Following the tradition, I thought I’d share the books I enjoyed reading this year – my tiny contribution to the online world of books and reading, of which I am mostly a silent consumer (but pay my dues once a year in the form of a blog post!)

Books read 2017: 67 (my goal was 57, so this was exciting)

Ratio:

48 Fiction/18 Non-fiction

21 audio books/38 paper print/8 kindle digital

Series:

It seemed to be the year for reading books series, which is quite unusual for me! These are the ones I pursued:

• Dipped into J. M. Tow’s Lestrade series
• Finished Robin Hobb’s Farseer Trilogy
• Finished Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials Trilogy
• Finished Penelope Wilcock’s Hawk and Dove series
• Began Laurie King’s Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes series

Five star scorings:

Fiction

No Graven Image – Elizabeth Elliot

Hawk & Dove series – Penelope Wilcock (esp. The Wounds of God)

The Farseer trilogy – Robin Hobb (esp. Assassin’s Apprentice)

Mary Russell & Sherlock Holmes series – Laurie King (esp. The Beekeeper’s Apprentice)

Kim – Rudyard Kipling

The Sherlockian – Graham Moore

Non-fiction

Realms of Gold: The classics in Christian Perspective – Leland Ryken

Crazy Busy – Kevin DeYoung

When God Weeps – Joni Eareckson Tada & Steven Estes

Longest book:

Crime and Punishment – Leo Tolstoy

Shortest book:

The Art of War – Sun Tzu

Honourable mentions:

Grace in Strange Disguise – Christine Dillon (yay for Australian authors and a clearly portrayed faith)

Poison Bay – Belinda Pollard – (Another Aussie author and a foray into wholesome suspense fiction)

Lestrade and the Ripper – M. J. Tow – (I find his British humour hilarious)

Mind of the Maker – Dorothy L. Sayers – (I wanted to read this for a while, and now I have, I feel I need to read it again and take notes)

An illustrated encyclopaedia of the pyramids, temples and tombs of ancient Egypt – Lorna Oaks – (felt so nostalgic to read another non-fiction Ancient Egypt book after my obsession as a 10 year old.)

Memorable quote:

“I find that I can no longer arrange my life in an orderly succession of projects with realizable goals and demonstrable effects.

I cannot designate this activity as “useful” and that one as “useless,” for often the categories are reversed and even more often I am at a loss to apply either label, for the work, in the end, as well as the labeling, is God’s.”

Elizabeth Elliot (No Graven Image)