Golden Sunrise in Paradise

Jurrassic Park

Cruising around Fiji.  This shot looks like it was taken with a LensBaby, but in fact it was just my shakiness that makes it look this way!  Genius! :)

The Stacks: 62 Tomes in 2013

Well, I set a goal this year to read 60 books and I have read 62 so far!  I might finish one or two I 'm working on tomorrow, but I kinda doubt it, so thought I would post my list!  Some of them are short, but there are some beefy books in there too (2 Wheel of Time monstrosities, The Way of Kings, Moby Dick, etc).  I probably listened to 25 of these on my phone (I'm a HUGE Audible.com fan!!!) and read the majority of the rest on my Kindle (Also a huge kindle fan--everyone needs one!).  I probably only held 3 or 4 actual books for longer than 10 minutes this year.  I like buying hard copies of my favorites to have on my shelves, but even those I usually read an ebook version.  Anyways, on to the list!

My favorite books this year were probably these (in no particular order):

Favorite Re-Reads:

• The Hobbit 
• The Fellowship of the Ring (It's been over 12 years since I've read any Tolkien)
• Ender's Game (Duh..) - If you haven't read this you MUST!  It is awesome.  WAY better than the movie... Of Course!
• Treasure Island
• Star Wars Thrawn Trilogy - The best Star Wars books ever.  Hands down.
• The Way of Kings (!!!!!)  - Phenomenal.  This will be the best fantasy series ever written.  Only problem is that the second (of 10??) comes out in a few months.  Sigh...
• Mistborn (!!!)  - Very gritty and dark, but absolutely amazing.  Just as great the second time around too! (or third?...  ya... third..)
• A Separate Peace  (but so sad!)

Favorite First-Time Reads

• The Rithmatist by Brandon Sanderson (a fun YA book with Sanderson's magic style and complexity.  Maybe I'm just a fanboy but I liked it a lot)
• Peter Pan
• Wizard of Oz (funner than I expected)
• The Riyria Revelations series by Michael Sullivan (Super awesome and fun light fantasy)
• The Queen's Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner (again, not too deep like Sanderson, but very fun and clean and interesting with fun twists in every book)
• Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear (Good clean WWI-era mystery with great world-building)
• The Long Price Quartet by Daniel Abraham (pretty gritty tho....)
• Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand (AMAZING!!! A MUST read!!  WWII required reading!)
• The Lightning Thief by Rick Riorden (not my most fav, but a fun read)
• The Three Musketeers!
• Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

"Hoped I'd like them but I didn't..."

• Moby Dick (BLEH!!!  whales whales whales whales whales. revenge. death. the end. )
• Wheel of Time (Bleh... great overall plot, but it's mostly pubescent bickering and finger pointing... but I MUST make it to the final three that Brandon Sanderson wrote because I've read everything else he's written thus far and I NEED MORE!!!)
• The Art of War (I was expecting more?)
• Their Eyes were Watching God by Zora Hurston (I really really wanted to like this one but I just found it depressing.  Beautiful prose.  Gorgeous prose.  Amazingly powerful emotion and wonderful description.  Depressing content.  Like a Picasso in written form? maybe?  Okay maybe I don't know enough about art to say that...  But I just didn't like it.)
• Ender's Game Alive (An audio drama of my favorite book and I just didn't like it at ALL...)
• 1984 - I hated it.  I'm sorry.  I know it's respected and all but it is just terrible.  Dirty.  Depressing.  Ahg.  I like happy books?  
• Earth Afire by OSC - I didn't hate this by any means, but it just didn't speak to me like Ender's Game and many of the other books in the series.  It was pretty good but just not quite up there in "favorite" land...

Well, there you have it!  My mini reviews of some of the books I've read this year!  Cheers!  Happy New Years!

In case you were wondering what I read last year, here is my similar post from 2012!

I was going to export a list of these books in case some are hard to read, but it's late and I'm tired.  I don't know if this page can be viewed if I'm not your friend on Goodreads.com (a way cool book review and tracking site!), but try clicking here to get the full list if you are interested!