2017, a Year in... Books

As you may have seen, I love reading books. 

Back in January, I first heard of Goodreads, a "social cataloging" website, launched in 2007, by Otis Chandel, II, and Elizabeth Khuri (read about it on wiki) and owned by amazon.com

By social cataloging, I understand that it's a little bit more than lists of books ; it has a social media aspect where a person can add absent books (which I personally didn't understand how to), have friends, compare books, read and post reviews, and share to other social medias (namely twitter and facebook, and some blog websites, via widgets). 


One of the features on Goodreads is a reading challenge ; I set mine to 30, based on a 20% increase, based on my 24 books from 2016. 

I had no "to be read" list, just went as I found them on our shelves or at the library. 

I'd started the year quite fast, reading books one after the other, but in time, I slacked, and some of the books were tougher to read so I started multiplying and reading 2-3 at a time. In the last few months, I slacked so badly, that I was constantly 3-5 books late in Goodreads' estimates, and I searched for short stories, or shorter books to read to regain terrain, but in so doing, neglected the high quality books that I'd set apart. 

I read 28 volumes but 30 novels and non-fiction and short-story collections, totalling about 6650 pages, which is more than I thought I would. At times, I was delayed, due to slack or busier than expected, or struggles with mental illness. But, I made it through and reached my goal.

In 2017, I read mostly fiction ; 11 of them were fantasy, 4 were scifi, and only 3 non-fiction. 
I also read mostly in english, neglecting my french to 1.

As a result, I decided to set my goal to 20 books for 2018, and read only one by one. I want to vary a bit more my genres and also balance fiction and non, and add more books in french.

I had periodically posted to be read entries, but, as I wasn't able to read precisely as fast as I wanted, I'll post a general to be read for the year ahead, and update with new entries once I finish the posts' books, instead of monthly re-scheduled posts. 

If you're interested,  Let me detail, by period, my books of 2017 :

January, 
I started the year by reading Harry Potter 6 & 7, finishing the series which I'd started back in September 2016. I read these two rather fast, in just about a week or so each.

My following book was yet another fantasy one, The forgotten beasts of Eld. At only 199 pages, I read it in 2 days, and took on the Tolkien reader for the last week of January. That was a mix of non-fiction and of fantasy.

February-April :

Here, I started reading multiple books, in segments. 
Christopher's classic scifi Tripods trilogy, 2-4/2 ; 28/2-14/3 & 21/3-3/4.
Tolkien's book of lost tales 1 from 6/2-19/4, bit by bit.

April-June :
The picture of Dorian Gray took me from 21/4 to 10/5
The children of Hurin marks a return to linear reading 16-22/5 and is probably my favorite read of the year.
then, I read the Tripods prequel 29/5-5/6 

June-July:
Back to fantasy with Earthsea trilogy. Here, I count 3 novels, even though it's one volume, read from 7/6-6/7 (funny that I reverse those numerals, isn't ?). Links to part 1, part 2, and 3.
Stocker's Dracula was a huge challenge, which I read 7-29/7
Harry Potter & the cursed child (aka #8th book in the series) is in a form of play and read it all on 30/7.

August-October:
1-7/8 Mrs Dalloway & Woolf's short stories, periods 2 & 3 (about half of the book) 1/8-19/10. I'd started this book in 2016 and set it aside to read other things, as its fonts were small and I needed a break from forcing my eyes. 

Started my first full non-fiction with God is not great, reading it from 10/8-6/9 in stages as some of its topics are quite difficult and triggering. 

Started my first book in French "à ma mère", a book where authors were interviewed and discussed their mothers. I read its majority, skipping portions which bored or triggered me, from 21/8 to 3/10

October:
4-5 The last of the Valerii 
6-10 The graveyardbook
10 The velveteen rabbit
Wilde's short stories 25-26/10

November:
1-4, Bade's Mucha, a short art book, with 10 or so lines of text per page. 
6-29 To kill a mockingbird (there were a few breaks in reading)

December:

1-3 Thirteen modern English & American short stories
4-14 Daisy Miller....
16    The expelled
20-21 Becket