Shelfari 50 Book Challenge discussion

I wasn't going to do a list this year because there are so few of us, but how can I break with tradition.

Please list your favorite books of the year in the following format

FULL TITLE - AUTHOR

Please don't number your list.

My example follows.

White Noise - Don DeLillo
Hot Milk - Deborah Levy
Just Kids - Patti Smith
Fates and Furies - Lauren Groff
Work Like Any Other - Virginia Reeves
My Name is Lucy Barton - Elizabeth Strout
The Nightingale - Kristin Hannah
Zero K - Don DeLillo
1984 - George Orwell
The Sellout - Paul Beatty


(incidentally, Lincoln in the Bardo is my first 2017 favorite.)

The Plague of Doves - Louise Erdrich
Othello - William Shakespeare
The Last Star - Rick Yancey
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Special Topics in Calamity Physics - Marisha Pessl
Practical Magic - Alice Hoffman
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
Odd Interlude - Dean Koontz
The Stranger - Albert Camus
We Are All Completely Besides Ourselves - Karen Joy Fowler

It as a weak reading year, hopefully 2017 will be better, in all the ways, for all of us.

Cry, The Beloved Country - Alan Paton
What Did You Expect - Paul David Tripp
Screwtape Letters - C.S. Lewis
Out of the Silent Planet - C.S. Lewis
The Wright Brothers - David McCullough
Awe - Paul David Tripp
Gilead - Marilyn Robinson
JRR Tolkien - Humphrey Carpenter
The Fiddler's Gun - A.S. Peterson
Julius Caesar - William Shakespeare

My Top Ten:

These were my Top 5 star reads this year:

The Nix - Nathan Hill
The Tsar of Love and Techno - Anthony Marra
The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
The Underground Railroad - Colson Whitehead
The Lilac Girls - Martha Hall Kelly
A Gentleman in Moscow - Amor Towles
The Trespasser - Tana French
My Name is Lucy Barton - Elizabeth Strout
Homegoing - Yaa Gyasi
End of Watch - Stephen King


Favorite book this year is The Nix

1224 - Anne Holt
The House of the Scorpion - Nancy Farmer
Ruby Red Heart in a Cold Blue Sea - Morgan Callan Rogers
The Flood Girls - Richard Fitfield
Year of Wonders - Geraldine Brooks
The Kind Worth Killing - Peter Swanson
The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
Happier at Home - Gretchen Rubin
Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt
Dark Matter - Blake Crouch

Favorite - The Kind Worth Killing - Peter Swanson

Before the Fall - Noah Hawley
Commonwealth - Ann Patchett
Once We Were Brothers - Ronald H. Balson
Dead Aim - Thomas Perry
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind - William Kamkwamba
A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat - Edward Kelsey Moore
The Wrong Side of Goodbye - Michael Connelly
Auntie Mame: An Irreverent Escapade - Patrick Dennis
Walking Dead - Greg Rucka

Bird Box - Josh Malerman
A Little Life - Hanya Yanagihara
Orphan Train - Christina Baker Kline
The Girls - Lori Lansens
Imagine Me Gone - Adam Haslett
The Assistants - Camille Perri
The Romanov Sisters - Helen Rappaport
Child 44 - Tom Rob Smith
Playing with Fire - Tess Gerritsen
The Hidden Life of Trees - Peter Wohlleben

The Alchemy of Stone - Ekaterina Sedia
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula Le Guin
All the Light We Cannot See - Anthony Doerr
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson
A Canticle for Leibowitz - Walter M Miller Jr.
Between the World and Me - Ta-Nehisi Coates
Tattoos on the Heart - Gregory Boyle
The Boys in the Boat - Daniel James Brown
Just Mercy - Bryan Stevenson

My 5-star picks
The Oregon Trail - Rinker Buck
All the Light We Cannot See - Anthony Doerr
Small Great Things - Jodi Picoult
Purity - Jonathon Franzen
When Breath Becomes Air - Paul Kalanithi

Catherine Kuss

Vanessa wrote: "It as a weak reading year, hopefully 2017 will be better, in all the ways, for all of us..."

AMEN!

A Gentleman in Moscow - Amor Towles
To the Bright Edge of the World - Eowyn Ivey
The Lions of Al Rassan - Guy Gavriel Kay
The Tsar of Love and Techno - Anthony Maar
Memory Wall - Anthony Doerr
The Last Painting of Sara de Vos - Smith
Crooked Heart - Lissa Evans
A Room of One’s Own - Virginia Woolf
A Song for Arbonne - Guy Gavriel Kay
And the Mountains Echoed - Khaled Hosseini

My top 10
The Invention of wings - Sue Monk Kidd
Me Before You - Jojo Moyes
Eleanor & Park - Rainbow Rowell
The Good Girl - Mary Kubica
Pretty Baby - Mary Kubica
A Man callled Ove - Fredrik Bachman
The Girl You left Behind - Jojo Moyes
The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennesy - Rachel Joyce
11/22/63 - Stephen King
Looking for Alaska - John Green

Favorite Book this year: Eleanor & Park or The Girl you Left Behind

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
All The Light We Cannot See Anthony Doerr
Closed Your Eyes, Hold Hands by Chris Bohjalian
Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
Best Boy by Eli Gottlieb
A Great Reckoning by Louise Penny
A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

The Nix - Nathan Hill
The Story of a New Name - Elena Ferrante
The Children of Men - P.D. James
The North Water - Ian McGuire
The Shining Girls - Lauren Beukes
The Underground Railroad - Colson Whitehead
When Breath Becomes Air - Paul Kalanithi
The Wonder - Emma Donoghue
White Teeth - Zadie Smith
Dreamland - Sam Quinones

All the Names - Jose Saramago
The Nightingale - Kristin Hannah
The Light Between Oceans - M. L. Stedman
11/22/63 - Stephen King
The Girl You Left Behind - Jojo Moyes
The Boys in the Boat - Daniel James Brown
Sarah's Key - Tatiana de Rosnay
Still Life - Louise Penny
The Hangman's Daughter - Oliver Potzsch
A Sudden Light - Garth Stein

Interference - Amalie Anotione
Boys in the Boat - James Brown Daniels
I Let You Go - Clare Macintosh
Behind Closed Doors - BA Paris
The Food of Love - Amanda Prowse
The Longest Ride - Nicolas Sparks
In a Dark, Dark Wood - Ruth Ware
The Woman in Cabin 10 - Ruth Ware
The Christmas Joy Ride - Melody Carlson
Beyond the Carousel - Bette Lee Crosby

Thanks for doing this Nicole, I look forward to the list every year

So glad you are keeping up the tradition; I rely on this list for new reads every year!

I reduced my goal midway through the year when work got out of hand but still had some good ones in my reduced list.

The Nightingale - Kristin Hannah
Red Queen - Victoria Aveyard
This Is Where It Ends - Marieke Nijkamp
The Girl Who Wrote in Silk - Kelli Estes
The Shoemaker's Wife - Adriana Trigiani
The Dressmaker - Rosalie Ham
How to Start a Fire - Lisa Lutz
The Forgotten Sister - Jennifer Paynter
Cinder - Marissa Meyer
The Muralist - BA Shapiro

Thank you for doing this list again. My life got crazy after August and I am going to try hard to get back to reading and interacting with my groups.

Huck -Janet Elder
A Ghoul's Guide to Love and Murder -Victoria Laurie
Code Talker -Chester Nez
Ranger Confidential -Andrea Lankford
The Prince of Paradise -John Glatt
A Killing in Amish Country by -Gregg Olsen & Rebecca Morris
Mornings With Barney -Dick Wolfsie
Deadly Little Secrets -Kathryn Casey
Skin Game -Jim Butcher
A Grave Prediction -Victoria Laurie

Purity - Jonathan Franzen
Queen of the Night - Alexander Chee
Georgia: A Novel of Georgia O' Keeffe - Dawn Tripp
Seabiscuit: An American Legend - Laura Hillenbrand
A Gentleman in Moscow - Amor Towles
Fates and Furies - Lauren Groff
Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg - Irin Carmon
The Son - Philipp Meyer
Lilac Girls - Martha Hall Kelly
The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness - Sy Montgomery

Angelina's Bachelors - Brian O'Reilly
Agnes and the Hitman - Jennifer Crusie
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Chidlren by Ransom Riggs
Morning Star - Pierce Brown
The Summer Before the War - Helen Simonson

The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern
The Accidental Empress - Allison Pataki
Sisi - Allison Pataki
Truly, Madly, Guilty - Liane Moriarty
The Opposite of Everyone - Joshilyn Jackson

By far my fave was The Night Circus

The Girl Wakes - Carmen Lau
Mr. Splitfoot - Samantha Hunt
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet - Becky Chambers
The Passion - Jeanette Winterson
My Brilliant Friend - Elena Ferrante
Bad Feminist - Roxane Gay
The Obelisk Gate - N.K. Jemisin
Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys
Milk and Honey - Rupi Kaur
Gutshot - Amelia Gray

Seven for a Secret -- Lyndsay Faye
Rain of the Ghosts -- Greg Weisman
The Ancient -- Muriel Gray
The Port Chicago 50 -- Steve Sheinkin
H20 -- Virginia Bergin
Dead Man Walking -- Sister Helen Prejean
Spirits of Ash and Foam: A Rain of the Ghosts Novel -- Greg Weismann
Dad, Tell My Story -- Hugh Butler
Creatures of Appetite -- Todd Travis
Trophies -- Todd Travis

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian - Sherman Alexie
Bone Swans - C.S.E. Cooney
The Serpent - Claire North
Jagannath - Karin Tidbeck
Red Rising - Pierce Brown
The Library at Mount Char - Scott Hawkins
The Scorpion Rules - Erin Bow
The Fifth Season - N. K. Jemisin
The Alloy of Law - Brandon Sanderson
City of Stairs - Robert Jackson Bennett

Orphan Train- Christina Baker Kline
All the Bright Places- Jennifer Niven
Luckiest Girl Alive- Jessica Knoll
Wallbanger- Alice Clayton
All the Light We Cannot See- Anthony Doerr
The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up- Marie Kondo
Ready Player One- Ernest Cline
Dark Places- Gillian Flynn
Confess- Colleen Hoover
Where They Found Her- Kimberly McCreight

Motherless Brooklyn - Jonathan Lethem
The People in the Trees - Hanya Yanagihara
Here I Am - Jonathan Safran Foer
Stoner - John Williams
Plainsong - Kent Haruf
Of Human Bondage - W.Somerset Maugham
1Q84 - Haruki Murakami
Fates and Furies - Lauren Groff
The Fireman - Joe Hill
The Pearl - John Steinbeck

"Antonia's Daughters" by Marlena De Blasi
A Redbird Christmas Fanny Flagg
Circling the Sun Paula McLain

It will be interesting to see how much consensus we get with so few people!

Nicole wrote: "It will be interesting to see how much consensus we get with so few people!"

Fewer people, but looking at the lists over at PBT, I'm wondering if the lack of nested threads is causing fewer people to read the same books. There's still a lot of reading going on, but there seems to be more diversity of titles.

Jgrace wrote: "Nicole wrote: "It will be interesting to see how much consensus we get with so few people!"

Fewer people, but looking at the lists over at PBT, I'm wondering if the lack of nested threads is causi..."

The lack of nesting has made a huge impact on everything.

Nicole wrote: "Jgrace wrote: "Nicole wrote: "It will be interesting to see how much consensus we get with so few people!"

Fewer people, but looking at the lists over at PBT, I'm wondering if the lack of nested t..."

I agree ;(

Jgrace wrote: "Nicole wrote: "It will be interesting to see how much consensus we get with so few people!"

Fewer people, but looking at the lists over at PBT, I'm wondering if the lack of nested threads is causi..."

Yes, the lack of nested threads has made a huge inpact on my interaction in the groups and the finding books out of my comfort zone. I rely on my fellow book lovers to guide me into the other zones.

Nicole wrote: "The lack of nesting has made a huge impact on everything..."

Totally agree. There is a disconnect here that wasn't an issue at Shelfari. At least there if someone replied to my post it was right there as an actual reply to my post, I didn't need to scroll through numerous replies - that I have no idea what they are in reference to. It is without a doubt the #1 thing I hate about GR. There are many things I like but nested replies should be available.

Ladyslott wrote: "Nicole wrote: "The lack of nesting has made a huge impact on everything..."

Totally agree. There is a disconnect here that wasn't an issue at Shelfari. At least there if someone replied to my post..."

I agree!!!!! So true.