Best Books of 2016

Sometimes people ask me how I deal with the commute to work. I spend a good three hours a day - often four - travelling by public transport, into London and back again along with hundreds of other commuters.
The singular thing that keeps me sane on my commute is that I use the time for reading. Losing myself in a book allows me to find some pleasure in this daily ordeal.

For the last few years, I've participated in the Goodreads challenge by setting a goal for myself on how many books to read in the year. For the first time in some years, I did not complete my challenge in 2016 - I set myself a goal to read 70 books and only read 68.

Generally this time of year I list the best of the previous year's reading, which is guided by which books I gave five-star ratings to. And in 216 there were four, as follows:

Defending Jacob - William Landay
Witches Abroad (Discworld #12) - Terry Pratchett
13 Minutes - Sarah Pinborough
Try Not To Breathe - Holly Seddon

There's one comic fantasy, one crime thriller and two psychological thrillers. Further details, as well as a link to the Goodreads page for each book, are listed below.

Defending Jacob
I had to read this one for my book group, and it left me utterly gripped. The story is told from the point of view of Andy Barber, district attorney, whose life is rocked when his fourteen-year-old son is accused of the brutal murder of a classmate.It throws up an interesting moral dilemma: what is a father to do when he suspects his own child might be a murderer?

Witches Abroad
I'm still working through my re-reading of the Discworld books, and I have to admit that the books featuring the witches - Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Magrat Garlick - are my favourites. In this book the witches have to venture to much-suspect 'foreign parts' to stop the happy ending of a well known fairy tale. Because there's so much more to the story than the one that we've heard. I love the witches and their very different but forceful personalities.

13 Minutes
I tend to run into Sarah Pinborough at most of the conventions I attend these days, and know her well enough to say hello to. Not only is she a lovely person, but she's a phenomenal writer, and one of those people that occupies a spot on the writing career ladder that's much higher up than me, and I can only look up and hope that one day I can get to the same spot.

Sarah Pinborough writes in many different genres. This novel is pegged as YA, but I really hate that label because when I see it I assume it's referring to a kids' book. The main character of this novel happens to be a teenage girl, but the genre is most definitely psychological thriller. The main character is rescued from a freezing river and revived after being technically dead for 13 minutes, and this is where the title comes from. How she got there is the main plot of the story, and it soon becomes evident that all the main characters are hiding secrets. As well as being a gripping story, this also serves as a reminder as to just how bitchy teenage girls can be. I'm so glad I don't have to go through all that again.

Try Not To Breathe
Another psychological thriller, I had to review this for Shots and I found it utterly compelling. It involves the story of Amy, who was attacked and left in a coma when she was 15. Fifteen years have passed and she is still in the coma, but the story of how she got there is gradually revealed through three viewpoint characters, one of which - disturbingly - is Amy herself, who still has active brain function within her coma although she is tragically unaware of how much time has passed.

For this year, I have set myself a target of reading 68 books - the same number I managed to read last year. However, due to the fact that there are a lot of problems on London transport at the moment and I am spending four hours a day on trains, buses and underground trains I have been getting a lot of reading time in and I am already two books ahead of schedule.

If you're on Goodreads and want to compare books with me, or even check out some of mine, connect with my profile here.

Five Favorite Reads of 2016

Last year, I managed to reach my goal of reading 50 books, which I kept track of via the Savvy Reader 50 Book Pledge. (Actually, it was more than 50, but I didn't list books I helped judge for a contest.)

While I enjoyed many of the books, I decided to focus on five in particular. In alphabetical order, they are:

The Cover-Up (Dana Griffin) is a well-crafted aviation thriller involving an airline crash and the ensuing investigation. The author, a commercial pilot, reveals his expertise in aviation while writing a story that's accessible to readers not familiar with the industry.

The Flower Master (Sujata Massey) involves a young woman from California, now living in Japan, who becomes embroiled in the murder of an ikebana teacher. The crime, along with her struggles to fit in culturally, keep the reader engaged in a satisfying mystery.

Incident at Badamya (Dorothy Gilman) is set in Burma in the 1950s and involves a 16 year old orphan who finds herself captured, along with six others, by members of the Red Flag Army. But there is more to one of the prisoners than she realizes, and her magical Burmese puppet may be the key to her kan (destiny).

Lucifer Rising (Gavin Baddeley) is an examination of how the Devil has been depicted throughout history, including the "satanic panic" of the 1980s, in heavy metal, even in films. This book is written with a balanced point of view that cuts through the hype.

The Princes in the Tower (Alison Weir) explores the mysterious deaths of Prince Edward V and Richard, Duke of York, nephews of King Richard III, long thought to have been responsible for their deaths. One wanting to learn more couldn't go wrong with this book as a reference.