The 10 Books I’ve Read This Year

I have read 10 books in 2016. I hope to read at least another 10 before the end of the year. The following books are presented in the order in which I read them. Click on the links to read my reviews.

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Genre: Classic

Tolstoy’s opus is set against a backdrop of the emancipation of the serfs, the Pan Slavism movement, political change and technological advancement. The story follows three interrelated families…(more)

My Rating: Good

Personal by Lee Child

Genre: Thriller

When a shot is fired at the French president in Paris, Jack Reacher is recruited to apprehend the rogue sniper before he causes havoc at a forthcoming G8 meeting in London. Reacher teams up with…(more)

My Rating: Intriguing

The Rebel’s Sketchbook by Rupert Dreyfus

Genre: Satire

The Rebel’s Sketchbook is a collection of 13 first person satirical short stories. Subjects encompass capitalism, class war, drugs, viral culture, boy bands and zero hour contracts. The compilation’s motif is rebellion…(more)

My Rating: Good

Concrete Island by J. G. Ballard

Genre: Dystopia

35-year-old architect Robert Maitland is driving along the orbital road, Westway, in London, when he loses control of his Jaguar, ploughs through the barriers and plummets onto an underpass…(more)

My Rating: Okay

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Genre: Dystopia

Brave New World is set in a society where everything is controlled. The parentless, manufactured, free-loving population are dependent on a state-endorsed hallucinogenic, happiness drug called…(more)

My Rating: Thought-provoking

The Man In The High Castle by Philip K. Dick

Genre: Dystopia

After the allies lost World War II America was divided in half. The Germans occupied the east, the Japanese the west. It is now 1962. Robert Childan is the owner of an Americana antiques shop in San Francisco…(more)

My Rating: Interesting premise but convoluted

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Genre: Dystopia

Books are banned in this dystopian world, where firemen are employed to burn them. Guy Montag is a fireman, who lives an unfulfilling existence with Mildred, his sedentary, parlour-consuming wife…(more)

My Rating: Good

To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

Genre: Semi Autobiographical

Mrs Ramsay is devoted to her eight children, and her imperious, intellectual husband Mr Ramsay. They are staying in their holiday home on the Isle of Skye in the Hebrides. There is a tentative plan to visit…(more)

My Rating: Tedious & incredibly dense.

Make Me by Lee Child

Genre: Thriller

Lee Child’s alter ego Jack Reacher finds himself in Mother’s Rest, a dead end, small prairie town on the train line. Our protagonist is curious as to why the town got its name. At the local motel Reacher meets…(more)

My Rating: Not bad

Fire In The Hole by Elmore Leonard

Genre: Crime

This compilation, consisting of 9 short stories, is named after its longest title, Fire In The Hole, the inspiration for the television series Justified. It begins with a Kentucky-based Nazi called Boyd blowing up…(more)

My Rating: Entertaining

Click here to sign up for my newsletter.