Every year, my goal is to read 52 books. 52 books for 52 weeks of the year. Despite my persistent efforts, last year saw me falling short, and this year, I found myself 11 books shy, concluding with a tally of 41. Balancing my literary pursuits between leisure and graduate school readings obligations is a priority. It’s not always easy and my interest in reading ebbs and flows depending on the book I’m reading. A book like “The Gulag Archipelago” took me two months to read, while “The Soul of an Octopus” took just two days. While sticking to the New York Times bestseller list might make achieving my 52-book goal easier, my penchant for fantasy series, whose books average 800-1,000 pages, makes reaching my goal quite difficult. However, my commitment to reading is less about meeting my numerical goal and more about reading for fun.
These are the books I read this year:
- A King Must Die
- Remarkably Bright Creatures
- Master and Commander (book 1)
- The Soul of an Octopus
- Old Buildings New Designs
- Informal
- 1984
- Lonesome Dove
- No one Would Listen
- Interventions and Adaptive Reuse: A Decade of Responsible Practice
- Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup
- The Gulag Archipelago
- I’m Glad My Mom Died
- Lessons in Chemistry
- Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow
- The Architecture of Happiness
- Buildings Must Die: A Perverse view of Architecture
- Delirious New York
- Armageddon’s Reef (Safehold book 1)
- By Schism Rent Asunder (Safehold book 2)
- By Heresies Distressed (Safehold book 3)
- A Mighty Fortress (Safehold book 4)
- Anna Karenina
- The Blade Itself (First Law Trilogy 1)
- Before They are Hanged (First Law Trilogy 2)
- Last Argument of Kings (First Law Trilogy 3)
- They Thought They Were Free
- How Firm a Foundation (Safehold book 5)
- The Black Company
- The Destruction of Memory: Architecture at War
- Midst Toil and Tribulation (Safehold book 6)
- Architecture Matters
- Thinking Architecture
- Girl Interupted
- War Diaries
- Like a Mighty Army (Safehold book 7)
- The Boys in the Boat
- Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco
- Hells Foundations Quiver (Safehold book 8)
- Expanding Architecture: Design as Activism
- At the Sign of Triumph (Safehold book 9)
Reflecting on this literary odyssey, choosing a favorite is a challenge. My reading interest spans fiction to nonfiction with of course a focus on architecture. I love books about scandals or moments in history that I didn’t know about like, “No One Would Listen,” a book by Harry Markopolos about his investigation into the Madoff investment scandal; or “Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup,” a book about the Theranos scandal.
If I had to choose one, I’d have to say my favorite was “Remarkably Bright Creatures.” Not only was it a beautiful story, but it opened up a world unknown to me about octopuses. According to the book, that is in fact an accepted plural of octopus.
My least favorite isn’t a book, but an entire series. The Safehold series by David Weber had the potential to be amazing, but fell short because of the author’s writing style. You’re probably wondering why I read nine of them then, and it’s because I wanted to find out what happened. Enduring the last few books felt like a chore. Every character is written the same way, with the same sense of humor cracking the same types of jokes no matter the situation. The abrupt chapter endings is like it’s a commercial for a tv show, “I have such a good plan, let me tell you…” end chapter, or “while he thought his smile turned into a hardened stare and his lip began to sneer as he thought…” end chapter. Every character’s smile is cold, but because of the cold outside. Lastly, the author is clearly religious and while the book is more or less about how religion and brainwashing was used to create a planet subservient to a few, the series as a whole was filled with overt religious overtones, quotations, moral teachings and high-handed philosophy. The bad guys lacked depth and the good guys were good guys and there’s nothing in between. The good guys have an insurmountable advantage that makes every conflict a one-sided-no-conflict. It had a lot of potential and I hoped it would improve, but instead it was repetitive.
Now it’s a new year and I will attempt to read 52 more books. I’m starting it off with “In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl’s Journey to Freedom.”