Reading Year in Review, 2017

I read 53 books in 2017. That’s about average for me since I’ve kept track on Goodreads.

I rated 8 books five-stars:

• Pachinko, by Min Jin Lee
• The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye, by Sonny Liew (and OMG, Sonny “liked” my review!)
• The Fifth Season and The Stone Sky, by N.K. Jemisin
• Stories of Your Life and Others, by Ted Chiang
• Player’s Handbook (for 5th Edition D&D)
• Letter on Ethics, by Seneca
• House of Debt, Atif Mian and Amir Sufi

In particular, the “Broken Earth” trilogy by N.K. Jemisin (the two above plus The Obelisk Gate, which I only gave four stars) really rekindled my faith in fantasy as a genre that can tell fresh and important stories. I also got to see Min Jin Lee and N.K. Jemisin speak at events!

After making a concerted (and successful) effort to read 50% women authors in 2016, I didn’t keep that as a goal for 2017, and boy did I fall miserably low. I think my 2017 reading was only about 25% women or so. But three of my 5-star books were by women!

I thought it would be interesting to try to group my reading into categories and see where my emphasis was. I don’t think any of the results are too surprising. I was a little surprised to see that I only read one grown-up non-graphic novel outside of sci-fi and fantasy (which was Pachinko, one of my favorite books of the year!).

Sci-Fi and Fantasy (10)

• The Fifth Season, N.K. Jemisin
• The Obelisk Gate, N.K. Jemisin
• The Stone Sky, N.K. Jemisin
• Stories of Your Life and Others, Ted Chiang
• The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
• La Belle Sauvage, Philip Pullman (read aloud)
• Dracula, Bram Stoker
• The Vampyre, John William Polidori (more of a short story really)
• The Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss
• Trekonomics, Manu Saadia

Politics and Economics (7)

• House of Debt, Atif Mian and Amir Sufi
• The Rise and Fall of American Growth, Robert Gordon
• A People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn
• Winner-Take-All Politics, Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson
• The Chickenshit Club, Jesse Eisinger
• No Is Not Enough, Naomi Klein
• The ABCs of Socialism, various

Philosophy (6)

• Letters on Ethics, Seneca
• Midlife: A Philosophical Guide, Kieran Setiya
• Reasons and Persons, Derek Parfit
• From Bacteria to Bach and Back, Daniel Dennett
• The Tao is Silent, Raymond Smullyan
• The Importance of Living, Lin Yutang

Memoir (6)

• Born A Crime, Trevor Noah
• Dancing Barefoot, Wil Wheaton (audiobook)
• Just A Geek, Wil Wheaton (audiobook)
• The Outermost House, Henry Beston
• The Princess Diarist, Carrie Fisher
• Al Franken, Giant of the Senate, Al Franken (audiobook)

Essays (5)

• Essays, Wallace Shawn
• Night Thoughts, Wallace Shawn
• Men Explain Things To Me, Rebecca Solnit
• The Mother of All Questions, Rebecca Solnit
• Essays After Eighty, Donald Hall

D&D Sourcebooks (4)

• Player’s Handbook
• Dungeon Master’s Guide
• Xanathar’s Guide to Everything
• Curse of Strahd

Short Stories (2)

• The Refugees, Viet Thanh Nguyen
• Men Without Women, Haruki Murakami (audiobook)

Novels (1)

• Pachinko, Min Jin Lee

Graphic Novels/Comic Books (2)

• The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye, Sonny Liew
• Preludes and Nocturnes (Sandman), Neil Gaiman

Poetry (1)

• A Small Porch, Wendell Berry

Cookbooks (2)

• Run Fast, Eat Slow, Shalane Flanagan and Elyse Kopecky
• Faviken, Magnus Nilsson

Children’s Books (1)

• The Best Bear in All The World, various (audiobook)

Other Nonfiction (5)

• Goodbye, Things, Fumio Sasaki
• Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman (audiobook, ironically)
• Thinking in Systems, Donella Meadows
• The Run of His Life, Jeffrey Toobin
• Deep Work, Cal Newport