As I have for a number of years, I'm posting some numbers of the books I read in 2015.
The basics: in 2015 I completed 29 books, for a total of 8,583 pages. This put me significantly ahead of 2014, when moving five or six times left me only with time to read 19 books, for 6,406 pages, and closer to 2013, when I completed 30 books for 8,903 pages. None of these figures include books I didn't finish, since I'm happy to put a shitty book down if I have any better options.
As for 2015 highs and lows: some of the best books I read included a couple shorts ones by a favorite author, Cormac McCarthy: Child of God, and The Gardener's Son.
Cliche though it may sound, Room by Emma Donoghue was excellent, if dark as fuck. (I have no real interest in seeing the movie.)
I also really enjoyed Paper Towns by John Green, as cute, moving, incisive, if somewhat improbable coming of age fiction. I mean, it's hard to not enjoy a book that has teens doing fairly realistic urban exploration of abandoned buildings.
I also finished some really shitty books, notwithstanding my note above. Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls by David Sedaris was one of the worst books I've ever finished in my life. It's stupid, contrived, forced, and feels like little more than a throw-away to meet a contract with a publisher that people only bought because they like This American Life. I really should have put it down, but it was kind of like rubbernecking a really bad pileup on the interstate: you know you shouldn't look, but you kind of can't help it.
Going Home by "A. American" was just plain fucking bad. I genuinely really like dystopian and post-apocalyptic books (and movies), and I'm willing to put up with some prepper silliness to read the genre. The basic storyline was cliche and trite and predictable, but not in itself terrible. The tinfoil hat conspiracy theory nonsense was... just that. But the most irritating part was the constant, relentless name brand product placement that did zero to advance the story. I swear there are single sentences that contain three or four name brand product placements, like, "I crawled out of my Brand A sleeping bag, pulled my Brand B boots on, grateful for clean Brand C socks, and located my Brand D backpack while chambering a round in my Brand E .45 semi-automatic with Brand F hollowpoints..." And this nonsense went on on nearly every one of the 388 pages. It was awful.
If you wonder if I'm overstating it, you can read Chapter 1 on the book's Amazon page. Here's one example:
"Lying beside the driver’s seat by the door was my ESEE 5; I laid it on the pile. I put the Devildog on the pile as well. As my EDC, it had a number of things in it that I would need. There were two spare mags for the XD, an Otis tactical cleaning kit, a Sylva compass, a Wilderness Outfi tters SOS survival kit, Swedish FireSteel, and other assorted items that I thought essential."
Here is another:
"I walked around and grabbed a couple of bags of Jack Link’s Beef Jerky; all I could think about was the Sasquatch commercials. Chuckling to myself, I went to the aisle with the little packs of meds and grabbed a few Excedrin packs, some Rolaids, and two packs of Imodium pills."
I actually made a point to finish two more books in the last few days of 2015 so that this piece of crap wouldn't be the last thing I finished in the year.
So, that's the report. Dear readers: what did you read in 2015 that you loved?
The basics: in 2015 I completed 29 books, for a total of 8,583 pages. This put me significantly ahead of 2014, when moving five or six times left me only with time to read 19 books, for 6,406 pages, and closer to 2013, when I completed 30 books for 8,903 pages. None of these figures include books I didn't finish, since I'm happy to put a shitty book down if I have any better options.
As for 2015 highs and lows: some of the best books I read included a couple shorts ones by a favorite author, Cormac McCarthy: Child of God, and The Gardener's Son.
Cliche though it may sound, Room by Emma Donoghue was excellent, if dark as fuck. (I have no real interest in seeing the movie.)
I also really enjoyed Paper Towns by John Green, as cute, moving, incisive, if somewhat improbable coming of age fiction. I mean, it's hard to not enjoy a book that has teens doing fairly realistic urban exploration of abandoned buildings.
I also finished some really shitty books, notwithstanding my note above. Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls by David Sedaris was one of the worst books I've ever finished in my life. It's stupid, contrived, forced, and feels like little more than a throw-away to meet a contract with a publisher that people only bought because they like This American Life. I really should have put it down, but it was kind of like rubbernecking a really bad pileup on the interstate: you know you shouldn't look, but you kind of can't help it.
Going Home by "A. American" was just plain fucking bad. I genuinely really like dystopian and post-apocalyptic books (and movies), and I'm willing to put up with some prepper silliness to read the genre. The basic storyline was cliche and trite and predictable, but not in itself terrible. The tinfoil hat conspiracy theory nonsense was... just that. But the most irritating part was the constant, relentless name brand product placement that did zero to advance the story. I swear there are single sentences that contain three or four name brand product placements, like, "I crawled out of my Brand A sleeping bag, pulled my Brand B boots on, grateful for clean Brand C socks, and located my Brand D backpack while chambering a round in my Brand E .45 semi-automatic with Brand F hollowpoints..." And this nonsense went on on nearly every one of the 388 pages. It was awful.
If you wonder if I'm overstating it, you can read Chapter 1 on the book's Amazon page. Here's one example:
"Lying beside the driver’s seat by the door was my ESEE 5; I laid it on the pile. I put the Devildog on the pile as well. As my EDC, it had a number of things in it that I would need. There were two spare mags for the XD, an Otis tactical cleaning kit, a Sylva compass, a Wilderness Outfi tters SOS survival kit, Swedish FireSteel, and other assorted items that I thought essential."
Here is another:
"I walked around and grabbed a couple of bags of Jack Link’s Beef Jerky; all I could think about was the Sasquatch commercials. Chuckling to myself, I went to the aisle with the little packs of meds and grabbed a few Excedrin packs, some Rolaids, and two packs of Imodium pills."
I actually made a point to finish two more books in the last few days of 2015 so that this piece of crap wouldn't be the last thing I finished in the year.
So, that's the report. Dear readers: what did you read in 2015 that you loved?
No comments:
Post a Comment