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Challenge complete! Late in 2014, I decided to take on PopSugar’s 2015 Book Challenge, requiring me to read 52 books in 50 different genres.
The result? This is probably the most I’ve read in a single year, and by far the most diverse array of literature. I also made a secondary goal this year of reading primarily works by authors of color, LGBT authors, international authors, and women. Now, that was eye-opening and something that I’ll be writing much more about in the coming months.
I also love how all these books will forever be tied up in the places where I read them. I read the Neapolitan Novels while bouncing in a chicken bus running through Ometepe, Nicaragua. I cheered as I read The Martian in Corfu, Greece. This Is How You Lose Her was savored on the beach in Koh Lanta, Thailand. Modern Romance, on the bus from Barcelona to Andorra.
PopSugar has announced their 2016 Book Challenge, featuring mostly new categories, and while I won’t be taking part again, I encourage you to do so. The 2015 reading challenge shook up my habits and broadened my horizons, and I want it to do the same for you, too.
Also, if you don’t have one yet, I highly recommend getting a Kindle Paperwhite. It’s because I own a Kindle that I’m able to read as much as I do! I put it in my purse and take it everywhere. And the Paperwhite is so much better than the basic Kindles — the screen lights up, it’s softer and feels great in your hands, and there’s a touchscreen. I’ve owned both models and the Paperwhite is well worth the extra $40.
For now, I’d like to share my absolute favorite books of the year. Not all of them were published this year, but all of them are extraordinary. I’m sure these books will make an impact on you as much as they did on me.
The Neapolitan Novels: My Brilliant Friend (2012), The Story of a New Name (2013), Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay (2014), and The Story of the Lost Child (2015), by Elena Ferrante
I’m far from the only one in saying that these are some of the best books I’ve ever read — you’ll find The Story of the Lost Child on just about every Best of 2015 list this year.
But these books are as close to a modern classic as anything I’ve ever read. The single most impressive aspect of these books is their depiction of a lifelong female friendship. Lenù and Lila are the two smartest girls growing up in the roughest neighborhood in Naples, and take two wildly different routes as they grow up.
It’s almost like Forrest Gump. In a community where nobody knows what comes after middle school, Lenù goes to university, marries into an academic family, and becomes a bestselling novelist, while Lila marries the neighborhood grocer at 16, setting off a series of drama and toil. The neighborhood inhabits every bit of their being, and eventually plunges them back in, as the books cover them from childhood to old age.
And as they grow, they compete. They become enemies, then make up days or years later. They move into the same building and spend every day together. They raise each other’s children like their own. They make equally poor choices with men and support each other through heartache and terror. Lenù and Lila are more like sisters than their actual siblings are.
But beyond the friendship, the book’s signature is its depiction of a wild and rough Naples, where children are thrown through windows and looking at someone’s sister for two seconds too long will get you beaten with a crowbar. And that’s not all — it’s also a history of political upheaval in Italy, and also a story of upward economic mobility the likes of which you could never see in America today.
I honestly envy anyone about to read these books for the first time, because they will take you on the ride of your life.
Elena Ferrante is a mystery in Italy. Her name is a pseudonym and she hasn’t revealed anything about her identity beyond that she’s female and a mother. Some people thought she was a famous male Italian author, but I guarantee that’s not the case. There is no way on this Earth any man could write about female friendship like that.
The Martian by Andy Weir (2014)
I had more fun reading The Martian than any other book I read this year. I was laughing, crying, and cheering with the rest of the imaginary universe as Mark Watney worked his way back to his home planet.
You’ve probably seen the previews for the movie, if not the movie itself, and know the basic plot: Matt Damon (astronaut Mark Watney!) gets stranded on Mars and, against all odds, he uses his knowledge to “science the shit out of it” and creatively survive for more than a year before NASA can get him rescued.
My favorite thing about this book was Mark Watney’s caustic sense of humor. It didn’t translate quite perfectly to the screen (due in part to the PG-13 rating), but Matt Damon was really the perfect casting choice. (Now. Chiwetel Ejiofor, wonderful actor as he is, playing a character named Venkat Kapoor? Just have the Nigerian-British guy play the Indian guy and nobody will notice? Come on.)
My favorite exchange:
WATNEY: Tell the crew I’m alive! What the fuck is wrong with you?
JPL: Also, please watch your language. Everything you type is being broadcast live all over the world.
WATNEY: Look! A pair of boobs! (.Y.)
This Is How You Lose Her by Junot Díaz (2013)
My friend Oneika recommended this book so hard, telling me how amazing Díaz’s writing was. While I almost picked up books of his in the past, it was Oneika’s raving endorsement that got me to finally pick this up — and I was immediately immersed in his world.
This book tells the story of Yunior, a character who shows up in all his books, telling the stories of his many loves — most of whom he’s cheated on. But the true story is just how special Díaz’s writing is. I can’t not share some of this with you:
Do you remember? When the fights seemed to go on and on, and always ended with us in bed, tearing at each other like maybe that could change everything. In a couple of months you’d be seeing somebody else and I would too; she was no darker than you but she washed her panties in the shower and had hair like a sea of little punos and the first time you saw us, you turned around and boarded a bus I knew you didn’t have to take. When my girl said, Who was that? I said, Just some girl.
Oh my God.
You, Yunior, have a girlfriend named Alma, who has a long tender horse neck and a big Dominican ass that seems to exist in a fourth dimension beyond jeans. An ass that could drag the moon out of orbit. An ass she never liked until she met you. Ain’t a day that passes that you don’t want to press your face against that ass or bite the delicate sliding tendons of her neck. You love how she shivers when you bite, how she fights you with those arms that are so skinny they belong on an after-school special.
Holy shit.
Instead of lowering your head and copping to it like a man, you pick up the journal as one might hold a baby’s beshattered diaper, as one might pinch a recently benutted condom. You glance at the offending passages. Then you look at her and smile a smile your dissembling face will remember until the day you die. Baby, you say, baby, this is part of my novel.
This is how you lose her.
Fuck me.
If those quotes don’t get you to buy that book immediately, nothing will.
Euphoria by Lily King (2015)
Every now and then, I like to sink my teeth into a deep, satisfying romance — and did this ever fit the bill! This story is based on the life of anthropologist Margaret Mead and the work she did in Papua New Guinea in the 1930s.
A male anthropologist, Andrew Bankson is working with tribes in one of the most culturally isolated parts of the world when a married pair of anthropologists turn up to work in a nearby area. Nell Stone, the character based on Mead, becomes the object of Bankson’s affection and he falls deeply in love with her — in the presence of her husband.
What I most loved about this book is how the longing was drawn out so beautifully, along with how the book depicted falling in love with someone you connect with so strongly in an intellectual way. It’s a hell of a rush and this book gets it perfect.
Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari (2015)
When most comedians get their first book deal, they end up writing some kind of memoir. Aziz decided to do something different. He would write a book about dating in the digital age, a topic that he often covers in his routines.
I love Aziz’s comedy — his stand-up, Master of None, everything he did on Parks and Rec. We’re about the same age and I actually relate to what he talks about more than any other comedian (with the possible exception of Amy Schumer). We’re the type of people who will analyze texts from a love interest for hours, then spend several more hours researching where to find the best carnitas tacos in the city on Yelp and Foursquare.
This book is a fascinating look at how dating today has changed thanks to technology — along with dating today in Japan (which sounds pretty hellish), Argentina (equally hellish), and France (which sounds kind of great, actually). If you’re single, it will help you navigate the world a bit better. And if you’re not single, you’ll probably feel a strange nostalgia for a type of dating you may never get to experience.
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2013)
This book came suggested to me after my friend Anubha‘s talk on privilege and travel at the Women in Travel Summit. This book tells the story of Ifemelu, a Nigerian woman who moves to the United States for university and stays long-term. (“Americanah” is a term meaning a Nigerian who comes home after spending extended time in the States.)
The point of view of a NAB (non-American black) is one I had never read before — imagine growing up mostly unaware of American racism and then arriving in America and having to learn everything at once as you navigate through life. The book tells her story through a series of vignettes that parallel her life as she becomes a prominent blogger on race in America.
The side plot takes in Ifemelu’s high school sweetheart, Obinze, and his journey to immigrate to the UK that doesn’t go nearly as smoothly as hers. And while the book isn’t perfect — I couldn’t stand a lot of Ifemelu’s choices, particularly when she was incredibly hurtful to so many of the men in her life — it brought to light a lot of thoughts about race in America that I had never considered.
The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins (2015)
It’s “the next Gone Girl” and one of the biggest hits of the year. Like its predecessor, I whipped through it and couldn’t put it down.
Taking place in suburban southern England, Rachel is a newly divorced severe alcoholic who is losing everything in her life, yet spends each day watching a couple as her train passes their home each day. (Also, she’s taking the train to the city for a job from which she’s been fired, due to her alcoholism.) Then one day, the woman in the couple turns up missing.
She used to live in that same neighborhood as the couple, with her ex-husband. Oh, and she stalks her ex-husband. She calls him all the time. She harasses his new wife. And the night of the woman’s disappearance, she was in their neighborhood, and only remembers fragments of that evening.
What if you may have witnessed a murder while blackout drunk? What if you may have been involved somehow?
The narrator is wholly unlikable — but she is an unreliable narrator unlike anyone I’ve ever read. Piecing back the night of the woman’s disappearance, she starts to unravel increasingly sinister truths. This book will reel you in.
I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi (2009)
Well, this book changed my life. Or at least my finances.
If you’re in your twenties or thirties, this is a great book to read about what you should actually be doing with your money. Most people don’t do what they should — so get a head start on things while you’ve got time on your side. Since reading this, I’ve shifted around a lot of what I’m doing for retirement (that thing that lots of millennials and especially travel bloggers who spent years trying to break even don’t think about!).
I also really love Ramit’s voice, humor, and no-bullshit attitude, and have since signed up for all of his stuff online. And I have to admit that his newsletters are something I always enjoy reading!
Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2003)
Americanah may be more famous, but while that book’s strength was concepts, I felt like Purple Hibiscus was an overall better novel with much more interesting characters. Kambili is a 15-year-old living in Nigeria with her family, headed by a devoutly Catholic, domineering, and emotionally and physically abusive father.
Through the book, you see the point of view of everyone in her life trying to get her out of that abusive environment without going so far that they alienate her father and lose contact with her completely. Through the book, Kambili slowly gains strength and learns to be independent, even as Nigeria begins experiencing upheaval and her family falls into danger.
This book had my favorite relationship of all the books I read this year — the relationship between Kambili and the young priest who is a friend of her aunt’s. They clearly fall in love — a little bit, at least — but never act inappropriately, instead showing each other how much they care for each other.
Me Before You by Jojo Moyes
If you’re ready to ugly-cry your eyes out, this is a good choice. In this book set in England, a somewhat directionless twenty-something named Louisa becomes a caretaker to Will, a world traveler and adrenaline junkie who became a quadriplegic after an accident.
This book is about their relationship, which blossoms after Louisa becomes determined to make Will enjoy life again. And it doesn’t turn out the way she planned, leading to a lot of sorrow. But there is so much beauty in the relationship that they grow into.
The sequel to this book, After You, just came out, and I can’t wait to read it.
Ask by Ryan Levesque (2015)
In terms of business reads, this is probably the most valuable book that entrepreneurs could pick up. Ryan Levesque devised a method of getting your customers to tell you what they want and how to give it to them — and it’s done so well for him, he’s actually teaching the whole world how to do it. (And I’ve seen lots of companies I subscribe to start their first steps of implementation! Every time I see that, I think, “Ah, someone read Ask.”)
Basically, most people wouldn’t give away all these secrets, but Ryan Levesque is crazy, stupid rich from implementing this method for lots of major companies and doesn’t care. He wrote this book because he doesn’t need the money anymore — he wants to make an impact on the world. And we benefit.
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (1998)
I love it when a good book reminds you why you fell in love with an author in the first place. I adore Barbara Kingsolver but hadn’t read anything new by her in so long.
In the early 1960s, a mother, father, and four daughters move from Georgia to the Belgian Congo for the father to serve as the local pastor and convert as many villagers as possible. It turns out to be a far more difficult task than he anticipated. The father is verbally and emotionally abusive to his family, and as soon as the Congo teeters on the brink of independence, he decides that they must stay, even as every other missionary family flees for their safety.
The best thing about this book is that the chapters are all told in the voices of the different characters — and they vary so widely! I’m so impressed that Kingsolver was able to keep up so many different voices and have them all be so consistent. But it’s also a tale of love, fear, abuse, culture, and life after death. A book from the 90s, and yes, so very much worth reading today.
Tomboy by Liz Prince (2014)
This book was a big surprise to me — a book I only read because I had to fulfill the graphic novel requirement of the book challenge. It turned out to be sweet, moving, and a lot of fun.
This memoir tells the story of Liz’s life of avoiding traditional gender conformity. That’s not to say that she’s transgender or genderqueer — she’s simply a cisgender girl who tended to express herself more toward the masculine side of things. In other words, what most people would call a tomboy.
I never thought of what it would be like to grow up being told that you’re dressing and acting wrong, and honestly, you don’t read a lot of books that focus exclusively on gender expression, rather than gender identity or sexuality. It was a sweet and unique read and I felt like cheering for Liz the whole time.
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton (1911)
Every now and then, I read a book super-slowly because I’m rereading each sentence over and over and marveling at how beautiful everything is written. Ethan Frome was one of those books.
Take this quote:
He seemed a part of the mute melancholy landscape, an incarnation of its frozen woe, with all that was warm and sentient in him fast bound below the surface; but there was nothing unfriendly in his silence. I simply felt that he lived in a depth of moral isolation too remote for casual access, and I had the sense that his loneliness was not merely the result of his personal plight, tragic as I guessed that to be, but had in it, as Harmon Gow had hinted, the profound accumulated cold of many Starkfield winters.
How can you not read that and turn each word over and over in your hand?
I chose Ethan Frome because it was on the short side and I wanted to knock out a few quick reads. It quickly became one of my favorites for the writing and for the tragic love story at the center of it all. If you ever feel like you’re wasting your life and you haven’t accomplished anything, this book will reassure you that things could be worse. Much worse.
A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson (2015)
First things first: this is the companion piece to Atkinson’s dizzying historic fantasy novel, Life After Life, and while A God in Ruins could be enjoyed as a standalone novel, you should read its predecessor first.
Life After Life tells the story of Ursula, a girl born in the 1900s who keeps dying and then coming back to life, able to live her life over and over with enough knowledge to prevent future tragedies. A God in Ruins tells the story of her brother, Teddy, and his life as an RAF pilot during World War II. There is no fantasy element in this one, but it doesn’t need it.
Teddy goes on to marry Nancy, his childhood sweetheart, and the book branches into the life of his children and grandchildren, who couldn’t have chosen more different lives than his own — a life of duty and service, of nature and the outdoors, of poetry and travel.
Like Unbroken, another great book I read this year, A God in Ruins underscores the hell of what war does to good men and how much fortitude is required to go on and make the best of their lives afterward.
The best part of this book is that it surprised me with emotion. One character spoke five words near the end, five words I hadn’t even known I had been yearning to hear, and I went from shocked to sobbing in about eight seconds flat.
What I Hope to Read in 2016
I’m so excited to read books again without worrying about how they’ll fulfill categories!
I’m most looking forward to reading Junot Díaz’s other books: Drown and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. I’m already sad that he only has two more books for me to enjoy for the first time!
I want to read more Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, too. I almost read Half of a Yellow Sun this year as well.
I’ve been meaning to read Jhumpa Lahiri. I’ve never read any of her books, but I love the movie version of The Namesake and hope to read that book. Interpreter of Maladies, too (which I just looked up to link to and Amazon says I apparently bought in 2011 — woohoo! Free book! Kinda!).
Other priorities are Barbara Kingsolver’s two latest books: The Lacuna and Flight Behavior.
I didn’t read any books by my all-time favorite author, Lionel Shriver, this year — but I do have Checker and the Derailleurs ready to go on my Kindle, and it seems to be book of hers that people love the most. Reading a Lionel Shriver book is a big undertaking — I need to be fully, deeply committed and can’t read them while distracted in any way, which rules out subway reading.
Some new memoirs are on deck, of course. Mindy Kaling’s Why Not Me? and Jenny Lawson’s Furiously Happy are up there.
I will definitely read After You, the sequel to Me Before You.
Maybe I’ll take the route of my friend Katrinka and read a big, heavy Russian novel while on vacation — something by Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky.
And another goal: I’d like to read more contemporary nonfiction from different countries. Especially countries that I’ve visited. Reading contemporary fiction gives you an incredible insight into another country.
Great recs. Some already were on my to-read list, so I may move them up. I didn’t know A God in Ruins was connected to Life After Life (which I loved), so I’ll be picking that up soon.
We seem to have similar book tastes, so you might enjoy The Lowlands by Jhumpa Lahiri, which I just finished and loved.
I’ve been binge-watching The Affair this week and they have a collection of books where the authors supposedly wrote them while staying in a publisher’s cottage — The Lowland was one of them!
I’ve read mainly financial books this year (I’m a finance blogger) and I’ve loved them all. I’ve read The One Page Financial Plan, When She Makes More, and others. Love them!
Alright so I’m adding all these to my list, and making the “My Brilliant Friend” series a priority since we’ve talked about it like 2839232 times now haha. Also so tempted to do that challenge again but NOOOPE. Too many other good books I wanna read!
You have to finally read them!!
Ah one of my friends has raced about Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie as well – I’ll be putting those books on my list. I love Lionel Shriver too, but working my way slowly through her books – I agree that they need to be read in moments of complete solitude and there hasn’t been many of those this year!
I love book posts! 🙂 I tried the 2015 and I didn’t manage by a landslide I read 19 books though which is still quite an achievement for me. My favourites of this year were:
1. Me Before You – Jojo Moyes
2. The Bastard of Istanbul – Elif Shafak
3. The Other Hand – Chris Cleave
Great reviews! I added a few to my request list at the library 🙂
I’m currently reading the Girl on the Train and your review was spot on. I’m really looking forward to finishing that one to see how it all works out.
I read Half of a Yellow Sun this year and I can’t recommend it enough! I enjoyed Americanah but HOAYS was better I think! I’m looking forward to reading Purple Hibiscus soon, especially after seeing it on your list! i like the idea of the Popsugar challenge, but I know I could never read that many books, I just don’t have enough time, and especially since I’m reading for study as well now. I will definitely try to read out of my comfort zone though!
Even if you can’t do 50+ books this year, it’s good that you’ll be getting yourself out of your comfort zone!
Great article. Not so much into romance, but a few of the books I have put on my reading list. Thanks.
Also recommend the Other Hand, along with Smila’s Sense of Snow following your trip to Copenhagen. In Scandanavian spirit, it’s a thrilled set between Denmark and Greenland – I am having a hard time putting it down!
Ooh, that sounds nice! Thanks for the suggestion.
I really enjoyed Me Before You also but yes I also ended up full on ugly crying. I can’t wait for the film adaptation they’ve made to come out.
All the books I’ve read this year seem to include some kind of neurological or mental issue… I really enjoyed Still Alice by Lisa Genova (I know I jumped a little late on the bandwagon there) and Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey which is a gripping read. Both looking at life through the eyes of someone with Alzheimers/ dementia.
I’m looking forward to the movie, too. Neville from Harry Potter as the marathoning boyfriend. 😉 Thanks for sharing!
The book The Namesake is 1000x better than the movie. It is one of those examples where the emotions and the growing up are just drawn so beautifully by the text that a movie could never convey them satisfactorily.
That doesn’t surprise me. It’s a rare movie that is better than the book (The Devil Wears Prada is my favorite example!).
I can definitely recommend Harper Lee’s “To Kill A Mockingbird”. Best book I’ve read this year!
I haven’t read that since high school!
I absolutely loved The Martian as well! I haven’t read any of the other books on your list, though I’ve now added several to my kindle wish list. Thanks for the great recommendations!
Did you like doing the pop sugar challenge? Would you recommend it for someone who hasn’t done it before?
For sure, I’d recommend it for anyone who wants to read more and expand their horizons!
Thanks for sharing this challenge with us. My friend and I are going to do the 2016 challenge because we’ve been so inspired by your posts about the 2015 challenge!
Good! You’ll love it!
I adored Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes. The creator of Grey’s, Scandal and producer of How to Get Away with Murder, I’ve loved everything she’s put out there. Who knew that she was such an introvert. This book/memoir is her journey to saying yes to things, big and small, and how it changed her. She has this great quote which now sits on my desk: don’t be a dreamer, be a doer. I love her humour and attitude. You might get a kick out of it!
After You is also good… but be prepared that it is nothing like Me Before You. If you like Jojo Moyes, One Plus One is probably the best book I’ve read this year. SO GOOD!
I leafed through Year of Yes at the Strand in NYC the other day (amazing bookstore, BTW). I think I’ll add it to my 2016 list!
Great recommendations! I’ve definitely been wanting to read a lot more and the pop sugar reading challenge looks great for next year! I find that I end up scrolling through my phone instead of reading so it’ll be good to have a challenge!
For contemporary nonfiction, definitely recommend The Shepherd’s Life, by James Rebanks! It’s a memoir about being a third-generation shepherd in the Lake District in England, and Rebanks has a great style of writing.
I visited the Lake District for the first time this year — beautiful place! Thanks for the recommendation.
Kate!! I’m so happy to have introduced you to Diaz. This Is How You Lose Her is the best novel I’ve read this year. I think I told you that I read Oscar Wao but didn’t like it as much– he lost me with all the magical realism. The Poisonwood Bible is also one of my faves, especially because of how Kingsolver seamlessly shifts between perspectives. Anyhoo, I’m looking forward to digging into some of your other recommendations, especially the Elena Ferrante. Let’s start a virtual book club next year!
Love the idea of a virtual book club! I can do magical realism on occasion — I like what Toni Morrison does with it. Definitely looking forward to reading Oscar Wao and Drown early in the new year. I’m kind of trying to finish a few good-but-not-as-amazing books right now for next year’s recap’s sake.
I love book round-up posts; I was so excited to see this one!! Livened up a dreary Sunday night :).
Completely agree on the Neapolitan novels. I loved them so much they are probably now some of my favorite books of all time. Those and All the Light We Cannot See are the best books I read this year.
I have to say, though, I HATED This is How You Lose Her. I found it incredibly repetitive and sort of misogynistic (in that I didn’t think any of the women had real identities beyond being sexual objects for Yunior). Most of the male characters were repugnant, and they spent a huge amount of time feeling sorry for themselves due to the consequences of their own actions. I know this book was a smash hit. I just really couldn’t see why. Different strokes for different folks, I guess!
Oh no, I can agree with you on some of those things. I agree that there was misogyny running through the book and some of the characters were repugnant, but I think that the WAY that Diaz told all these stories is what made them extraordinary! His language and writing style.
Do not, I repeat!, do not read Dostoyevsky while traveling! Well… unless you do want to gauge your eyeballs out of your head :P. Tolstoy is a beautiful and captivating writer… I loved Anna Karenina but I highly recommend War and Peace– One of my fav books of all time! 🙂
Hahaha. Good to know!
Kate, love the recommendations!
I already read Martian after you mentioned it on your monthly recap, and it’s now one of my all-time favorites – the main character’s can-do attitude and the humor with which he approaches his life just wins it for me, plus all the nerdiness. Already lining up Ethan Frome and Ask from your recommendations in this post.
Looking forward to more of your book reviews!
Great books! I echo the earlier comments that After You wasn’t as good as Me Before You, but her other books are great! A Constellation of Vital Phenomenon was amazing, one of my favorites this year.
Thanks for the recommendations!
Thanks for the shout-out, Kate. I’m impressed with your year of reading! Very inspiring! And A+ for Junot Diaz, he’s so wonderful. He also teaches at MIT, if you’re ever in the mood for light stalking while back in Boston. (Kidding! Kind of!)
Yes! He teaches at MIT and lives in NYC. Not sure how that works, but all right!
I love this list! I really wanted to read The Martian and after reading your review, I am definitely going to pick this up as my next read. Thank you for sharing!
Erin Scherer
Get ready for a wild ride!
Everything I Never Told You, The Circle, Station 11 and the Luminaries. If you like nonfiction, All the Truth is Out.
The Circle was such a freaky book! I read that in 2014, I think. Such a realistic depiction of what the future could be.
I read Everything I Never Told You this year and it was really nice.
Great book list!
Definitely adding a few of these on my travel reading list. Thanks!
I also tried the popsugar list, and although I’ve read 70+ books this year, I’m still missing about 7 categories with just 2 weeks to go! I’m not very good at reading things when it feels “forced”. I agree, though that it did inspire me to try books that I might not have picked up otherwise! I also found in the past that a book club can be good for encouraging to read outside my box.
If you’re looking for a big Russian novel – I actually really enjoyed reading Anna Karenina this year, and I usually hate the Russian novels. Yes, it was melodramatic and probably didn’t need to go on quite as long as it did, but overall I really liked the story and the character development. Bonus: you can find it free online from some websites that let you download the “classics” (wish I could remember the names)
If you’re looking for more travel/country-specific books, I absolutely LOVED “The Art of Hearing Heartbeats” and the sequel, “A Well-Tempered Heart” – set in Burma, really beautifully written, with plenty of suspense, romance and magic to keep things interesting. I’ve recommended them to at least 10 people in the last year, and no one has been disappointed 🙂
Great recommendations — thank you!
I love so many of the books you have posted about! Especially Americanah – I have read almost all of Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche’s books and really, really like them, I think she’s a wonderful writer. Some of the other commentators have also been suggesting authors I absolutely adore, like Elif Shafak and Chris Cleave. My best book of 2015 was Hanya Yanagihara’s a Little Life – it is devastatingly sad but I read it months ago and I still can’t stop thinking about it. Also, if any of your readers like dystopias, perhaps things like the Hunger Games / Divergent – The Country of Ice Cream Star by Sandra Newman is wonderful. And finally the Book of Night Women by Marlon James! His new book just won the Booker Prize but this one is an incredibly story about slaves on a Jamaican plantation.
Little Life is something that keeps popping up on my lists — I think I’ll take a look! Thanks for the suggestions.
Thanks so much for sharing your list! I love seeing reading lists of other travellers. I am not a huge book worm so it is great to get some inspiration for the next one from people with similar interests. I will be adding afew to my list – cheers!
Can’t read too much of contemporary stuff, it easily bores me. The language is so simple, the ideas are so generic… of course, there are exceptions, and many amazingly talented modern writers, but a century ago or so authors seem to have put much more effort into the way they compose sentences…
Junot Diaz is contemporary and his writing is anything but boring. Give him a whirl!
Your list is simply wonderful .
I have not read all the books and I read THE MARTIAN is really spectacular , I intend to finish this list in 2016 .
Thanks for sharing texts like this.
Hi Kate,
love this post so much. Will read some books for sure. Happy New Year!
Great post Kate! I think A God in Ruins was one of my favourite books of 2015. Good on you for taking on such a challenge!
If you’re looking for an Australian contemporary non fiction suggestion I’d recommend Modern Love by Lesley Harding and Kendrah Morgan. It’s the true story of Melbourne art benefactors John and Sunday Reed and their story is incredible. It’s also just a great book about Melbourne.
Enjoy your 2016 reading!
I read Big Little Lies this past year, which also took place in Australia. Happy to have another suggestion, thank you! I love Melbourne.
If you like Junot Diaz, you might like Marlon James’ “A Brief History of Seven Killings.” It’s not brief, and there’s a lot more than seven killings, but it’s a fascinating story about Jamaica. Like Junot Diaz, James uses a series of characters in their normal lives to create a larger image of Jamaican culture and politics, starting out with a plot to kill Bob Marley (real event) to derail a peace concert for political reasons, and rippling across the next fifteen years. Great book.
Interesting! I’ve never heard of anything like that and I’d love to read it. Thanks for the suggestions.
All the Light We Cannot See by Doerr
A Tale for the Time Being by Ozeki
The Paying Guests by Waters
Life After Life by Atkinson
Those were my favorite book group books this year.
Previous Favs-
White Tiger
The Elegance of the Hedgehog
Tell the Wolves I’m Home
The Night Circus
Where’d You Go Bernadette
If you have not read them, Perks of Being a Wallflower and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night are two older books I re-read recently.
Thanks for the suggestions!
Have you read 10% Happier by Dan Harris? If not I think you would really enjoy it. It’s the story of a news anchor who after reporting in war zones and after abusing drugs and alcohol has a panic attack on air. He changes his life through meditation and practicing Buddhism. He meets the likes of the Dalai Lama and Eckhart Tolle along his journey.
tLove your blog! Just discovered it while looking for a place to stay in Paris next month. 🙂
Have you read Haruki Murakami?? Check him out if not…you might love him!! (Colorless Tsukuru Tasaki and his year of Pilgrimage – so moving and captivating)
I haven’t read Murakami yet but I’ve been wanting to!
Little Life is something that keeps popping up on my lists — I think I’ll take a look! Thanks for the suggestions.