Before it starts to feel that it’s not the start of the new year anymore, I have to recognize my favorite books in 2015. It was a good year of reading for me, having read 51 books according to my Goodreads account. I was also happy to finish some classics and literary works that I’ve been putting off for some time. And now, without further ado, here are my top ten books read in 2015:
Top Ten:
- The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
This was another of our fears: that Life wouldn’t turn out to be like Literature.
- The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
But in life, a tragedy is not one long scream. It includes everything that led up to it. Hour after trivial hour, day after day, year after year, and then the sudden moment: the knife stab, the shell burst, the plummet of the car from a bridge.
- Ghostwritten by David Mitchell
If you’re in your life, chance. Viewed from the outside, like a book you’re reading, it’s fate all the way.
- The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Some things come with their own punishments.
- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
And I thought to myself, well, we’re making a step-it’s just a baby-step, but it’s a step.
- High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
But tonight, I have to confess (but only to myself, obviously) that maybe, given the right set of peculiar, freakish, probably unrepeatable circumstances, it’s not what you like but what you’re like that’s important.
- CivilWarLand in Bad Decline by George Saunders
I’m not a bad guy. If only I could stop hoping. If only I could say to my heart: Give up. Be alone forever. There’s always opera. There’s angel-food cake and neighborhood children caroling, and the look of autumn leaves on a wet roof. But no. My heart’s some kind of idiotic fishing bobber.
- The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
Nervous means you want to play. Scared means you don’t want to play.
- Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card
As long as you keep getting born, it’s all right to die sometimes.
- Drown by Junot Díaz
I’ve tried to explain, all wise-like, that everything changes, but she thinks that sort of saying is only around so you can prove it wrong.
Honorable Mentions:
- Black Swan Green by David Mitchell
The world unmakes stuff faster than people can make it.
- Perdido Street Station by China Miéville
What was an experience becomes a dream and then a memory. I cannot see the edges between the three.
- number9dream by David Mitchell
You look for your meaning. You find it, and at that moment, your meaning changes, and you have to start all over again.
- No Matter the Wreckage by Sarah Kay
Forgive yourself for the decisions you have made, the ones you still call mistakes when you tuck them in at night.
- Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson
And I never expected that you could have a broken heart and love with it too, so much that it doesn’t seem broken at all.
There goes my list. I’m planning to read less this year. But I’m looking forward to find new favorites.