Tanya's Book List 2017!

* = top picks

Some quick facts:
Total books = 54 (same as last year)

Audiobooks = 25 (46%)
Non-fiction = 12 (22%)

Set in England = 20 (69% of fiction books)

Mysteries = 19 (66% of fiction books)

In order read...

1. Future Sex - Emily Witt - Witt invites the reader to follow along on the journey of sexual discovery in a welcoming and thought-provoking way. I wanted more of her own journey to be present in the narrative - there were bits of her story that felt flat and incomplete at times.

2. The Mystery of the Blue Train - Agatha Christie – Hercule Poirot. One of three Christie mysteries this year. They are my comfort food.

3. His Bloody Project: Documents Relating to the Case of Roderick Macrae - Graeme Macrae Burnet - A gripping story, build around the testimony of the accused, witness statements, courtroom newspapers, and expert testimonies, all set in 1869 Scottish highlands.

4. Bunnicula (Bunnicula, #1) - James Howe – Funny and cute YA book about a bunny and a mystery…

5. *Do Not Say We Have Nothing - Madeleine Thien - A beautifully written and wonderfully told story. I knew almost nothing about China's Cultural Revolution or Tiananmen Square, now I feel like I gained some real insight into Chinese culture and recent history.  

6. Love 2.0: How Our Supreme Emotion Affects Everything We Feel, Think, Do, and Become - Barbara L. Fredrickson - This would have been much better as an article, as it could've been summed up in a few thousand words. I generally like the idea of rethinking the concept of love and expanding the number of opportunities we give ourselves to experience deep connection.

7. The Walking Man - Paul Dore - I sank deep into this book and finished it in the course of a weekend. An immersive story of loneliness and connection, memory and visions. The surrealist dreamscape that the protagonist walks through is reminiscent of those created by Dave Eggers and William T. Vollmann.

8. The Murder on the Links - Agatha Christie – Hercule Poirot. Not sure what else to say about these…

9. *Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life - Marshall B. Rosenberg - Amazing resource for improving how I relate to others and to ourselves. There were so many tips and examples that I will take with me and use in my relationships, work, and family. I'm convinced that understanding the core feelings and needs behind the words we say can bring more harmony and happiness to our lives and the world.

10. Crocodile on the Sandbank (Amelia Peabody #1) - Elizabeth Peters - A "classic" that I didn't think held up very well in the modern era. What may have seemed feminist at the time now feels horribly retrograde, with women fainting right and left, and generally being dramatic, and the men being stoic and protective.

11. *Next Year, for Sure - Zoey Leigh Peterson - The characters feel amazingly real and complex. It's portrays love and relationships in all their complexity. Set in Toronto!

12. The Christie Caper (Death on Demand, #7) - Carolyn G. Hart – Moderately entertaining. Clearly written for Christie fans. Set in a small bookstore with an amateur sleuth detective.

13. *Telex from Cuba - Rachel Kushner - Engrossing story of the time right before the revolution in Cuba. Kushner depicts the world inhabited by the employees (and their kids) of the American companies there. The expat parties, the wealth disparity, the puppet president and his mistress, the actions of the rebels all swirl around each other in this book.

14. The Cat Who Could Read Backwards (Cat Who..., #1) - Lilian Jackson Braun - An early "Cat Who..." mystery, before Qwill moves to the small town. Good, fun mystery WITH CATS!

15. *Stepping Off the Relationship Escalator: Uncommon Love and Life - Amy Gahran - This book is great for expanding the way we think about relationships. More than a "how to" this book provides tons of examples of the many ways that people can be close to one another.

16. The Tin Roof Blowdown (Dave Robicheaux, #16) - James Lee Burke – Got this Hurricane Katrina mystery while I was in New Orleans. It’s fun to read mysteries set in places I’m visiting.

17. What Love Is: And What It Could Be - Carrie S.I. Jenkins - Fascinating and well-argued book about exploring what romantic love is, and how it is shaped by biology and society

18. Beneath the Lion's Gaze - Maaza Mengiste – Set in Ethiopia and I read it while there. A good book about revolution and family and chaos. Some parts felt slow.

19. Norse Mythology - Neil Gaiman – I know many people enjoyed this book but I wasn’t particularly feeling it. Myths are so traditional and moralistic – I realize that’s kinda the point but they didn’t feel particularly fresh or insightful.

20. The Magician King (The Magicians, #2) - Lev Grossman – Excellent book in a great series! I rarely enjoy a fantasy book as much as I did this one. The female characters are strong and badass without it being because of their gender and without it being remarked upon.

21. *Magpie Murders - Anthony Horowitz – LOVED this book. It was a great mystery and kept me entertained for many long hours on rough roads in Kenya. I loved the way the story within a story played out.

22. Water Music - T.C. Boyle – An entertaining, epic adventure story about Scottish explorers in western Africa, with all the follies, tragedy, and ignorance you’d expect. So interesting to contemplate how hard it’d be to travel with only letters and sporadic mail service for correspondence.

23. *Tuesday Nights in 1980 - Molly Prentiss – One of my top books of the year. The characters – artists in NYC – and the descriptions of art and color and carving a new life in a new city still creep into my thoughts regularly. Written by a Santa Cruz author!

24. Stormbreaker (Alex Rider, #1) - Anthony Horowitz – I picked up a new more Anthony Horowitz books after readying Magpie Murders. This one is a teen spy novel, in the vein of James Bond.

25. The House of Silk (Sherlock Holmes, #1) - Anthony Horowitz – London, 1890. Horowitz does a great job at continuing the Sherlock characters and story in the traditional manner. The author is also author of a bunch of the British TV mystery shows I love, including Foyle’s War.

26. *News of the World - Paulette Jiles – A delightful story set in the American west after the Civil War. It’s not a complicated story, just lovely characters and beautiful connection between a father-figure and the orphan he’s charged with delivering to her relatives.

27. Love's Refraction: Jealousy and Compersion in Queer Women's Polyamorous Relationships - Jillian Deri – Very specific to the lives of those interviewed and it didn’t do as much as I’d like with making the learning experiences as broadly applicable.

28. Sea of Poppies (Ibis Trilogy, #1) - Amitav Ghosh - Fascinating and exciting historical fiction set in the early 1800s in India. Several stories wind together to being characters from many parts of society. Downsides: Some of the slang language is hard to follow, and there are so many characters I had to write a list to keep track.

29. Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI - David Grann - Great to learn this part of history that I knew nothing about. I felt it went on about 1/3 longer than it needed to.

30. Dry Bones that Dream (Inspector Banks, #7) - Peter Robinson – The reader for these audiobooks is really great and has a great accent. The mysteries are set near Yorkshire, England.

31. Innocent Graves (Inspector Banks, #8) - Peter Robinson – I liked this one less than the one above.

32. *Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen – Listened to it again this year. One of my favorite books and if you haven’t read it, please do.

33. Open Season (Joe Gunther #1) - Archer Mayor – Got this mystery from the mystery bookshop in Brattleboro, VT, where the book is set. The mystery was better than many others I read this year, though with quite a bit of violence.

34. The Invisible Orientation: An Introduction to Asexuality - Julie Sondra Decker – Very good book to better understand asexuality. It was eye-opening and helpful. You could read about ½ of it and get a full sense of the information presented.

35. The Art of Three - Erin McRae – Romance book with a MMF threesome at the center of it. Suffers from my romance novel pet-peeve, which I won’t spoil. Low chili pepper rating (not sexually explicit)

36. The Essex Serpent - Sarah Perry - This book has many similar themes and a similar feel to Tracy Chevalier's Remarkable Creatures: 19th century women looking for fossils and the religious professionals who are wary of them. I really appreciated her examination of friendships- how many forms they can take, and the importance they can have in someone's life.

37. England, England - Julian Barnes - Quirky, entertaining, and imaginative. A meditation on tourism, national character, and authenticity. I love the self-confidence of the central female character.

38. Atonement - Ian McEwan – Beautiful language but jeez does the plot drag. His more recent stuff is SO much more entertaining while still being beautifully written. Read Nutshell instead.

39. The Cat Who Knew a Cardinal (Cat Who..., #12) - Lilian Jackson Braun – CATS AND MYSTERIES. Love these cozy mysteries.

40. *Women's Anatomy Of Arousal: Secret Maps To Buried Pleasure - Sheri Winston – Sex should be able pleasure. Let’s do a better job of talking about it! Section Two - the actual anatomy guide - provided new information for me. Highly recommended for everyone!

41. *All's Faire in Middle School - Victoria Jamieson - A beautifully drawn graphic novel and powerfully told story of a middle schooler trying to fit in. As a former Faire brat, I particularly loved the descriptions of the Faire community and the love and acceptance that people of all ages find there.

42. The Innocent  (Vanessa Michael Munroe, #2) - Taylor Stevens - A great thriller with a kickass, vigilante, androgynous, smart, tough protagonist.

43. The Cat Who Came to Breakfast (Cat Who... #16) - Lilian Jackson Braun – Mr Q is such a fun curmudgeon.  

44. Watership Down (Watership Down, #1) - Richard Adams - A charming fantasy story and a fun adventure tale. It was fun to be immersed in the lives of bunnies and their struggles for survival and freedom. The book is interspersed with folk tales that the bunnies tell to each other.

45. The Argonauts - Maggie Nelson – Memoir about gender-fluidity, queer/transgender families, parenthood, feminism. Some interesting discussion points but less profound than I think the author wanted it to be.

46. At Bertram's Hotel (Miss Marple, #11) - Agatha Christie – Miss Marple and scones and a mystery!

47. The Magician's Land (The Magicians, #3) - Lev Grossman – I didn’t like the last book in the series as much as the other two. Still, a great fantasy series with awesome women!

48. The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth, #1) - N.K. Jemisin – Intricately imagined fantasy world. Outside my normal genres and I enjoyed dipping my toes in to this world of selective breeding, earth-moving emotions, and adventuring.

49. Maisie Dobbs (Maisie Dobbs, #1) - Jacqueline Winspear – Almost was more of a historical fiction about post-WWI PTSD than it was a mystery. Lady private investigator who uses intuition and meditation in the course of her work.

50. The Wizard of Oz - Salman Rushdie – Commentary on the making of the movie. Brilliant, funny, thought-provoking, distracting, and comforting.

51. Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds - Adrienne Maree Brown - An energizing and inspiring book about the importance of working collaboratively, with curiosity and openness, taking small steps in movements for social justice and change.

52. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (Flavia de Luce, #1) - Alan Bradley – Young lady sleuth in 1950s English countryside.

53. Christmas at The Mysterious Bookshop - Otto Penzler - Delightful collection of short mysteries all set at Christmas time! A perfect way to consume mysteries around the holidays when I have no time for reading.

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54. The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships and Other Adventures - Dossie Easton & Janet Hardy -  New edition of the classic book. Good read for all genders.