My Favourite Books of 2017
Every year I challenge myself to read 50 books. In 2017 I moved four times, changed jobs 3 times and, as ridiculous as it sounds, lived my most stable 365 days in 5 years. I didn't manage to hit 50.
In 2017 I read 41 books which, according to Goodreads, totalled to over 11, 794 pages. I read so many incredible books that I'm genuinely struggling to list my favourites. Anything by Australian cartoonist Michael Leunig and Australian writer Tim Winton is amazing, so I won't bother going into detail there. Purchase and consume literally any of their works. You'll thank me later.
Favourite Fiction:
Let The Great World Spin - Colum McCann
A boy on Instagram recommended this book to me and I adored it. I posted it to another friend immediately after finishing it.
It's one of those books that follows multiple storylines centred around an event in history: a man walking a tight rope between the Twin Towers. This actually happened, and there's a really awesome documentary about it called Man On Wire. The book is incredibly poetic, with some strong social commentary about religion and class. For my post-Christian-still-spiritual readers, you'll love one character in particular, Corrigan.
“Corrigan told me once that Christ was quite easy to understand. He went where He was supposed to go. He stayed where He was needed. He took little or nothing along, a pair of sandals, a bit of a shirt, a few odds and ends to stave off the loneliness. He never rejected the world. If He had rejected it, He would have been rejecting mystery. And if He rejected mystery, He would have been rejecting faith.”
“What Corrigan wanted was a fully believable God, one you could find in the grime of the everyday...he consoled himself with the fact that, in the real world, when he looked closely into the darkness he might find the presence of a light, damaged and bruised, but a little light all the same. He wanted, quite simply, for the world to be a better place, and he was in the habit of hoping for it.”
We Need To Talk About Kevin - Lionel Shriver
This was a heavy read about a fictional kid who committed a fictional mass shooting in America. It addresses the blame we place on parents, and how a young person may reach the point where they commit such an atrocity. I inhaled this book and the ending shook me.
My Name is Leon - Kit de Waal
If you're after a consumable read, this should be next on your list. I didn't leave the couch until the final page had been devoured. A beautiful story documenting two brothers who are separated as children and put into foster care. It vividly portrays all of the pain and anger that comes with.
The Atomic Weight of Love - Elizabeth J. Church
Set in the 1940s, this novel is about one woman's quest to be recognised as an intellectual in her own right. Exploring many of the challenges that women faced in this period and woven with romance and bird watching, this book left me feeling grateful for the sacrifices women have made in the name of feminism.
“Take one Naive Girl. Bring to room temperature in the Big City. Add three cups Academia. If in one cup Encouragement. Fold in two drop Love. Sprinkle with one teaspoon Adoration. Mix thoroughly. Spoon carefully into greased Pan of Matrimony. Bake in Desert Heat for 25. Test doneness with Careless Toothpick. Let cool on Wire Rack of Inertia. Serve with generous dollops of Benign Neglect.”
Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
Ah, my favourite genre, Speculative Fiction. Anyone who loves reading loves reading books about books. This is such a fun and beautiful 1-day read about what the world would be like without books. Spoiler alert: it sucks.
“Stuff your eyes with wonder, he said, live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.”
Favourite Non-Fiction:
Without You There Is No Us - Suki Kim
A journalist goes undercover as a missionary who goes undercover as a university tutor in a North Korean university for elite young men. What an incredible insight into a world I had no understanding of. I told a very hungover young man all about it in Margaret River, WA on New Years Day I was so excited about it. It's one of those non-fiction reads that flows more like a story than an academic piece of literature. I promise you will be shocked by the contents.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind - Yuval Noah Harari
This is a big fella and has been held in high acclaim largely due to its accessibility. The first half of this book was addictive as I followed the evolution of mankind across the continents. Growing up in the church and in a school with limited teaching on history, I had no idea how much science had discovered about the origin of our species (screw you, Creationists). I was absolutely shocked by my own ignorance, and it was a joy to be enlightened. I slowed down in the final quarter, but there was a lot of meaty bits and I'd encourage you to give it a read.
2018 Goal
Yup, another 50. I want to dive into more non-fiction this year, so feel free to shoot through your recommendations! What did you love in 2017? What are you looking forward to reading this year? I have just started The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf and I'm being hit with some crazy revelations. My pen is permanently tucked behind my ear or in my messy bun.
"By the 1980s beauty had come to play in women's status-seeking the same role as money plays in that of men: a defensive proof to aggressive competitors of womanhood or manhood. Since both value systems are reductive, neither reward is ever enough, and each quickly loses any relationship to real-life values. Throughout the decade, as money's ability to buy time for comfort and leisure was abandoned in the stratospheric pursuit of wealth for wealth's sale, the competition for "beauty" saw a parallel inflation: The material pleasures once presented as its goals- sex, love, intimacy, self-expression- were lost in a desperate struggle within a sealed economy, becoming distant and quaint memories."