these letters to touch you. They reach beyond the boundaries of what small sliver of the world each of us have seen. They get at the center of things, the piece of our hearts that drives us and scares us. She writes about losing love, being lonely, being brave, and being willing to do the right thing in the right moment even if it terrifies you. Often the thing she talks about our painful to read. There are people all over this world experiencing heartbreak in different ways and she never shies away from tough issues. 

I was completely blown away by her ability to expose herself to these strangers. By letting herself be so vulnerable even her harshest advice has a tender feel. I admired her ability to speak truth to people. Even if the answer isn’t what they might want to hear, she still told it like she saw it. 

Honestly, I wish I’d read this book before reading Wild. I was turned off at first in that book because it felt like she was using her mother’s death as an excuse for her bad behavior. It won me over in the end, but I think if I’d gotten to this one first I would have understood her better. She’s very honest and open about her failings and struggles and that’s incredibly rare. 

BOTTOM LINE: Loved it. You don’t have to agree with all or any of her advice, just treat the whole book as a unique memoir. Strayed personal history is woven into every single reply to a letter. She bares her soul to her readers to help them deal with their own issues and the result is beautiful.  

A Few Notes:
There are a couple times where she reads more than one letter in a row and then answers all of them at one time. The first time she did this I thought I missed something because I was listening, not reading a hard copy. I was worried that the chapter had skipped ahead of something, so just a heads up. 

In her review, Trish mentioned that you shouldn't try to plow through them quickly and I agree. I listened to an audio version and tried to just listen to a few at a time. I do think they have a bigger impact that way and they are pretty intense.