Happy New Year everyone. Today we celebrate the new year by putting away the old one. C.J. and I will be taking down all of the Christmas decorations; no tree this year so it shouldn’t take too long. We’ll be cleaning up the last of the party detritus, there are still a few platters that have been soaking for days now. And I will finally grade the last two stacks of papers from the fall semester.
After which the new year can begin.
In the meantime, I have my final selections for my top ten favorite reads in 2015. I was going to do one of those statistical breakdowns of my reading this year, a real one not a comic one, because I’m a bit interested to see what the results would be. But, instead I watched Making a Murderer on Netflix and read a bunch of books from the library. So I just have a list of books this time around. Maybe I’ll set up a spread sheet for 2016 so I can do the statistics next year.
Here in alphabetical order are my top favorite reads of 2015.
- As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner. Probably the funniest book I read this year.
- The Beach of Falesa by Robert Louis Stevenson. Not the pirate story I was expecting.
- Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff. A very last minute addition. Also President Obama’s favorite book of 2015.
- Hate: A Romance by Christian Garcia. Life and love among the gay intelligensia of AIDS era Paris.
- The Incredible Journey by Sheila Burnford. Yes, the story of two dogs and a cat. I loved it.
- My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante. The first volume in the Neopolitan series. More please.
- Parnassus on Wheels by Christopher Morley. The hero buys a mobile bookstore and the team of horses that go with it then takes to the open road, selling books. How great is that?
- Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. It’s Jane’s world–the rest of us just write in it.
- The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante. Yes, I was one of those people this year.
- Wide Open Town by Myron Brinig. Hard to find, but it’s worth the effort. I loved it.
May Contain Spoilers 
Happy New Year – and happy TBR Dare! I am already regretting that I didn’t put more library books on hold last night, but I got sleepy & went to bed instead. Oh well, they’ll keep!
I have two books on hold, but I got through most of them before the end of the year.
Happy New Year and thanks for dropping by to visit my Top 10 post on my blog – I’ve added this one to my feedly feed now. Those Elena Ferrantes keep being shoved into my field of vision, yet I’m still not sure … Happy reading for 2016 anyway!
You can just read the first Ferrante. It does stand alone as a novel, The second one really ends on a cliff hanger. I’ll be reading book three very soon.
I’m pretty keen to read The Incredible Journey after reading your review. I wasn’t paying attention when you reread Pride and Prejudice. I reread Emma this year and found a similar problem once everything is aligned correctly: Emma and Mr Knightly become very dull all of a sudden.
PS – The Beach of Falsea link goes to another book.
Thanks for letting me know about The Beach of Falesa. I’ve fixed the link. I do hope I can get ore people to read The Incredible Journey. It’s a terrific little book.
I hope to be one of “those” people next year. The Days of Abandonment will be on my top read of the year (when I get around to posting) and the Neapolitan novels are next!
I have As I Lay Dying on the shelves. I didn’t know it was funny. The title sounds quite sober. I do need to read Faulkner. I also have the book Fates and Furies. Hope to get to this year. I would love to reread Incredible Journey. Would love to see the original film of that again too. Forget date, 60’s I believe. Hope you got those papers graded so you can enjoy what’s left of your holiday.☺
Faulkner is very funny, but in his own kind of way. It’s a dark humor that won’t appeal to everyone. I love him, though. I saw the original Disney movie as a kid. It was one of my favorites for many years. I’d like to see it again, too. I’ve a feeling the stack of grading will remain in the “To be done” category today. I usually have a major grading rush on the last day of winter break.
Happy New Year! I remember *howling* over The Incredible Journey – the beautiful characterization of the animals just worked so well.