Books of 2016- Installment #22

106. The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin
Wow! Great book! The reviews that I read said that lots of books are set in bookstores but most of the time it doesn't matter. Not so with this book. And they were right! This is a wonderful story where the characters' love of books is a delight! I loooooove this book!!

107. The Order of the Trees by Katy Farber
This was a lovely complement to The Hidden Life of Trees that I read earlier this month. It is a fictional story about the saving of some woods.

108. The Dream-Quest of Vellit Boe by Kij Johnson
This novella was a revisit of HP Lovecraft's The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, which I haven't read. I think that the story is interesting without knowing the source material, but I imagine it would be a deeper experience with familiarity with the Lovecraft story. It is a journey, a quest, between two worlds. Personally, my favorite parts were of the cat, that reminds me of my own little Phryne Bear. They are both lithe black kitties with green eyes.

109. Queen of the Flowers by Kerry Greenwood
Speaking of Phryne, the next book I read was book 14 in the Phryne Fisher mystery series. Such a wonderful world to spend time in. Quite a treat and a lovely end to my 2016 reading.

Trixie and the Moai 2016 Awards

I am so excited to present the first ever Trixie and the Moai Awards!!!

I read over 100 books in 2016, so there were a lot of books to choose from. But that gave me time and perspective. These books are of different genres (historical, science fiction, literary fiction) and different settings (Massachusetts in the 1600s, Taiwan and the Pacific, England, India and Africa in the future, and present-day Massachusetts). In the end I chose the 5 books that stay with me.

Without further ado, here are the award-winning books of 2016, listed in the order I read them!! 

2016 Finalists for the Trixie and the Moai Book Award

 I was looking at this book that I had just read. It was a wonderful book and had numerous awards. That got me thinking about awards. Basically book awards are given to amazing books but only those books that catch the attention of people giving awards. There are thousands upon thousands of books published each year. And just because a book doesn't get an award, doesn't mean it doesn't deserve an award!

So I've decided that I'm going to give 5 awards to the books I read this year that seem the most amazing. Books that I can't let go of or rather books that can't let me go...

It's totally arbitrary and nothing comes with the award but a little "sticker" I made to go on them. But I still want to recognize the amazing books I read this year.

So without further ado these are the finalists for the first annual Trixie and the Moai Book Award!

Stiff competition!!!

I will soon pick the top five books of the year!!

Books of 2016- Installment #21

101. The Art of Confidence by Wendy Lee
Eric's cousin wrote this book, so we were thrilled to read. It's really quite good and I like how she wove together the different voices.

102. The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben
I love trees and always angered by our mistreatment of them. This book gives vent to that anger. He does at some point discuss the amount of carbon dioxide trees use- before prehistoric forests existed the levels were 9 times what they are now. Here's a little video to look at current activity....

103. Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire
This fantasy novel is about a changeling private detective. When I first heard about  it, I thought it bore a striking resemblance to Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden series, but in reality there's not much that's the same. 

104. Signal to Noise by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Set primarily in the late 80s but as flashbacks from 2009, this is an interesting story on teen life. I'm not sure how to classify this book. Perhaps it could be viewed as a young adult book. Perhaps fantasy. My initial reaction is to say it's like an angry Eleanor and Park with magic. With all the references I feel like this isn't really a YA book but rather a Gen-Xer book. And as a Gen-Xer that's fine by me! (Incidentally I found this book because I was interested in her other book Certain Dark Things, which is definitely on my to read list...It's got vampires!!)

 
105. The Ghost and the Ghostyard
This is a paranormal bodice ripper, set nominally in New Hampshire. There are a couple of ghosts but also witches, vampires and zombies. I quite enjoyed the beginning, but I don't think I will continue the series...

Books of 2016- Installment #20

96. Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson
 This is a book of nonfiction- not my normal fare but interesting nonetheless. The author has several disorders that impact her well-being, but she wants to live her life furiously happy and this book is a collection of her essays on her pursuit of living furiously happily.

97. Bird Box by Josh Malerman
This book was gripping! I really devoured it! It's a thriller, though I saw it listed as horror somewhere. I really was taken in by the story. I couldn't help but wonder how one could handle this new world... And I keep thinking that we have practically no canned food and what a problem that would be...

98. The Chaos of Stars by Kiersten White
This is a young adult novel about a teen grappling with a life with Egyptian Gods for parents. I read a lot of criticism for this book online, and I would say she's an unhappy teen who is having difficulty dealing with a situation. Perhaps you don't want to spend time with a narrator like that, but I don't think the character was annoying, just struggling.

99. Speak by Louisa Hall
I'm not sure what to say about this book. I'm really glad I read it. It had a lot of really interesting motifs. It doesn't really answer any questions, and I can tell you what I read, but I'm not sure I can tell you what the book was about. The best thing I can tell you is this book was written in response to an article asking if machines could think, would we know.

100. The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
This book was described as a comedic space opera. I did not agree. I did find it an enjoyable read, but a slow one. This one a world building book, a journey book, which means you need to sit with the characters and the world.

Books of 2016- Installment #19

91. The Book of Kells by R.A. MacAvoy
This is book was written in 1985 and for some reason was never really on my radar. I can't say why I suddenly "discovered" it, but its premise intrigued me... an artist and his lover time travel into the past to avenge a viking attack... I wondered how the Book of Kells figured into this. It was an interesting read... I learned quite a bit about Irish history... well, tenth century history anyway. I did find the beginning hard to follow, but once the book was over, I kept finding myself drifting back into the past and wondering what was happening now. A book that doesn't leave you...

92. Hot Toy by Jennifer Crusie
I love Jennifer Cruise! This is a novella that I somehow missed. It's a quick, fun little read, it a little early for Christmas what with Thanksgiving still on its way.

93. The Red Garden by Alice Hoffman
I love Alice Hoffman's writing. I keep going back to her when I need a little something that's missing. I grew up in New England and many of her books, like this one, are set in Massachusetts. And there are times, like in this book, when I'm completely transported back to New England. She has this one sentence about the black-eyed Susans and I'm instantly back in my childhood, seeing things anew. Ah, the power of a book...

I picked this quote because in these tumultuous times- post 2016 election/pre-Trump inauguration- I thought this quote appropriate...

94. A Thousand Pieces of You by Claudia Gray
This is a multiverse trilogy, which made me think about Dark Matter since I just read that this year too. It's very different and basically the only thing they share in common is jumping between verses. The authors handled the how differently. This one was lighter and definitely aimed more at young adults.

95. The Book of Speculation by Erika Swyler
 This is a really interesting family story that spans generations in one family. It's about familial bonds and how they can bind us and tear us up. Very interesting.

Books of 2016- Installment #18

86. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
October is the perfect month to read this. Now, it's a graded reader that I read to do with my students, so while it's not the original, I've read it 3 times this month!!

87. The Selkie Bride by Melanie Jackson
This is a story set in the 1920s about an American woman of Scottish descent who moves to a Scottish isle after her Scottish husband's death. She finds a world full of creatures from the world of the fey. She (mostly) embraces this life without modern (and think the 20s idea of modern) conveniences and eventually adjusts whole-heartedly to a life with fey. 

88. This Shattered World by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner
This is the second novel in the trilogy but the third story. There's a novella between These Broken Stars and this one. I really enjoyed the first two stories and just devoured this one. It was a rainy weekend and I hadn't been able to read much this month. I want to dive into the third one but will read at least one book between them because I like to linger for awhile before moving forward.

89. Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
This book has been getting a lot of buzz, so I put a copy on hold. I didn't think much about it since I was just waiting for it to come. Shortly before it came I discovered that it was written by the author of the Wayward Pines series, which I didn't enjoy and was almost unwilling to read this one because of my feelings. Still once I had it on my Kindle I decided to read at least the first chapter. I was quite hooked, so even though I read some truly mixed reviews about it, I read it to the end!

A side note, I don't usually quote the quoting of someone else in a book, and I usually try not to pick a quote from the literal beginning of a book, but this one is so good. Good on its own but also good for the book. He chose wisely when he began his book with this one!

 














90. Their Fractured Light by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner  
This is the conclusion the Starbound series. I definitely loved this series, and it ends in a wonderful way. I will say, though, that the first one was my favorite. Still, I can't help but be moved by the quote, "To be alone in this universe is an emptiness none of us could bear." This resonates with me rather deeply.