{"id":683,"date":"2016-03-07T05:02:14","date_gmt":"2016-03-07T05:02:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kamillamilligan.com\/2016-2-15-a-year-in-books-2015\/"},"modified":"2016-03-07T05:02:14","modified_gmt":"2016-03-07T05:02:14","slug":"2016-2-15-a-year-in-books-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kamillamilligan.com\/index.php\/2016\/03\/07\/2016-2-15-a-year-in-books-2015\/","title":{"rendered":"A Year in Books: 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Mmm, books.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m sure many of you feel the same way. Books are delicious, enticing, engrossing, and essential not just to pleasure but survival.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve been keeping a record of the books I read since 2005. I used to write comments, and now it&#8217;s just title &amp; author &amp; type &#8230; but that&#8217;s enough to form a useful record, to be able to find titles when I need to, and to write an annual summary of what I read. Here it is.<\/p>\n<p>In 2015, I read 85 books. I started but did not complete 14 others. Quite pleased with the number I didn&#8217;t finish &#8211; I&#8217;m glad I am appreciating my time enough only to read things I choose to read (I won&#8217;t say things worth reading. That is a different question).&nbsp;Categories below are approximations, recognizing the limited usefulness of labels.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>57 were fiction<\/li>\n<li>14 non-fiction<\/li>\n<li>12 memoir. Must mention <em>Surprised by Oxford<\/em> by Carolyn Weber, a story of her encounter with God during her studies at Oxford.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li>2 graphic novels. They kept my attention with the wonderful characters and images:&nbsp;<em>Lena Finkle&#8217;s Magic Barrel<\/em>&nbsp;by Anya Ulinich, and<em>&nbsp;Can&#8217;t We Talk about Something More Pleasant?&nbsp;<\/em>by Roz Chast.<\/li>\n<li>6 YA books. Two of the Penderwicks&#8217; books by Jeanne Birdsall were highlights here. Also <em>The Cracks in the Kingdom<\/em> by Jaclyn Moriarty &#8211; this whole series is a delight!<\/li>\n<li>2 short story collections. I didn&#8217;t know I liked short stories but I would strongly recommend both books: <em>The Hollow Land <\/em>by Jane Gardam, and <em>All Saints <\/em>by K.D. Miller<\/li>\n<li>5 e-books. These were all a disappointment. They were free downloads, and none stood out for anything aside from stereotypical characters. Yet, I read them all. To the end. Including the one that kept screaming, &#8220;please edit me! you&#8217;ve read this scene five times already!&#8221; Even that one.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Favourite Books: Must Read List<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Euphoria<\/em> by Lily King (novel)<\/li>\n<li><em>My Life in France<\/em> &#8211; Julia Child (memoir)<\/li>\n<li><em>Advise and Consent<\/em> &#8211; Allen Drury (political novel; old; long; yet utterly fascinating to me)<\/li>\n<li><em>After Birth <\/em>&#8211; Elisa Albert (novel)<\/li>\n<li><em>Never Let Me Go<\/em> &#8211; Kazuo Ishigura (novel). Chilling and moving.<\/li>\n<li><em>While the Gods were Sleeping: A Journey Through Love and Rebellion in Nepal<\/em> &#8211; Elizabeth Enslin (memoir)<\/li>\n<li><em>Riding the Bus with my Sister<\/em> &#8211; Rachel Simon (memoir) and <em>The Story of Beautiful Girl<\/em> (novel)<\/li>\n<li><em>Children of God Go Bowling<\/em> &#8211; Shannon Olson (novel). I loved this and her first book.<\/li>\n<li><em>No Plot? No Problem! <\/em>&#8211; Chris Baty (non-fiction writing guide for NaNoWriMo)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Simple Fun:&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>The Vacationers<\/em> &#8211; Emma Straub<\/li>\n<li><em>The View from Penthouse B<\/em> &#8211; Elinor Lipman<\/li>\n<li><em>Big Little Lies<\/em> &#8211; Liane Moriarty<\/li>\n<li><em>All the Light We Cannot See<\/em> &#8211; Anthony Doer. Particularly struck by the depiction of the steady work of the Nazi regime&#8217;s propaganda, education and creation of a masochistic, violent culture.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li><em>Us<\/em> &#8211; David Nicholls<\/li>\n<li>Love Letters &#8211; Katie Fforde. Only if your version of escapism involves England, Ireland, literary festivals, novelists and bookstores.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li>Becoming Scarlett &#8211; Ciara Geraghty. Ditto on the Ireland bit. And subtle characters.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li><em>Spinster: Making a Life of One&#8217;s Own<\/em> &#8211; Kate Bolick (non-fiction\/ memoir)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Unusual and Interesting<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Ada&#8217;s Rules<\/em> &#8211; Alice Randall. This wonderful author undertook an integration of social science research on creating a healthy body weight among African-American women in an authentic novel with believable characters. That she succeeded shows her artistry. I read <em>The Wind Done Gone <\/em>by her last year and recommend it.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And I must mention Marie Kondo. I read <em>The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up <\/em>and it did transform my relationship with stuff.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mmm, books. I&#8217;m sure many of you feel the same way. Books are delicious, enticing, engrossing, and essential not just to pleasure but survival. I&#8217;ve been keeping a record of the books I read since 2005. I used to write comments, and now it&#8217;s just title &amp; author &amp; type &#8230; but that&#8217;s enough to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"saved_in_kubio":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kamillamilligan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kamillamilligan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kamillamilligan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kamillamilligan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kamillamilligan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kamillamilligan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kamillamilligan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kamillamilligan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kamillamilligan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}