In 2015, I set myself the goal of reading one book a week, or 52 books in a year. As you may remember, I failed at that, but still managed to read 41 books in total. The catch was that I could only read books I'd never read before, which put both a strain on my finance, and made me ache for some the books I wanted to reread, but wasn't allowed to. And also, I didn't really have the time to finish a book each week, with the size of the novels I was reading (The discovery of heaven just takes a couple of weeks, at best).
This year, I did not set myself any reading goals, but I did keep track of ever book I read. Just a short list at the back of my agenda, which worked well for me in 2015, and again so this year. I think this is a habit I will keep, as it is nice to see how much you've read, but also which novels. On one of the first days of this year, I made some lists about what I'd read in 2015, and as I'm pretty sure I won't finish any books in 2016 anymore, I will now do the same for this year.
In total, I read 21 books, which feels about right for a 'normal' year in which I wasn't trying to push any particular number. Looking back on the list I had some "wow, did I read that this year?" moments, for books which feel like they've been inhabitants of my bookcases for years. Other books I'd simply completely forgotten about. and some I will never forget about. Some I've written about extensively, others I've apparently never mentioned here.
This is the complete list for 2016:
1 Grief is the thing with feathers
2 The Art of Asking
3 Bonita Avenue
4 A God in Ruins
5 Pluche
6 As in tas
7 De verwarde cavia
8 Anna Karenina
9 Me before you
10 The Martian
11 Slade House
12 In the light of what we know
13 Magnus
14 A little life
15 After you
16 Northern lights
17 On Chesil Beach
18 Amsterdam
19 The buried giant
20 Mothering Sunday
21 Nutshell
Some differences from 2015: there are two rereads in this list (both by Ian McEwan), and there are more Dutch books, relatively speaking. Only three non-fiction books. Fewer classics.
So, to destill some lists (of just the newly read books):
Best English novel
1 A God in Ruins
2 Mothering Sunday
3 Nutshell
This was a difficult one. I read a lot of great books this year, and one would probably expect the much-praised A little life or In the light of what we know to be in this list too. However, this year has confirmed for me that I love two things in novels: small, intimate plots, and what we shall call 'literary' language. This explains for Mothering Sunday and Nutshell, which are both very small, very literarily written (yes, that is a word), and take place in the space of a single day or a single womb. And A God in Ruins (can you believe I'd actually forgotten I read that book this year?) is just beautiful. Kate Atkinson previously wrote Life after life, which was great too, but this (sort of) sequel is even beter. I cried when I finished it, probably the only book I cried about apart from Slade House (and Me before you, if I'm to believe what I've written before). I'd never expected two 'new' authors to jump ahead of my beloved Ian McEwan, but Nutshell just wasn't good enough for the competition.
Best Dutch novel
I'm supposed to put a list here, but really, I didn't like any of the Dutch novels I read this year. Bonita Avenue is hailed as some sort of magnus opus, while being a debut, but I didn't really see it. Magnus is by one of my favourite comedians, but it wasn't all that great. De verwarde cavia was just cheap. It was a sad year for Dutch literature in my list.
Best non-fiction (whichever language)
1 Pluche
2 The Art of Asking
3 As in tas
None of these were really great, but As in tas is really just cashing in on the author's father's dead, while I've written enough about what is wrong with The Art of Asking in another post. Pluche is the memoirs of one of my favourite politicians, and while not perfect, definitely the best of this lot.
Best fantasy/scifi novel
1 The Martian
2 The buried giant
3 Slade House
The Martian is definitely one of the best realistic scifi novels I've read in a long time. It is funny, dramatic, scientifically realistic, and as I'd already seen the movie, I kept picturing Matt Damon, which is pretty nice too. The buried giant is the most unlikely fantasy novel I've ever read, deeper and darker than I'd expected. I would not normally put a David Mitchell novel at the bottom of a list, but Slade House was just too short, and it felt a bit too rushed. Like he wanted to get a short novel out there before going on to one of his normally much lager ones. Let's hope we get one of those in 2017.
Most disappointing novel
1 After you
2 De verwarde cavia
3 A little life
Funny how much a book can disappoint you even when you aren't really expecting anything great from it. After you is the sequal to Me before you, and it doesn't get any more cliche. Really, don't read it. De verwarde cavia was self-published by one of my favourite comedians and non-fiction writers, so I had my hopes up, but it is really about nothing. fluff. Wasted time. I feel almost ashamed for putting A little life in this list, because it has been so acclaimed, and everybody loves it. And I loved it too, the first two-thirds of it. Then it just got too... not gruesome, although I've heard enough people say that too. It just got too lost in it's own plot. The author really wanted to complete the whole 'life', and as such threw in a lot of stuff that a good editor would have taken out again. Really, at 60% of the pages, a more condensed, focussed story would have made for a better novel. So this novel really became a disappointment as I was reading it, and if it hadn't been for the final 200 pages, this book would be at the top of my "Best English novels" list. Funnily enough, when I wrote about it earlier, I was far more positive about this novel, so apparently my opinion changed radically in hindsight.
And finally, because I put it in last year:
Authors I read more than once
- Ian McEwan (3x)
- Jojo Moyes (2x)
Like last year, one of my favourite authors is the most-read one (last year it was David Mitchell and Dave Nicholls). I could do a McEwan top 3 (On Chesil Beach, Nutshell, Amsterdam) but really, who does that sort of thing?
