by Sarah Mackenzie
4 stars
by Firoozeh Dumas
3 stars
by John Tiffany (Adaptation), Jack Thorne, J.K. Rowling
3 stars
by Rebecca Skloot
5 stars
by Mark Haddon
4 stars
by Ruta Sepetys
3 stars
by Amanda Coplin
2 stars
by Alex Haley
4 stars
by Emily St. John Mandel
5 stars
by Chris Grabenstein
2 stars
by Deborah Wiles
2 stars
by S.D. Smith
2 stars
by Wilson Rawls
4 stars
by Pam Munoz Ryan
4 stars
by Lauren Wolk
4 stars
by Kelly Barnhill
4 stars
by Amor Towles
5 stars
by Laura Ingalls Wilder
4 stars
by Tracy McKay
4 stars
by Bryan Chick
1 star - abandoned
by Tim O'Brien
4 stars
by Barbara Kingsolver
3 stars
by Kelly Jones
3 stars
And now for the questionnaire:
1. Best Book of 2017? I had three 5 star books in 2017, Station Eleven, A Gentleman in Moscow, and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, and I would say all were exceptional, but Station Eleven was my very favorite. It caught me by surprise. I started out super skeptical of it, and picked it up solely based on my faith in whom the recommendation came. And it ended up being my favorite this year. Talk about not judging a book by it's back-cover synopsis. :)
2. Book you were excited about and thought you were going to love more but didn’t? I have two for this category. The Orchardist and Flight Behavior. The Orchardist was kind of a gamble, I didn't know anything about it but wanted to love it and then didn't. But Flight Behavior I was holding way up high on a pedestal because I like Barbara Kingsolver and know that her writing is good. And lots about the book was good...but just not enough to meet the highest of high expectations I had for it.
3. Best book that was out of your comfort zone or was a new genre for you? Probably Burning Point. I was a little leery of a memoir about divorce, to be honest. But I loved it. It was beautifully written and so full of hope and forgiveness and love. I'd recommend it to anyone.
4. Most thrilling, unputdownable book in 2017? Station Eleven, and The Things They Carried
5. Book that had a scene in it that had you reeling and dying to talk to somebody about it? Teaching From Rest. And not a scene, because it's not that kind of book, but more of a philosophy or a frame or mind that I wanted to bounce off of someone else. I would really love to chat with someone about this, and see how they implement her ideas/suggestions into their day-to-day, in-the-trenches homeschool life.
6. Favorite relationship from a book you read in 2017 (romantic, friendship, etc)? A Gentleman in Moscow is a book about relationships, and I loved that about it. So many good ones. And also in Burning Point, I love the relationship of grace that Tracy develops with David, it's rocky and complicated and hard won, but she could have been so bitter and angry --really she had every right to be-- and yet she was not, and she creates a space for him.
7. Most memorable character in 2017? Count Alexander Rostov. Hands down.
8. Favorite cover of a book you read in 2017? Wolf Hollow's cover is beautiful to me. You can't see it well in the tiny picture, but in real-life, the tree is sculpted using words from the opening paragraph (I think?) of the book, and the words are made in shiny green foil.
9. Book you can’t believe you waited UNTIL 2017 to finally read? The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. It's been on my TBR for years. I had no idea what it was about. So eye-opening.
10. Favorite book you re-read in 2017? I didn't reread a ton this year, only Harry Potter books 1-4 and Where the Red Fern Grows......and how do you choose between those?
11. Book you read in 2017 that you would be most likely to recommend to others? A Gentleman in Moscow. It's clean, uplifting, beautifully written, and deep without being heavy. I can't wait to read it a second time.
12. Favorite underlined passages of 2017? Sooooo many......I could basically just copy and paste the entire text of a Gentleman in Moscow; but, I won't :)
“Hell is the absence of the people you long for.”
― Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven
“Survival is insufficient.”
― Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven
“Like I’m always telling my brothers, if you gonna go into history, you can’t do it with a hate attitude. You got to remember, times was different.”
― Rebecca Skloot, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
“We must not see any person as an abstraction. Instead, we must see in every person a universe with its own secrets, with its own treasures, with its own sources of anguish, and with some measure of triumph. —ELIE WIESEL from The Nazi Doctors and the Nuremberg Code”
― Rebecca Skloot, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
“After all, what can a first impression tell us about someone we’ve just met for a minute in the lobby of a hotel? For that matter, what can a first impression tell us about anyone? Why, no more than a chord can tell us about Beethoven, or a brushstroke about Botticelli. By their very nature, human beings are so capricious, so complex, so delightfully contradictory, that they deserve not only our consideration, but our reconsideration—and our unwavering determination to withhold our opinion until we have engaged with them in every possible setting at every possible hour.”
― Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow
“I’ll tell you what is convenient,” he said after a moment. “To sleep until noon and have someone bring you your breakfast on a tray. To cancel an appointment at the very last minute. To keep a carriage waiting at the door of one party, so that on a moment’s notice it can whisk you away to another. To sidestep marriage in your youth and put off having children altogether. These are the greatest of conveniences, Anushka—and at one time, I had them all. But in the end, it has been the inconveniences that have mattered to me most.”
― Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow
“Alexander Rostov was neither scientist nor sage; but at the age of sixty-four he was wise enough to know that life does not proceed by leaps and bounds. It unfolds. At any given moment, it is the manifestation of a thousand transitions. Our faculties wax and wane, our experiences accumulate and our opinions evolve--if not glacially, then at least gradually. Such that the events of an average day are as likely to transform who we are as a pinch of pepper is to transform a stew.”
― Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow
“And I decided that there might be things I would never understand, no matter how hard I tried. Though try I would.
And that there would be people who would never hear my one small voice, no matter what I had to say.
But then a better thought occurred, and this was the one I carried away with me that day: If my life was to be just a single note in an endless symphony, how could I not sound it out for as long and as loudly as I could? (p228)”
― Lauren Wolk, Wolf Hollow
“Remember, if the time should come when you have to make a choice between what is right and what is easy, remember what happened to a boy who was good, and kind, and brave, because he strayed across the path of Lord Voldemort. Remember Cedric Diggory.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
“On the fifth day, which was a Sunday, it rained very hard. I like it when it rains hard. It sounds like white noise everywhere, which is like silence but not empty.”
― Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
“I want my name to mean me.”
― Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
“It was a fine thing indeed, Luna thought, being eleven. She loved the symmetry of it, and the lack of symmetry. Eleven was a number that was visually even, but functionally not - it looked one way and behaved in quite another. Just like most eleven-year-olds, or so she assumed.”
― Kelly Barnhill, The Girl Who Drank the Moon
13. What is the next book on your TBR pile? I'm half way through Johnny Tremain with my kids, and Aaron and I are 400 pages into Watership Down, and after that......A Gracious Space: Fall Edition, I think....or my newest homesteading book. :)
1 comment:
I'm so glad you posted this! I just became a member of a book club and I shared your post for some good ideas for this year. You're awesome! Love ya!
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