In 2017 I recorded details of the 408 books I read in the year in a lovely spiral bound notebook, coloured salmon pink with grey and white hearts in a pattern on the cover. Looking at it now, I could probably have got another year into it as there are a lot of blank pages left at the end.
The first book that I read in the year was Right Behind You by Lisa Gardner. It’s a crime/suspense novel and one in a series of connected books featuring an FBI profiler and his wife who was a police officer. I really like this author’s novels and this one, which features fostered children, is as good as any.
The final book I read in the year was Temeraire by Naomi Novik. It’s a fantasy novel and the first in a series set in an alternative nineteenth century in Britain where dragons are part of the forces fighting in the Napoleonic Wars. I thought it was a great idea but I didn’t really enjoy the books, perhaps because there was too much about class and cruelty to dragons in it. I read this one and half of the sequel and then gave up.
In 2017 I was still commuting a total of ninety minutes each day in my car and listening to a lot of podcasts about books. These provided plenty of recommendations for my reading in the year including : Serena by Ron Rash which I enjoyed a lot, Pasadena by David Ebershoff which I found unsatisfying, Ready Player One by Ernest Cline which I really loved although I wasn’t as fond of the sequel, Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates which I didn’t think was as good as others think it is, In the Unlikely Event by Judy Blume which was a great idea for a plot but didn’t quite hit the mark for me, The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson which I enjoyed so much that I have now read most of his other books and Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke which I thought was very long but curiously without substance.
But, in 2017 I found audiobooks. Having said for years that I wouldn’t enjoy them I tried them and I was immediately hooked. They are ideal for car journeys and I was soon easily reading at least two per month at this time. I started with non-fiction and that is still what I usually listen to, although my Audible library now includes novels. The first book I listened to was SPQR by Mary Beard which was narrated by Phyllida Nash – the narrator is as important as the writer for audio books. I enjoyed it so much I soon followed it with The Holocaust by Laurence Rees narrated by Jonathan Keeble which was excellent. I get less time to listen to audio now but I have read books in this way that I think that I would never have finished had I been reading a paper copy. My reading now consists of paper books, Kindle and audio – for me they are all important and I don’t particularly favour one more than any other.
Anne Is Reading 