Books Read in 2016

• Total books read during this year: 33
• Total books that I started to read but didn't finish: 5
• physical books read: 22
• ebooks read: 11
• physical books started but unfinished: 2
• ebooks started but unfinished: 3
• Nook ebooks read: 5
• Kindle ebooks read: 5
• Other ebooks format (browser/pdf/app/etc.) read: 1
• Library books read: 10
• Library books started but unread: 1
• Books I liked: 23
• Books I loved: 4
• Books I hated: 1
• Books I disliked or found meh: 6
• Books I felt strongly about but can't classify under love or hate: 2 (I mean I guess they did what they were supposed to do, but I hate unhappy endings/no comeuppance for the villain!)

I read fewer books than last year, due to tiredness after work and the instant gratification of the Internet and apps. What helped me is that I was part of a bookclub, and I read some books with them. I also traveled at least twice this year, which is really when I use my Nook. This year I began a new job where I spend more time at the reference desk and am able to read the new library books, plus my parents bought me a Kindle (!) for Christmas, so hopefully I'll do more reading next year!

Book reviews for I think most of the books I read should be under the book reviews tag.  >>>

October-December 2016 books

I started but did not finish The Well at the End of the World by William Morris (early November), which I downloaded for free on my Nook. The author's name sounded familiar to me so I googled him, and it turns out he's one of the Pre-Raphaelites and the dude that founded the Kelmscott Press, which I learned about in my history of the book class! This explains why the language is extremely old fashioned: that is definitely the way someone obsessed with medieval romance would write. I don't see anyone who isn't at least somewhat an English major being able to understand more than 60% of the writing, though. It makes Charles Dickens sound like Ernest Hemingway. What helped me is that Catherine, Called Birdy was one of my favorite books growing up. Anyway it was pretty good and I can see why people like the Inklings liked it, but I stopped reading it once I stopped traveling. It was just really dense and pretty slow-moving, although I do want to finish it sometime.

Barnes & Noble sent me a 20 or 30% off coupon, so I used it to buy Neil Gaiman's The Spindle and the Sleeper (early December), which was really good. I love and am interested in all fairytale retellings, so when I saw that Neil Gaiman wrote a feminist version of Sleeping Beauty where Snow White saves Sleeping Beauty since she knows what it's like to be trapped in magical slumber, I had to have it. It's a picture book but not necessarily for children; I can see them getting scared of it since there's a lot of freaky stuff in that book. It was illustrated by Chris Riddell, who has illustrated a lot of Neil Gaiman's stuff, and the illustrations are gorgeous and creepy, just the way you'd expect. I'm going to talk about spoilery stuff below the cut. 4/5 stars

I'm continuing my Artemis Fowl series reread, so I read The Arctic Incident and The Eternity Code (books 2 and 3) in early and late December, respectively. These are a great series for very late elementary and middle schoolers. They've got heists and magic and fairy folk and technology and a smart-aleck genius kid who outsmarts adults. I have to admit that, rereading as an adult, they seemed way shorter and less OMG than they did when I first read them. 3.9,4/5 stars

I kind of wanted to continue my holiday tradition of reading my Christmas with Anne L.M. Montgomery holiday anthology and A Christmas Carol, but as I moved in December I packed up my books and couldn't get to them.

"Music" by Anne Porter

When I was a child
I once sat sobbing on the floor
Beside my mother’s piano
As she played and sang
For there was in her singing
A shy yet solemn glory
My smallness could not hold

And when I was asked
Why I was crying
I had no words for it
I only shook my head
And went on crying

Why is it that music
At its most beautiful
Opens a wound in us
An ache a desolation
Deep as a homesickness
For some far-off
And half-forgotten country

I’ve never understood
Why this is so

But there’s an ancient legend
From the other side of the world
That gives away the secret
Of this mysterious sorrow

For centuries on centuries
We have been wandering
But we were made for Paradise
As deer for the forest

And when music comes to us
With its heavenly beauty
It brings us desolation
For when we hear it
We half remember
That lost native country

We dimly remember the fields
Their fragrant windswept clover
The birdsongs in the orchards
The wild white violets in the moss
By the transparent streams

And shining at the heart of it
Is the longed-for beauty
Of the One who waits for us
Who will always wait for us
In those radiant meadows

Yet also came to live with us
And wanders where we wander.