2016 In Books & 2017 Reading Goals

“May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art — write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.” ― Neil Gaiman

Welcome to 2017!  I wish you all the best in whatever you do this year. Thank you for reading & following me last year and for liking and commenting on my posts. 

2016 was a weird year.  But I got back to my usual reading speed and managed to read 240 books. You can check out my Goodreads Year in Books here: https://www.goodreads.com/user/year_in_books/2016/21610643 I read a lot of classics. I’m really happy about that because since my studies begun I didn’t have the time to concentrate on reading them and on appreciating them. I read (to mention few): On the Road, The Bell Jar,  Catch-22, The Great Gatsby, Burning Daylight, Of Mice and Men, Kurgast, Martin Eden, The Man Who Laughs, Of Human Bondage, East from Eden, The Scarlet Letter and! The Pride and Prejudice!  Oh how I hated it. Hated. Let me quote Mark Twain:

 “I haven’t any right to criticize books, and I don’t do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticize Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can’t conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Every time I read Pride and Prejudice I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone.”
― Mark Twain

Never have I read something so utterly boring as Pride and Prejudice. No wonder I avoided reading it for years…

I read a lot of nonfiction and biographies and memoirs.  Best reads were:  The Gene: An Intimate History, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, Einstein’s Cosmos: How Albert Einstein’s Vision Transformed Our Understanding of Space and Time, Prince, American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History, Elon Musk: Inventing the Future,  The New IQ: Use Your Working Memory to Think Stronger, Smarter, Faster Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning, Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win, Spy Secrets That Can Save Your Life: A Former CIA Officer Reveals Safety and Survival Techniques to Keep You and Your Family Protected, David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants, You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost), Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand In the Sun and Be Your Own Person, ZeroZeroZero, No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden, The Spy with 29 Names, A Norwegian Tragedy: Anders Behring Breivik and the Massacre on Utoya, Reasons to Stay Alive, Vartiotornin varjossa

 Cocaine Confidential, The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World’s Most Wanted Man, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, What the Dog Saw and Other Adventures, A Kim Jong-Il Production: The Extraordinary True Story of a Kidnapped Filmmaker, His Star Actress, and a Young Dictator’s Rise to Power, The Girl Who Beat ISIS: Farida’s Story,  Under the Shadow: Rage and Revolution in Modern Turkey, Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration, The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women, The Billion Dollar Spy: A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal, Modern Romance & The God Delusion &Yes Please.

If you click the title of the book, you may or may not find my review of it on Goodreads. I very warmly recommend all of them.

And I read a lot of fantasy and science fiction :) Because those two are my favorite genres. I read: Red Rising, Cinder, A Monster Calls, The Young Elites trilogy, Throne of Glass series, Chaos Walking trilogy, Demon Road series, Phoenix, Splintered trilogy, Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children trilogy, The Magic Thief: Home, The Selection series, Shatter Me trilogy, Clockwork Princess, Red Queen, Ender’s Game…

I read comics, manga, historical novels…Also managed to read some poetry. Not much because I find it hard to grasp. I read some Paul Valéry, Pablo Neruda, W.B.Yeats & Saul Williams. And I read some books I didn’t mention here because I think this post is long enough as it is.

 I plan to read the same amount as last year…or at least that’s what I promised to Goodreads reading challenge. However, I’ll be taking a break from blogging. I have some kind of a bloggers block and kind of lost my interest for writing a blog. I don’t know what are my future plans for this blog but I’ll figure it out so stay tuned.

Anyways, happy 2017! What were your best reads in 2016? What are your reading plans for 2017? :)