Aglaea reads in 2016

[Aglaea]

Well, sort by position (= week) certainly was helpful when creating a new shelf for this challenge.

This is the first time for me to read so many classics, serious contemporary novels and non-fiction during a limited time that I'm a bit nervous right now regarding my success rate, but you can't win unless you gamble, so here goes, my 2016 list for Around the Year in 52 Books!


1. A book you meant to read in 2015, but didn't:
The Medical Detective by Sandra Hempel

2. A book set in a different continent:
Family Planning by Karan Mahajan

✅ 3. A book from the Goodreads Choice Awards 2015:
Never Judge a Lady by Her Cover by Sarah MacLean

✅ 4. A book by an author you discovered in 2015:
Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered by Austin Kleon

5. A book with a title beginning with the 1st letter of your name:
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka

6. The highest rated on your TBR:
Biological Rhythms, Sleep and Hypnosis by Simon Green - This had very few reviews, but I need to read it at some point.

7. A book about books:
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green - Hope this is correct, found it on some list.

✅ 8. A classic book with less than 200 pages:
Animal Farm by George Orwell

9. A book that was mentioned in another book:
100 Selected Poems by E.E. Cummings - In Perks of Being a Wallflower

10. A book by an author you feel you should have read by now:
The First Men in the Moon by H.G. Wells

11. A book from the Rory Gilmore challenge:
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

12. A childhood classic:
Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry - Will try to read in French, need to freshen up rudimentary-level knowledge

13. Reader’s Choice:
Wallbanger by Alice Clayton - Yeah, so 2015 has been about very light reading and I need some of it in between high-brow stuff

14. A book with one of the five W’s -or H in the title:
When Beauty Tamed The Beast by Eloisa James

15. A book set in the past:
Eleanor Of Aquitaine by Marion Meade

16. A book from the top 100 mystery novels:
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

17. A book with a beautiful cover:
Wherever You Go, There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn

✅ 18. A book on a summer/beach reading list:
The Guest Cottage by Nancy Thayer - Beach reading is chick lit in my world :)

19. A non-fiction book:
Genome by Matt Ridley

20. A book with a first name in the title:
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

21. A book from the Goodreads Recommendations page:
My Wicked Valentine by Ann Mayburn

22. The first book in a new to you series:
A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin - Fun fact: the author was mentioned in Jane Austen Book Club the movie and I've been meaning to read it ever since

23. The next book in a series you are reading:
The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett

✅ 24. A "between the numbers" book of a series (0.5, 1,5, 2.5, etc.):
The Selection Stories: The Prince & The Guard by Kiera Cass

25. A book whose main character is in a profession that interests you:
The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie - Not crazy about murder, but Poirot is entertaining

26. A book everyone is talking about:
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande - Not sure everyone talks about this one, but it was on one of the lists

27. A book with a beautiful title:
The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery

28. A biography, autobiography, or memoir:
Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith and Love by Dava Sobel

29. A book by an author who writes under more than one name:
The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith

30. A fairytale from a culture other than your own:
The Tales of Mother Goose by Charles Perrault

✅ 31. A work of young adult fiction:
Resist by Sarah Crossan

32. A historical fiction book:
Conditions of Faith by Alex Miller

33. The 16th book on your TBR:
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

34. A book about mental illness:
Doctoring the Mind: Why Psychiatric Treatments Fail by Richard P. Bentall

35. An award winning book:
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

36. An identity book - a book about a different culture, religion or sexual orientation:
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

37. A book that you've seen the movie of but haven't read:
The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

38. A book about an anti hero:
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas - I only noticed just now how many pages there are...

39. A previous suggestion that did not make it into the list:
The Yacoubian Building by Alaa al Aswany

✅ 40. A novella from your favorite genre:
The Transfer by Veronica Roth

41. A book about a major world event (fiction or non-fiction):
Leonardo da Vinci : The First Scientist by Michael White - Saw him on a list

42. A top 100 fantasy novel:
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis

43. A book about a thing that goes bump in the night:
Carry On by Rainbow Rowell

44. A book you're embarrassed to read in public:
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change by Stephen R. Covey - Because it looks like a bad self-help book, such awful graphic design

45. A book related to a hobby or passion you have:
Show Don't Tell: The Ultimate Writers' Guide by Robyn Opie Parnell

46. A crime story:
Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit by John E. Douglas - If I can find it

47. A book with a type of food/drink in the title:
Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris

48. A dystopia:
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

49. A book with a great opening line:
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

50. A book originally written in a language other than English:
Naiv. Super. by Erlend Loe - Written in Norwegian, reading in Swedish

51. A short story from a well-known author:
Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote - Was surprised to find that it was literature before film

52. A book published in 2016:
And Again by Jessica Chiarella


Thanks so much for a superb Suggestions thread with so many helpful tips! Made my job a lot easier, much appreciated.

[Zaz]

Welcome :)
Yes The Fault in Our Stars works for the book about books as one book is one of the main topics of the story.
To Kill a Mockingbird is really good and it's a smooth read, I hope you'll enjoy it!

I'm glad the suggestions thread was helpful, I find fun to discover the possibilities for each category.

[Aglaea]

Thanks! Oh, that's good to hear, on both accounts.

I'm reluctant to go over all the ideas in that thread with a fine comb, because my bookshelf still contains unread volumes, but then again a lot of it is "serious" stuff, whereas I tend to borrow lighter reads from the library. And what harm is there in a long TBR ;)

After having posted my list, I downloaded three books from manybooks.net, searched - and found - quite a few in my library (both dead-tree and ebooks), and apparently have to buy only a couple, possibly three unless I change plans regarding the crime story.

[Zaz]

Goodreads is horrible because you discover new books all the time. Before using it, I never knew what to read, now I've more than 550 to-read ^^; I used mostly my TBR for the 2016 challenge, the 2015 one was more "add new things and new things and oh this looks nice and oh I want to read the sequel now...".

[Jody]

Aglaea wrote: "And what harm is there in a long TBR ;)"

My thoughts exactly ... says she, whose TBR list on here just ticked over 2000. :O

[Francesca]

I've been doing the challenge this year and I think I'm probably going to manage to read just over half of my list this year. I'm hoping to do better next year but I still doubt I'll manage to read all 52. As long as you enjoy yourself, that's all that matters! I also agree about the long TBR list. That's what I keep telling myself every time I add 'just one more book'.

[Aglaea]

I have a huge number of classics not yet added to the TBR, simply because they were mentioned in school back in the day as 'should reads', but seeing them all on a list would make me overwhelmed. Tackling only a few for this challenge, however, was inspirational.

For newer novels I should be more diligent about adding them to the list, though, because reading more ebooks now has me seeing endless amounts of covers in OverDrive, and I just can't recall all of them by cover only.

Like Zaz said, series can be a bit unexpected in adding a bunch more to TBR, when they turn out to be interesting, but on the other hand I'd rather read something I already have a hunch I might like. Since I rarely leave a book read partly only...

[Sophie]

We have four books in common : Animal Farm, The Cuckoo's Calling, Brave New World and Breakfast at Tiffany's.

I'm like you, I can't not finish a book, so I need to be more picky about what I choose. I also try to stay under 200 books in my TBR, now I'm falling, but hopefully the 2016 challenge will help me go through it. This year, I chose on the spot what I would read for each categories and I ended up reading a lot of books I never heard of before...

[Aglaea]

Sophie, how nice to share four books, that seems luxuriously many in such a diverse group of lists! As for 'quitting', I think I've stopped reading only a couple of times in my life, I just can't. It's strange.

Hi Deirdre :) So glad to hear it! I keep hearing nice things about the series, but usually people have read it as kids, then re-read as adults.

[Maple]

I have a love hate relationship with GoodReads. I never worry about what to read next, but I fear that I will never clear out my TBR list. However, there are all of you guys too :)

[Aglaea]

Manda wrote: "I have a love hate relationship with GoodReads. I never worry about what to read next, but I fear that I will never clear out my TBR list. However, there are all of you guys too :)"

I most certainly will never clear it out! Haha *cries of laughter*, in high school we had lists of books to take note of, if not read, and I found a few of them when cleaning in the basement. Those alone contain at least a few hundred books... And new books are written each year. And then we have me reading under 100 books this year... I'm just trying to figure out the most acute TBR classics, then maybe ignore the rest and move on to younger works.

Currently my biggest issue is to read dead-tree books, then get rid of what I won't re-read or pass on to anyone (because I recommended it to them).

[Aglaea]

My Popsugar list

I've already started reading these.

1. A book based on a Fairy Tale:
Cinder by Marissa Meyer

2. A National Book Award winner:
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

3. A YA bestseller:
The Heir (The Selection #4) by Kiera Cass

4. A book you haven't read since high school:
Neuromancer by William Gibson

5. A book set in your home state:
Drakarna över Helsingfors by Kjell Westö

6. A book translated into English:
The Pilgrimage by Paulo Coelho

7. A romance set in the future:
Misled by Sylvia Day

8. A book set in Europe:
Blackberry Wine by Joanne Harris

9. A book that's under 150 pages:
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

10. A New York Times bestseller:
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri

11. A book that's becoming a Movie in 2016:
Allegiant by Veronica Roth

12. A book recommended by someone you've just met:
Bröderna Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

13. A self-improvement book:
Finding Your Own North Star by Martha Beck

14. A book you can finish in a day:
The Diary of Adam and Eve by Mark Twain

15. A book written by a celebrity:
My Life on the Road by Gloria Steinem

16. A political memoir:
Marskalkens Minnen by Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim

17. A book at least 100 years older than you:
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

18. A book more than 600 pages:
Sinuhe egyptiläinen by Mika Waltari

19. A book from Oprah's Book Club:
A New Earth: Create a Better Life by Eckhart Tolle

20. A Science Fiction novel:
The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut

21. A book recommended by a family member:
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

22. A Graphic Novel:
The Gabriel Set-Up by Peter O'Donnell and Jim Holdaway

23. A book that is published in 2016:
All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders

24. A book with a protagonist who has your occupation:
Gone are the Leaves by Anne Donovan

25. A book that takes place during Summer:
Puccini's Ghosts. Morag Joss by Morag Joss

26.&27. A book and its prequel:
The Novice and The High Lord by Trudy Canavan

28. A murder mystery:
Pardonable Lies by Jacqueline Winspear

29. A book written by a comedian:
Bossypants by Tina Fey

30. A dystopian novel:
Kallocain by Karin Boye

31. A book with a blue Cover:
Three Men on a Plane by Mavis Cheek

32. A book of Poetry:
Pilvenvarjo by Solveig von Schoultz

33. The 1st book you see in a bookstore:
The Chaos of Stars by Kiersten White

34. A classic from the 20th century:
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

35. A book from the library:
Copper Girl by Jennifer Allis Provost

36. An autobiography:
The Woman I Wanted to Be by Diane von Furstenberg

37. A book about a road trip:
It's. Nice. Outside. by Jim Kokoris

38. A book about a culture you're unfamiliar with:
Luutohtorin tytär by Amy Tan

39. A satirical book:
The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett

40. A book that takes place on an island:
The Island Escape by Kerry Fisher

41. A book guaranteed to bring you joy:
Something Fresh by P.G. Wodehouse

[Zaz]

For the road trip, I don't know how you feel about children books but The Honest Truth was a very good read for me (the road trip is to achieve the dream of a very ill boy).
I read Jobs this year, it's a good high-tech evolution book, but I wasn't really convinced by it as a memoir.
Good luck with Allegiant, it was really the one I liked the least in the series!

[Aglaea]

Zaz wrote: "For the road trip, I don't know how you feel about children books but The Honest Truth was a very good read for me (the road trip is to achieve the dream of a very ill boy).
I read ..."

Thanks, will look at that! Already TBRed the Kamikaze suggested by hmm Sophie I think, but I might not find it here.

Argh Allegiant, I already starter it, read a few pages and was so underwhelmed that I came to a halt. Have been for months already and need to borrow it again from the library.