Best Books of 2017

Another year is winding down and I think I’ve read a lot of good books.

This year’s count is 120.  I think 4 can be considered “classics” and 2 were non-fiction. I did branch out in the horror (or maybe horror-lite would be a better term) genre this year with good results. Most of the rest of them were mystery and romance or combination of both with a few fantasy, SFR, and YA thrown in the mix. I did a bunch of re-reading this year (not counted in my book count), although I don’t know if it’s more than normal. I do know there are a handful of books that I kept going back to time and time again because they were comforting to me.

In no particular order here are my favorites:

The Wall of Winnepeg and Me – Mariana Zapata

This is a slow burn romance that gave me a huge book hangover. It’s not perfect, and could use a tiny bit more editing but I have re-read this so many times in the past 2 months, it’s not even funny. For whatever reason it has just appealed to me on so many levels.

Alex, Approximately – Jenn Bennett

Aaaahhhhhh…. This was just a charming YA romance based off of You’ve Got Mail (which is based off of The Shop Around the Corner which I prefer over the remake but I love old movies and that’s a topic for another day). If The Cave museum existed in California, it would be on my list to see ASAP.

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir – R. A. Dick

Another charming book I read in one shot. This was just a great feel good book. I had recently seen the movie and loved the cover of this book, so I bought it. It was totally worth it.

White Hot – Ilona Andrews          

White Hot and Wildfire both came out this year and I loved them both, but White Hot is my favorite of the trilogy. Barely. I will be re-reading all three of these books many, many times. I still wish the covers weren’t so awful or I’d own them in paperback also. I still might, one day.

A Town Like Alice – Neville Shute

I can’t remember where I heard about this but I had a feeling it would be good, and it was. I loved both Jean and Joe so much. Jean doesn’t let anything stop her and Joe crosses half the world to find the woman he only met once but knew he wanted to be with.

The Firebird – Susanna Kearsley

I read The Firebird and The Winter Sea this year and both were excellent. I think this barely edges out as my favorite because of Robbie, who is a character in my favorite Kearsley book, and this one brings both stories to a good close.

The Bird and the Sword and Making Faces  – Amy Harmon

Amy Harmon is a new to me author and she ended up with 2 books on my list. A romantic fantasy or contemporary romance, respectively, both are excellent for whatever mood I’m in.  

Money Burns – A. E. Maxwell

One of my favorite books in a series I just loved. Crime and a little romance combined with a big nostalgia factor. I was hooked.

The Bookshop on the Corner – Jenny Colgan

One of my first 5-star reads of the year. It’s got 2 things I love: books and Scotland, so the book was easy to love.

Thick as Thieves – Megan Whalen Turner

Oh man, this was a great road trip and bromance book. Costis really shined in this book. He really is a good soldier but he’s also so darn nice you just can’t help but love him. Well, I couldn’t anyway.

A Conjuring of Light – V.E. Schwab

This book killed me, in a good way. I still want more.

Speak Easy, Speak Love – McKelle George             

My favorite cover of the year. This is a retelling of Much Ado About Nothing set in a 1920’s speakeasy. Yeah, that’s all it took to get me to read it and it was perfect.

The Alice Network – Kate Quinn 

This book worked its way in at the end of the year. I was totally hooked on this dual timeline novel about a spy in WWI.

Some runners up or just excellent books I discovered this year are:

Slade House – David Mitchell

A “not my kind of book” that turned out to be exactly my kind of book.

White Lies – Linda Howard

I read a bunch of LH’s backlist this year and they are dated and have turned into a kind of guilty pleasure. This one turned out to be an eye-rolling ultimate comfort read.

The Kraken King – Meljean Brook

This one was just tons of fun to read and escape for a while. Too bad the rest of the series doesn’t appeal to me.

Cainsville Series – Kelley Armstrong

The love triangle in this one frustrated me so badly, but I devoured this series and now that it’s over and the dust has settled, I may actually buy a few of them to keep. Just not the third one.

Murder on Black Swan Lane – Andrea Penrose
This was a great historical mystery. I can’t wait to see where it goes.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas a day late.
Had fun on Christmas eve with my mom and sis. We kept with family tradition and did a puzzle. Don't tell anyone we quit before it was quite finished. We got tired of the hard part. Lol too bad dad wasn't there to finish it for us. We spent the night at mom's which means we were up early because she doesn't know how to sleep in. Ha ha it's really not a big deal.  We also got snow so it really felt like Christmas. The rest of the family came over and we made homemade Chinese food for lunch and then unwrapped presents. The kids are so much fun. It was a good holiday.

Tis the Season

Christmas hasn’t exactly felt like Christmas the past couple years, between my parents selling their house and moving somewhere smaller and my dad dying. Change is inevitable so I’m not saying Christmas isn’t a good time, it’s just been different. In my opinion one reason (besides the 2 I’ve already mentioned) has been that my mom gave the piano to my sister when they moved and Christmas had always been filled with music on the piano. Not great music, mind you because we are not the greatest pianists, but music all the same. Over Thanksgiving I asked my sister if her old keyboard could travel and we set it up at mom’s house. It was fun. Not only did we get to play our Sleigh Ride duet, the kids had a blast playing around with the sounds and dancing around. My niece made her bring it back last night to family dinner and we played it again. Livi is learning the piano and we’ve been practicing a duet. It’s kind of amazing what music can do to the human spirit, not only at Christmas time but all times.

We had our first snow of the season in the valley last night and I got up early for spin class. It was so beautiful this morning. It was still dark with just the street lights and porch lights and most of the snow hadn’t been driven in. It was totally worth getting up for, even if I hadn’t been headed to the gym. I’m still loving spin. I think I’m slowly adjusting to the seat. My butt still gets sore but seems to be getting over it a little quicker than before. Good thing, because I’m not ready to quit at all.

What Was I Thinking?!

Well, I did the unthinkable. Seriously. Never in my life did I think I would do this. I joined a gym. Before last week I would have told you the only type of exercise I do in public is walking, and even then I prefer to walk on the parkway or in less busy neighborhoods where I won't see people I might know.Weird, I know.

When I changed my house around this year and made myself a library, I got rid of my treadmill. I did use it, but there just wasn't any room for it. I kept my stationary bike, but I think I'm going to get rid of it very soon. My friend talked me into trying a spin class. She has been going with another friend off and on for a while now so last Friday I went to class with her. And I realized I can go to a 5:30 spin class and still make it home to be ready to leave on time for work. So Monday after I went to class with her again, I joined the gym. I'M NOT EVEN WORKING THIS WEEK AND I GOT UP TWICE TO GO TO A 5:30 AM SPIN CLASS! What in the world am I thinking? I'm not going to lie. It was really hard to get up this morning. I had a dream I had overslept and didn't make it and when my alarm went off, I was a little disappointed. LOL

Anyway, I'll see what happens. I'm not going to say I love spin class, but I kind of do. If my tailbone will ever get used to the seat, I might be able to do this. I can't say I'm any good at all and there's no way I can get to the speeds most of the class does, but that doesn't really matter. What matters is that I kept pedaling even when I wanted to stop.

This morning I've got a company coming to clean my vents out and then I'm enjoying my week off. I probably need to go buy some more workout clothes if I'm going to be sweating in public.

Then and Now

I was listening to a podcast the other day about packing for traveling and these guys were giving their expert tips. I had to laugh out loud when the very first tip was to pack what you need and don't pack anything "just in case".  I used to be such a "just in case" packer. Seriously, it was bad. As proof, I found 2 pictures:

2006

Picture #1 is from my very first foreign trip with my sister. We went to Hong Kong and Singapore for probably 11 or 12 days and we both took 2 suitcases. To this day, we can't remember what we packed in them and why we each needed 2. Rookie mistake for sure.

2015

Picture #2 is from our trip to Vietnam and Cambodia. Everything was in my 33L day pack or the sling and that trip also lasted about 12 days. And yes, the Pringles are a necessity when traveling. Ha ha


I don’t always take the backpack; this year’s Scotland trip was done with a carryon size, but I am now down to 1 carryon or backpack and 1 small backpack or purse.  Some of it is because of a lot of work travel a few years ago and you learn real fast to pack light when you are stuck with luggage for hours at a time. The rest of it comes from more world travel where I’ve learned from experience that dragging a suitcase (even a small one) across cobblestone or uneven bricks is just not fun at all. I’m seriously considering the backpacks that are made specifically for travel and don’t have straps and are not top loading for wherever my next trip is. Anyway, it’s a funny memory and I’ve come a long way.

 

Phase 2 = Complete, Plus Rainbows

My house is done! New paint and carpet upstairs. I love it! I’ve got everything back where it belongs (excepting a few things I still need to sort through). The last step happened on Monday when I put all my books on their new shelves in my new library. It took all evening! I love my home and I’m blessed to have it.

This past year I’ve had some “down in the dumps” moments and lots of times where I didn’t want to try very much at anything. The past few months with my home changes I’ve noticed many of my little prayers have been answered. Some were silly little prayers that probably don’t matter much in the grand scheme of things but they mattered to me and my Heavenly Father answered them.

Then the shooting in Las Vegas happened and life just seems depressing again. I’m not trying to pass over any of the horrible stuff there, but this morning was so beautiful. I wish I was a photographer and could have caught it. It was cloudy and raining in spots, but the sun was also coming up over the mountains and it was hitting the clouds with all kinds of color and then there were rainbows. In fact, one of the rainbows was one of the brightest and most brilliant I’ve ever seen. My words could never do it justice or really describe what I saw. I just couldn’t help but think that in the midst of all the crap, there is also a lot of good and this just kind of seemed like a sign that God is still in charge.  

Phase 2

The time has come to move all of the crap out of my upstairs. Yep, I'm getting new carpet! But what  pain. My brother is helping with the big furniture in a couple days. Last night I cleaned off all my bookshelves. You don't really know how many books you have until you move them all down a flight of stairs. I didn't want to box them up because then I'd have to find or buy boxes for just a couple weeks so I stacked them against my dining room wall.

As I was moving everything last night and looking at the stacks, some of those books have belonged to me since I was a kid and I'm quite attached to them. With all the devastation from hurricanes and fires closer to home, I feel so blessed to have my home and the things in it. I know I shouldn't get attached to them as much as I do, but it would hurt to loose my stuff. I know I truly can't imagine how it must feel to see your home burnt to the ground.


Anyway, I'm toying with the idea of cataloging my books just so I know what I've got. It may be a pain to keep up with. I'll have to decide. Maybe one of these days coming up in the winter. And I will probably purge some of them before I walk them back up the stairs. :)