Top Ten Tuesday: The Best of 2016

The last TTT of 2016, wow, I can’t believe this year has gone quite so quick. I know, I know, we all say the same thing as each other at this time of the year, but seriously, this year has just evaporated away so quickly. It’s been a fairly good one for me personally, littered with change (for the better, mostly) travel, TV, books, food, friends. That said, it has been a weird year for the world, the curse of 2016 is still going strong, and in future, 2016 is going to become the stuck answer for any unknown quiz question answer.

For the final time this year, the lovely folks at Broke and Bookish team together to produce a book related topic each week, and you simply list the top ten of that topic.  For all you lovely people who don’t know what Top Ten Tuesday is, or don’t know how to get involved. click here. If you’re a regular participant, or a newbie, you should also check out Bout of Books for a fun-filled New Year readathon!

So, as we look forward to all that 2017 is going to bring, it seems like the perfect time to cast our eyes back and look at the favourites of 2016. I’ve read in patches this year, some months reading lots, and to be frank, some months reading nothing, to the point that when I cast my mind back, I am struggling to think of 10 books I read start to finish this year. I mean, I have read ten books, but I don’t know if I have actively enjoyed 10 enough to put on a list. We will just have to see how many I think of.

There has been a real mix of utter shit and bonafide classics, so it should make for an interesting mix:

1. Six of Crows Leigh Bardugo: This was a huge surprise, from a world which I have read nothing in and a genre I don’t dabble in much and was pretty much my favourite book of 2016. Well done Emma, well done.
2. Dracula Bram Stoker: This was the first foray into listening to audio books in the car (prior to the discovery of Hamilton) and I loved it, like, really loved it,
3. The Sign of Four Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: I really like Sherlock Holmes, so if we’re honest, it was hardly a leap to think I would like this book, was it. I didn’t know anything about this story really, which was a nice change. I’m super excited for Sherlock now too!
4. Summer of Love Katie Fforde: This was the sort of rubbish chick lit that is impossible to put down and is the good kind of predictable. I’ve bought a couple of her others now too.
5. A Clash of Kings George R R Martin: I have struggled a long with A Song of Ice and Fire a little since I read this, but considering it is some 700-odd pages long, I flew through it.
6. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Robert Louis Stevenson: This was short and sweet and a good little read, I can’t believe I have never picked it up before.
7. Anna and the French Kiss Stephanie Perkins: This was utter rubbish, absolutely awful, horrendous crap, that I read start to finish in about 12 hrs and shamelessly enjoyed.
8. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child J K Rowling: I didn’t think this was a great book, it was nothing on the original series, but it gave me that magical feeling of reading a new Harry Potter all over again, so for that alone it deserves its place on this list.
9. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Illustrated edition) J K Rowling: OK, so technically I don’t even own this yet, BUT, I ordered it with my vouchers on Christmas Day, it is due to arrive this afternoon, and I know that I will read it before the year is out because it is me, it is Harry Potter, I have been waiting to get this book for over a year, and the pretty pictures…..

OK, so I made it to 9, that isn’t as bad. It has made me realise how little reading I have done this year, which is bad. That needs to seriously change this year!