A 2017 Book Report

Every year I like to take a look back on what I’ve read and size up my literary diet for the past twelve months. Normally I do this on Twitter, but I’m going to start doing it here instead so it’s more permanent. Self-indulgent? Yes, but I don’t care. I’m the absolute monarch of my web log.

According to LibraryThing I’ve read forty books this year, but that’s not quite accurate because it doesn’t include Frankenstein, which I got via Project Gutenberg, nor does it count any of Plato’s dialogues. Few of those are book-length anyway, though, so I’ll set them aside. There were also Edgar Allan Poe’s poems, which may not quite add up to a book anyway, and the Book of Documents, which was too old for LT to have. So, we’ll say forty-two books for 2017.

Of these, five were novels, with Tim O’Brien’s The Things they Carried being the best, though it’s also one I’ve read previously.

Another five were collections of poetry, by Sappho, Pindar, Hesiod, Catullus, and the anonymous authors of the Book of Odes. Hesiod was my favourite, and probably best, as well.

Twenty-two were non-fiction of one sort or another. Five were history, albeit somewhat broadly defined, including Xenophon’s Anabasis, Yuri Pines’s The Everlasting Empire, Pat Buchanan’s Nixon’s White House Wars, The Book of Documents, and Rodney Stark’s God’s Battalions. All are very good, but Xenophon was my favourite new (to me) author of the year, so I’ll give him the prize. If we count that more as a memoir, which admittedly may be more reasonable, anyway, then give the prize to Mr. Stark.

Of the non-fiction odds and ends, they can’t really be compared together, but Arika Okrent’s In the Land of Invented Languages was the year’s surprise hit and the most enjoyable.

I read six graphic novels, all of them simply volumes in continuing series: Suetsugu Yuki’s Chihayafuru, Koume Keito’s adaptation of Spice & Wolf, and Kio Shimoku’s Genshiken: Second Season. Though all three are decent enough that I’ve continued to follow them, I’d only recommend the first unless you’re a fan of the other two franchises.

That leaves two art books, The Art of the Wind Rises and Groundwork of Evangelion 2.0, of which I’d recommend the first, and the second only to the type of person who’d buy it regardless of recommendations (though it’s not bad). That leaves one book of divination and commentary in the Book of Changes, which I admit I’ll have to revisit later, and the neat novelty purchase The Nintendo 64 Anthology.

Finally, since I do have a Letterboxd account and can thus easily keep track of these things, I also watched twenty-seven films this year, including a few rewatches. Yeah, not all that many, but that’s why this is primarily a book blog that only covers movies on a whim. Anyway, award for the best new (to me) movie goes to… let’s go with The Hobbit, mostly because I’m going to give this award to an animated film 90% of the time, with honourable mentions for The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness, The Last Unicorn, and Throne of Blood for having the most metal title.

So, there you have it. I reviewed most but not all of what I read this year, but you can find a round-up of the year’s reviews in my previous post. There’s also, of course, the Highlights and Reviews Index, or if you’re just looking for something to read yourself and want to stick with the best of the best, try out the Recommended Reading page.