Woohoo! Another successful year of actually sticking to my new years resolution!
My original goal was to read at least 1 book a month. For almost every month I went above and beyond that with reading multiple books! December has turned out to be one of the more successful months!
There are some books that as you start, they introduce you to the characters, set the scene, and it's very easy to follow. Others seem to throw you into a story and you have to try your best to understand what's happening. The latter is how Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta is. At first I worried I wasn't going to piece together everything, but figured I'd just keep reading and hoping it all fell into place. And boy did it! I ended up really loving this book and not wanting to put it down! Set in Australia (which was awesome to begin with although it did have me googling Australian slang a couple times to make sure I knew what a character was saying) and based around Taylor Markham who is trying to figure out who she is just as much as the reader. It's a fun story of how people who shouldn't really get along, end up putting their differences aside, and how their story is connected back to a similar group of teenagers 20 years prior. As the reader you are able to figure some things out before Taylor does, but you are still left wondering how everything is going to resolve itself.
Next up was Night by Elie Wiesel which I have heard quite a bit about, but never read. Night is the story of Elie Wiesel's time as a 12 year old Jew and being taken to concentration camps during WW2. It is a fairly quick read, but has so much to it! This is his story following him over the course of a couple years being in a ghetto, transported by train, what it was like at various concentration camps, and being marched for miles in the snow. Some of what I found most interesting is when Elie would reference his faith. As a devout Jew he studied and asked questions to learn more about his religion as a child, and during the book you almost forget that background until he makes a couple passing remarks from hating God for allowing this cruelty, to moments when suddenly a prayer of praise comes to his mind even in the darkest of times.
Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah was just a quick spur of the moment decision. I had read other books by Hannah and figured why not read another. I didn't expect this book to go as deep and pull me in as much as it did. Even though I swear I didn't know-this book also takes to WW2. This time however you learn about what it was like in part of Russia. A fascinating part of this book was looking at the familial relations between a mother who was always very cold and distant to her 2 daughters. This is a family that is held together by the father who passes away and leaves the rest of the family trying to figure out how to relate to each other without him. My mother was not cold or distant, but the conversations that the mother and daughters end up having with each other in this book are inspiring and something I hope to have the courage to begin having with my family.
I always knew this month I would read at least 1 book because every year when I'm at my parents for the holidays I read my favorite book A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle. I always love the adventure and science fiction. The characters travel to other worlds, meet different species, and stand up to The Dark Thing which is trying to take over planets. Oddly I don't own this book myself. It keeps me from reading it constantly and getting worn out on it. Just reading once a year is like a present I give myself. Didn't disappoint this year either. Still love it!
This next book took all of no time to read as it is written on a elementary school level, but I'm a sucker for The Boxcar Children! As part of my Christmas present my sister gave me The Animal Shelter Mystery by Gertrude Chandler Warner which is #22 in the series. As a kid I couldn't get enough of these books!! Four kids going around solving mysteries and basically being awesome. Granted they were far to independent for their own good. And I question their grandfather for letting them go off on their own so much, and the responsibility everyone around them gives them. But that's just my adult self going a bit to far. My inner child was enjoying the story and figuring out who done it.
The last full book of 2014 was The Children Act by Ian McEwan. Found this one by googling top books of 2014. I honestly am not sure which list it came from, just that it caught my eye. It was a good book to pass the time, but not one that I found awe inspiring or touching. Focused around a High Court judge and a specific case that has longer lasting effects then when she makes her decision. I was drawn in because this case was one in which the family doesn't want to pursue medical treatment for their son due to religious beliefs, but by not pursuing the treatment, the child would die. Does the judge side with religious wishes, or deciding to save the kid. Meanwhile just to add to the drama, the judge's marriage is also on the rocks. It was an interesting story and enjoyable, but I don't know if I would have put it with the top books of 2014.
Books Read in 2014:
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Wild by Cheryl Strayed
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Burned by Ellen Hopkins
Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
A Grief Observed by CS Lewis
The Monument Men by Robert Edsel
The Nazi Officer's Wife by Edith Beer
Out of Africa and Shadows on the Grass Isak Dinesen
And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Looking for Alaska by John Green
When Life Comes Undone by TJ Addington
Number the Stars by Lois Lowery
Angels and Demons by Dan Brown
Where There's Smoke by Jodi Picoult
A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
Black and Blue by Anna Quindlen
The Peppered Moth by Margaret Drabble
The Magicians by Lev Grossman
Charlotte Gray by Sebastian Faulks
Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult
Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta
Night by Elie Wiesel
Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
The Animal Shelter Mystery by Gertrude Chandler Warner
The Children Act by Ian McEwan
My original goal was to read at least 1 book a month. For almost every month I went above and beyond that with reading multiple books! December has turned out to be one of the more successful months!
There are some books that as you start, they introduce you to the characters, set the scene, and it's very easy to follow. Others seem to throw you into a story and you have to try your best to understand what's happening. The latter is how Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta is. At first I worried I wasn't going to piece together everything, but figured I'd just keep reading and hoping it all fell into place. And boy did it! I ended up really loving this book and not wanting to put it down! Set in Australia (which was awesome to begin with although it did have me googling Australian slang a couple times to make sure I knew what a character was saying) and based around Taylor Markham who is trying to figure out who she is just as much as the reader. It's a fun story of how people who shouldn't really get along, end up putting their differences aside, and how their story is connected back to a similar group of teenagers 20 years prior. As the reader you are able to figure some things out before Taylor does, but you are still left wondering how everything is going to resolve itself.
Next up was Night by Elie Wiesel which I have heard quite a bit about, but never read. Night is the story of Elie Wiesel's time as a 12 year old Jew and being taken to concentration camps during WW2. It is a fairly quick read, but has so much to it! This is his story following him over the course of a couple years being in a ghetto, transported by train, what it was like at various concentration camps, and being marched for miles in the snow. Some of what I found most interesting is when Elie would reference his faith. As a devout Jew he studied and asked questions to learn more about his religion as a child, and during the book you almost forget that background until he makes a couple passing remarks from hating God for allowing this cruelty, to moments when suddenly a prayer of praise comes to his mind even in the darkest of times.
Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah was just a quick spur of the moment decision. I had read other books by Hannah and figured why not read another. I didn't expect this book to go as deep and pull me in as much as it did. Even though I swear I didn't know-this book also takes to WW2. This time however you learn about what it was like in part of Russia. A fascinating part of this book was looking at the familial relations between a mother who was always very cold and distant to her 2 daughters. This is a family that is held together by the father who passes away and leaves the rest of the family trying to figure out how to relate to each other without him. My mother was not cold or distant, but the conversations that the mother and daughters end up having with each other in this book are inspiring and something I hope to have the courage to begin having with my family.
I always knew this month I would read at least 1 book because every year when I'm at my parents for the holidays I read my favorite book A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle. I always love the adventure and science fiction. The characters travel to other worlds, meet different species, and stand up to The Dark Thing which is trying to take over planets. Oddly I don't own this book myself. It keeps me from reading it constantly and getting worn out on it. Just reading once a year is like a present I give myself. Didn't disappoint this year either. Still love it!
This next book took all of no time to read as it is written on a elementary school level, but I'm a sucker for The Boxcar Children! As part of my Christmas present my sister gave me The Animal Shelter Mystery by Gertrude Chandler Warner which is #22 in the series. As a kid I couldn't get enough of these books!! Four kids going around solving mysteries and basically being awesome. Granted they were far to independent for their own good. And I question their grandfather for letting them go off on their own so much, and the responsibility everyone around them gives them. But that's just my adult self going a bit to far. My inner child was enjoying the story and figuring out who done it.
The last full book of 2014 was The Children Act by Ian McEwan. Found this one by googling top books of 2014. I honestly am not sure which list it came from, just that it caught my eye. It was a good book to pass the time, but not one that I found awe inspiring or touching. Focused around a High Court judge and a specific case that has longer lasting effects then when she makes her decision. I was drawn in because this case was one in which the family doesn't want to pursue medical treatment for their son due to religious beliefs, but by not pursuing the treatment, the child would die. Does the judge side with religious wishes, or deciding to save the kid. Meanwhile just to add to the drama, the judge's marriage is also on the rocks. It was an interesting story and enjoyable, but I don't know if I would have put it with the top books of 2014.
Books Read in 2014:
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Wild by Cheryl Strayed
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Burned by Ellen Hopkins
Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
A Grief Observed by CS Lewis
The Monument Men by Robert Edsel
The Nazi Officer's Wife by Edith Beer
Out of Africa and Shadows on the Grass Isak Dinesen
And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Looking for Alaska by John Green
When Life Comes Undone by TJ Addington
Number the Stars by Lois Lowery
Angels and Demons by Dan Brown
Where There's Smoke by Jodi Picoult
A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
Black and Blue by Anna Quindlen
The Peppered Moth by Margaret Drabble
The Magicians by Lev Grossman
Charlotte Gray by Sebastian Faulks
Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult
Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta
Night by Elie Wiesel
Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
The Animal Shelter Mystery by Gertrude Chandler Warner
The Children Act by Ian McEwan
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