Books Read in 2017

[Shadow]

It's time for everyone's favorite yearly review! lol
Topped off at about 111 books this year, but here are the highlights:

Classics:

Spoiler

Roughing It by Mark Twain
A bit stretched thin at points but for the most part a very humourous (and surprisingly informative) description of the author's several years spent out West.

Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain
Interesting and quite insightful and progressive for its day into just how stupid racial prejudice is. Not particularly clever though.

Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky
Brilliant and masterful, thoroughly insightful look into the human condition.

The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
Note to self: need to read more Wilde. It was clever and funny.

The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith
A bit dry in parts but definitely insightful. I think the value of this book could be improved hugely just by having a companion history of the issues of the day.

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
The most bland, uninteresting hero in the history of heroes. His characters are interesting but I think Dickens forgot to include a story here.

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
Not terrible, and certainly the prototypical orphan-to-heir story, but almost laughably simplistic. If a modern-day student tried to submit this story, he's probably rightly be ridiculed, yet Dickens is inexplicably adored for it.

Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin
Absolutely a master-work in easy to understand theology. Rightfully a classic.

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
Rightly regarded as one of the greatest books of all time. It is sweeping, it is enormously long, and yet incredibly insightful, beautiful, and sad. Would definitely consider re-reading eventually.

20th Century "Classics"

Spoiler

The Handmaid's Tale
I thought it was garbage. I've read a lot of dystopian books and I felt like this one was more paranoia than anything. No explanation as to how this future is even feasible, just scare tactics.

The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Meh. I felt for the lady but it was too overtly a feminist manifesto to seem reasonable.

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
Surprisingly invested with raw power that kept me reading, and some parts were brilliant...it was just unfortunate you had to wade through so much crap to get to them and the ending philosophy is so broken as to be pathetic.

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
A bit hokey, not one of Steinbeck's best. Rather than garner empathy for the Okies, he garnered pity, since they were sub-human and too dumb to look after themselves.

The Poisonwood Bible by Kingsolver
Just...what? Stereo-typed white male missionary tries to change the native population with his rigid religion and his family ends up horribly broken. Similar to Handmaid's Tale, I felt like it tried to be so extreme in making its point that it completely lost me and felt overacted. Beautifully written though.

Non-Fiction

Spoiler

The Gene: An Intimate History by Mukherjee
Really fascinating, well-written, and changed my perspective on genetics and where we are headed.

Civilization: The West and the Rest by Niall Ferguson
He had some really good points but most of the book was highly opinionated and unsubstantiated opinion, which drew the score down for me.

Sci-fi/Fantasy/Geeky:

Spoiler

Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman
Gaiman continues to be one of my favorite modern authors. Man, those Norse gods were messed up. Makes for good entertainment though.

Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card
So Ender's Game was good...but this was really good. Do fights come from simply failing (intentionally or otherwise) to just take the time to understand one another?

Sins of Empire by Brian McClellan
This is a new series for the author but I look forward to the rest of it! It was literally a blast.

Way of Kings/Words of Radiance/Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson
I'd read everything else by Sanderson but had been waiting on this series since it was projected to take 20 years to finish. I gave in this year and it is excellent, truly a masterpiece of outlining and tying things together. This is an artist at the top of his form. Some great, flawed characters and a completely engaging (and epic) story.

Assassin's Fate by Robin Hobb
Hobb's huge epic story spanning 20 years is over at last, and I thought it was a fitting finale.

The Core by Peter Brett
The most disappointing conclusion to a series since Anthony Ryan's Blood Song series.

Dragon Flight by Anne McCaffrey
My first McCaffrey book. It just...wasn't that good :/

Homeland by Salvadore
My first Salvadore book and you know what? As simple as it was, I liked it. Looking forward to more.

Sabriel by Garth Nix
My first Nix book and it wasn't too bad. Would definitely consider reading more.

The Stand by Stephen King
My first King book and I liked it, though I don't think I'd like most of his stuff.

The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks
My first Brooks book and quite possibly my last. Pretty hokey and just bad.

Taliesin by Lawhead
My first Lawhead book, and interesting enough to continue on with his Arthur and Merlin series.

Wizard's First Rule by Goodkind
My first Goodkind book and I liked it and plan on continuing the series. Reminds me a bit of Feist's books.

[JDBlack21]

I read like, 2 books this year 

[Shadow]

Nothing wrong with that, what were they?

[TheFlash]

I did a ton of re-reading this year and most of the new-to-me I tried weren't as good, which led to even more re-reading.

Might follow up with more details later if I end up taking some time to compile them.

[Shadow]

I'd be interested in hearing about any books you read or re-read.

[JDBlack21]

I mostly read books for school, which were Crime and Punishment, Woman at Point Zero by Nawal el Saadawi, and The Stranger by Albert Camus. All very challenging reads, especially since they were all translated.

[Shadow]

What did you think of Crime and Punishment? I read that for the first time last year and thought it was fascinating.

I haven't heard of the other two. Any good?

[JDBlack21]

It had some interesting themes, but many parts were too long and drawn out. Also it being a book for school didn't make it as interesting for me.

[Shadow]

I've often thought that it's a shame schools try to force certain novels on students, inevitably the type that "are for their own good" but they won't enjoy until they've had a little more experience. And along the way make them hate literature.

Not true in every case, but I've rarely ever heard of anyone saying "yeah, I read that in school, it was a great book."

[Carathorn]

I've read:
-The Alchemist
-Reengineering Retail
Most books read in a single year trophy acquired

[deletedprofile.u]

This year I read:

1. How to Survive PTSD and Build Peer Support - Sylvio (Syd) A. Gravel
- This was mostly a compulsory read due to it being linked with a course in my previous program I graduated from in June this year. It's a truly perspective-building book; it gives you a solid frame of reference for what many people who've been through trauma and suffer consequences from it are going through. VERY highly recommend

2. Driven - Robert Herjavec
- This is a brilliant book where Robert gives you an inside perspective on how his entrepreneurial life has made him what he is today, and it also offers to provide business model ideas and solid rules to go by; not just for business for yourself but for life in general

3. Eden's Gate: Book I - The Reborn - Edward Brody
- This is a fiction where the concept is very WoW or MMORPG-based. It depicts real people buying into a virtual reality MMO but the catch is that they die IRL and live infinitely within the game, living entire lives and with immortality. Brody has some annoyingly frequent spelling errors and repeated sentences throughout this series (so far; I want to beat up his editor), but otherwise this may possibly be my favourite book series since StarDoc (which is another brilliant fiction series).

4. Eden's Gate: Book II - The Sparrow - Edward Brody
- The same thing as above but the 2nd book in the series. I have book 3 and I'm sharing the series with my dad (he's reading it first this time); I plan to read book 3 as my first book of the year come January 2018. 11/10 recommend this series to anyone who's ever played an MMORPG and/or enjoys sci-fi.

5. The Legend of Zelda and Philosophy - edited by Luke Cuddy
- I really enjoyed this one. It sets out to depict different areas of philosophy and relate them back to different aspects and areas of the LoZ franchise up to and including Twilight Princess (it isn't completely up to date but I still enjoyed it either way). Highly recommend this one; it's also a part of a 30+ philosophy book series where there are different references and topics, such as "The Hobbit and Philosophy" or "Facebook and Philosophy: What's on Your Mind?".

Only 5 books this year. Need to pick it up in 2018...

[Retrix]

This was the first year I haven't been in school, and I read zero books until my sister got me What If? by that xkcd guy. I read the shit out of that last week. Highly recommended.

[Shadow]

I have read What If and likewise really enjoyed it. Really fun thought experiments that you actually learn something from

Alec: The Zelda and Philosophy sounds interesting and I'm also interested in the PTSD book you mention. Anything that helps me better understand what others are going through is welcome. That's one reason I enjoy the Russian authors I've read.

[AZ]

As far as fiction goes, in 2017 I read:

Bonjour tristesse - Francoise Sagan - 3/5
The Lover - Marguerite Duras - 3/5
Buddenbrooks - Thomas Mann - 2/5

I have Brothers Karamazov on the shelf; I plan to read it this year.

[DYM]

Ace's Books Read:

Introduction to Heat Transfer, by Frank Incropera

Excellent, non-INTJ book not just for engineers but for those who want to learn things such as how long it'd take for a cup of coffee to cool, or ways in which they can heat their streaming office in the cold, harsh winters as efficiently as possible. No intricate integrals or INTJ math - you can calculate all this stuff with simple formulae and reference charts. NDU: Expensive.

JavaScript & jQuery: The Missing Manual, by David Sawyer McFarland

Essential for any (front-end) web-developer - in non-INTJ jargon that basically means you can add a lot of cool effects to your websites. Again, non-INTJ (I don't recommend shitty INTJ sources), comes with tutorial files and simple to understand. Teaches a bit of vanilla JavaScript before moving onto to jQuery so you become familiar with both. NDU: None.