Chaos Reading discussion

Happy New Year! We'd wish you another year of chaos but we needn't waste wishes on what entropy will deliver for free...

If you're in the mood, please do share:
1) The weirdest book you read in 2016
2) The book that exceeded all expectations in 2016
3) A new reading habit you started in 2016
4) Most memorable fictional character from 2016

Fun! Here’s my list, which goes a little off script. But this is Chaos Reading.

Weirdest book (s):
Ana Kai Tangata: Tales of the Outer the Other the Damned and the Doomed and The Vegetarian

Book that exceeded all expectations:
The Fifth Season. Such great world building. Such a perfect structure. So many layers.

New reading habit:
Reading graphic novels / comics on an iPad

Most memorable fictional character(s):
All the members of Roanoke Cabin in Lumberjanes, Vol. 1: Beware the Kitten Holy

Most disappointing book:
House Atreides. All the implied and unspoken things that made Dune so fascinating really needed to stay implied and unspoken.

Writers I read for the first time but will definitely be reading more of:
Charlie Jane Anders
Reza Aslan
Gemma Files
N.K. Jemisin
Han Kang
Karl Ove Knausgaard
Victor LaValle
S.P. Miskowski
Scott Nicolay
Noelle Stevenson
Scott Trembly

The Enchanted and White Noise exceeded any expectations

14 was the weirdest in a good way.

I didn't buy many books and read what I already had on my shelves. (But that lasted until Christmas)

Some of the most memorable characters were : Makepeace from Far North, and Joey from The Lesser Dead

I love reading the answers to these questions! I have to agree that White Noise and The Fifth Season exceeded expectations. 14 looks like a fun read!

Let's see...

Weirdest books:
Attic by Katherine Dunn and Governor of the Homeless (the former weird-but-not-too-enjoyable, the latter good-clean-weird... well, maybe not "clean")

Book that most exceeded expectations:
I think I have to go with Claudia Rankine's Citizen: An American Lyric (the cover caught my eye at the grocery story and I was so moved by the writing, I sat down next to the pharmacy and read half the book right there in the store; kind of a quantum leap from no expectation to being bowled over; I was also unfamiliar with the author, much less the book). Javier Marias's Fever and Spear was a close second (I normally don't get excited about books broken up into a series or parts but I didn't and don't want this one to end).

New reading habit:
Picking almost everything I saw on a whim at the library and borrowed them for as many renewals as allowed. It's like I stopped saying no to anything, which doesn't work because I tend to want to read everything. Will break myself of this habit in 2017 once I get through the 7 books still checked out from the library waiting to be read...

Most memorable fictional character:
I'm not sure I can boil this down to one, so I won't. I'll go with the Bartleby the Scrivener of Korea, Yeong-hye from The Vegetarian, Karl Ove from My Struggle: Book Two: A Man in Love, and Essun from The Fifth Season.

Writers I'll be reading more of:
NK Jemisin
Max Gladstone
Claudia Rankine
Karl Ove Knausgaard
Han Kang
Kent Haruf
Siri Hustvedt
Javier Marias

I would have said The Enchanted as well, but I finished it in 2014. Amazing book. Citizen sounds great, poetry is definitely where I'm lacking in my reading, I'll be getting that one for sure.

The Enchanted has been on my TBR list for a year or so--sounds like it should move up in the priority list!

Lou Ford from The Killer Inside Me stands out as the memorable fictional character of the year. This book is older than I am and it still packs a punch. None of the modern fictional characters either in print or on the various cable shows gets any higher reviews for eerie creepy evil behavior. You'll stay up late with this book!

Two books stand out for weirdness in ways I didn't expect for either one.

Lights Out: A Cyberattack, A Nation Unprepared, Surviving the Aftermath by Ted Koppel and Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again by PEOTUS (at the moment) Donald J. Trump.

Neither one of these books are what they appear to be from reputation or their jacket blurbs. 2016 was such a bizarre year by any scoring system and these two books give a whole new meaning to Hunter S. Thompson's famous phrase: "When the going get weird, the weird turn pro." These two surely fulfill every expectation of that piece of wisdom.

I never thought I'd associate the level of hysteria with Ted Koppel that is evoked in his book. The Trump book is just surprising in every detail and reveals things about his background and character that are unimaginable. True or not the Trump book is worth reading just as a guideline for what to perhaps really expect.

The other two categories I haven't decided if I have entries for yet or not.