2017: The Year’s Reading In Review

Brian J. Noggle

Well, 2017 has drawn to a close, and with it, I’ve closed my annual log of books that I read. In 2017, I read 87 books, ish. As you might know, some of them have been omnibus editions, where three novels or five novels are in a single binding, and I count that as a single book for these accounting purposes.

If you’re interested, here’s what I read this year, presented in a nice list with links to the individual book reports.

The year’s book reports include a “Book” that didn’t get a proper book report–From Yao to Mao: 5000 Years of Chinese History. It’s a lecture series on CDs that I listened to, but I later went through the course books as well and counted those as a book I read. I did have a “musing” on the lecture series, so I linked that above.

I also did a book report on a book I didn’t read–Zobmondo!, a “Would You Rather?” quiz book that I found in poor taste.

Over all, though, I’m pleased with my annual list, especially compared to older lists that I’ve been encountering as I comb my blog archives to modernize them and to remove links to the old Blogspot blog I had until 2010. For example, contrast the above list with the one rolling up what I read in 2005. That list is pretty much popular and genre fiction with some nonfiction through it.

This year, I read some classics (The Grapes of Wrath, On The Road, a bunch of Poe, A Tree Grows In Brooklyn). I’ve read some popular philosophy in Daniel Klein and Alan Watts. Some real philosophy in Descartes. I’ve read some seminal texts in Eastern thought (the Upanisads and the Tao Te Ching along with some popular Eastern philosophy and whatnot. It’s a good selection that I’m proud of.

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