Best book you’ve read in 2016 – doesn’t matter when it was published.
Any subject you like; Private Eye annual anyone? (yes please) or William Hague on Gladstone but the thought of that gives me a shudder……

A few from me to kick things off……
Love, Nina by Nina Stibbe
Stalin’s General by Geoffrey Roberts
The Knowledge by Lewis Dartnell
The North Water by Ian McGuire
The Clothes They Stood Up In by Alan Bennett
Party Animals by David Aaronovitch

I like books as in words printed on paper; it’s the tactile thing but I know the world has moved onto Kindles and similar now but I like being a luddite……

Isaac Assimov, I Robot (the short stories) although this may have been end of 2015
Henning Mankell, Depths (he of Wallander fame)

Currently reading Phillip K Dick Running Man and have Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep lined up next.

I have also read Mr Chatterbox which is great to read out loud to a 4 year old and probably my favourite Mr Man book.

Steven Sherrill ‘Joy, Pa’
Cormack McCarthy ‘Cities of the Plain’
and winner – Will Carruthers ‘Playing the Bass With 3 Left Hands’

Stealing Speed, by Mat Oxley – if you like bikes and 2 strokes, it’s essential. Gobbled in a couple of days. 🙂

Hennning Mankell – Depths; yes, read a couple of years ago and really enjoyed.
Jo Nesbo?
Mr Men – yep, works for me!
Stealin Speed is a new one so must check it out.
Playing the bass wth three left hands – love the title so off to check that out as well.

Dalton Trumbo – Johnny Got His Gun

Will most probably be on my top 3 list once the gloom it fixed in me has lifted. Absolutely horrifying book.

“The Train” by George Simenon, his masterpiece apparently. It’s been out of print for 40-odd yrs. Great read and a real life, would you, wouldn’t you…

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10068074-the-train

Georgre Simenpn – Maigret?
In the original – french or belgian? Or do I need my translator??

Ready player one – Ernest Cline

Currently reading the man in the high castle by Philip k dick.

The Book of Strange New Things by Michael Faber. One to enjoy reading and worth discussing with someone else once they’ve read it.

Also, a now not so dirty secret liking for the Secret Library series by Genevieve Cogman. Silly and easy but fun brain downtime.

Read and enjoyed American Gods and The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman so will be reading more of his next year (his children’s books are good too!).

Was introduced to Neal Stephenson this year by way of Seveneves and Cryptonomicron so will be reading more of his in the future.

Along with a ton of Lee Child and Harlen Coben I’ve also read a heap of Michael Connelly, which are probably my favourites of the detective/murder/law themed easy reads. I share a kindle account with my MiL so I read a lot of this stuff as it’s what she buys!

A Little Life – very long, crushingly depressing, really compelling!!

City of Mirrors by Justin Cronin
Igneous Rocks and Processes, Gill

The Last Act of Love – Cathy Rentzenbrink.

Utterly heart melting, but equally life affirming.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Both were read on a Kindle and then bought in paperback so I could lend them to friends, always a sign of a good book…

“A Monster Calls” by Patrick Ness.

Not often a book brings me to tears. Just started “Ready Player One” so good to see so many positive recommendations.

Yup George Simenon of Maigret fame but The Train is a stand-alone novel. ’tis wrote in proper English like!

‘Jerusalem’ by Alan Moore. A psychobiography. Brilliant!

Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies.

Genius. Really.

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley. I took it with me on a family holiday and they still take the mick out of me sitting on my designated Reading Rock on the edge of windermere, reading this by kindle for hours til I suddenly discovered it was dark 😆 TBH not that much really happens and the premise is pretty silly but I just moved into it and lived there for a bit, it is gorgeous.

Was introduced to Neal Stephenson this year by way of Seveneves and Cryptonomicron so will be reading more of his in the future.

If you managed to get through those, then you’ll love his earlier stuff. The diamond age and snow crash are my favorites.

Best book of this year for me? 1Q84 by haruki murakami

The “Flashman papers” best thing I have read in a long time laughed a lot which is always good.

I’ve just finished “Ready Player One” and was a bit underwhelmed by it.
Really enjoyed “Railsea” by China Miéville – I think it’s supposed to be for YAs but I thought it was great!

I’ve read a few this year but can’t think of many now…

Station 11 – Wanted to like this one but it didn’t seem to do anything that hadn’t already been done in The Stand or The Road, although I wasn’t particularly blown away by either of those either. I must have an empathy gap for apocalyptic ‘road’ stories…

My Bloody Project – Have raced through this (not quite finished). It’s very readable although I’m having trouble caring about any of the characters, although I think that’s because it’s been written from the point of view of a sociopath…

Not been a classic year for books for me, currently very little living up to 2015 (Burmese Days, Brave New World, And the Land Lay Still)

Had a quiet year on the books, just read a few classics. Proust Vol II I guess was objectively the best – in a category by itself really, total immersion, finishing it was like waking from a dream. Definitely not one to do a few pages on each evening, you need the time to put a dent in it each sitting.

Also got round to The lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch which was great – consistently recommended as one of the best fantasy novels of recent times and worth its reputation. Unfortunately I fear it may be a one-off as I followed it up with his second (OK) and the third which is flat out poor.

stwhannah – Member

Was introduced to Neal Stephenson this year by way of Seveneves and Cryptonomicron so will be reading more of his in the future.

Have you ever read any Kim Stanley Robinson? Big inspiration for the first 2/3ds of Seveneves. And I mean big, my Mars trilogy paperbacks are about a foot thick 😆 Brilliant though.

Absolutely bloody brilliant book! Especially if you’re a music geek. It has regular interludes entitled GEEK ALERT where he details how they built, modified and bodged primitive synthesisers and drum machines. In the early days they spent as much time with soldering irons in their hands as instruments. Real pioneers!

Then theres the whole parallel backstory of the creative chaos of Factory Records and the money-pit that was the Hac

Finished it in on time

Gai Jin by James clavell. Cracking read. Thought Shogun was better but still a very good book. Onto Taipan now(which I should probably have read first.)

Modern Toss: **** Arseholes Anonymous
Daniel O’Malley: Rook & also Stiletto
Ben Aaranovich: the Hanging Tree
Bob Forrest-Webb: Chieftains
Urs Peter Fluckiger: How much house?
Owen Hatherley: The Ministry of Nostalgia & also Militant Modernism

Thatcher stole my trousers by Alexi Sayle. Had me chuckling quite a bit and took my back to teenage evenings watching The Young Ones

Tortilla Flat – Steinbeck, I can’t believe I missed his writing following the Grapes of Wrath at school. Travels with Charley and Cannery Row are two great reads if Americana is your thing.

Power of the Dog and Cartel by Don Winslow
Takeshi Kovacs Trilogy by Richard Morgan

Non Fiction – ‘The Cyclist that went out in the cold’ by Tim Moore & ‘Extreme Rambling’ by Mark Thomas

Modern Fiction – ‘Nightingale’ by Kristin Hannah & ‘A thousand splendid suns’ by Khaled Hosseimi

Classics – ‘The Grapes of wrath’ by John Steinbeck

Currently reading ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ by Gabriel García Márquez. Struggling a bit with this one though.

Worst read of 2016 – ‘The Templar Legacy’ by Steve Berry

Do any of you use Goodreads? How are you faring with the reading challenge? I set a target of 15 and have finished 20 so far this year…

An OU course has limited my reading this year but I’m loving The Water Margin – Outlaws of the Marsh by Shi Nai’an. So much that my next read is likely to be Monkey – Journey Into The West, another of the 4 Great Novels of Chinese Literature (and another classic with a dodgy and badly dubbed ’70s TV series)

Fiction His Bloody Project by Graham Macrae Burnett

Non Fiction And the weak shall suffer what they must by Yanis Varoufakis

Monkey – Journey Into The West,

Available for free on Kindle and a great read

The Son – Philip Meyer (epic and fascinating)
May We Be Forgiven – AM Homes (brilliantly darkly comic)

Monkey – Journey Into The West,

Available for free on Kindle and a great read

Hmm – I had Romance of the Three Kingdoms as a kindle freebie and it was awful – poor translation and notes in the body of the text. Bought the Moss Roberts translations (only available as real books) – brilliant and engrossing read.
the Water Margin was a paid for Kindle and has some spelling howlers but is still handy as it’s on my phone as well which was handy during a recent 3 hour sit about in hospital. Will check out he Monkey freebie – cheers

Grief is the thing with feathers for published this year.

Railhead for fave book I’ve read with my boys.

Seveneves for the one I’ve got around to reading.

The Hungry Caterpillar.
Awesome read, and can’t wait for the sequel!

Late to it but Winter is Coming by Garry Kasparov, bloody brilliant as a zip through the last 30 years of Russian/post Soviet political history and how much of a **** Putin is, sadly still essential reading

Dunno how anyone can read mrmen books I can’t stand them personally