Top 10 Books Over I've Read Over the Past 10 Years
I love a good book… I used to go to all the Harry Potter midnight BOOK premieres and read late, late into the night. Now I read audiobook… or listen to audiobooks. Whatever. In the last 10 years, I wanted to round up the 10 most memorable books I’ve read. The list below is a mix of fiction and non-fiction. These are books that either made me think, made me laugh or made me FEEL SOMETHING. When it comes to genres, I tend to favor the sci-fi/fantasy type worlds… because I’m a nerd and I’m a part of the Harry Potter generation. OKAY LEAVE ME ALONE. Here’s the list.
Sapiens: This is a non-fiction book examining the history of humans on Earth and how our lifestyle affects our psychology. This book disturbed me for MONTHS after reading.
A Tale for the Time Being- Ruth Ozeki: This book broke my heart, and bothered me for a while afterwards. It’s well written, the characters are compelling, and it’s memorable. I write more on this book here.
Gone Girl - Gilligan Flynn: This book really got me into a murder-mystery-thriller kick, but I couldn’t find anything that compared to Gone Girl. I love a good book that makes my heart race and keeps me up til 2 am.
The Martian: I’m the type of nerd that reads the book before the movie / TV show. Except when it’s Game of Thrones and the book is SUPER dense. Anyways, this book is hilarious. It’s written well and it got me to laugh out loud a few times. I loved it so much that I also read this author’s other book: Artemis… and then proceeded to go on a wild goose chase for more space books with no avail.
Throne of Glass series: Heheheh - here’s comes one of those magic-y books. This is a series of 7 hearty books with really well developed characters. It’s a tale of mystery, magic, and it’s kept me up wayyy late into the night. These characters really tugged at my heart strings. I would wait impatiently for the release of the next books in the series only to have forgotten parts of the plot. This girl does a pretty good job of recaps.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks: This nonfiction read follows the life of Henrietta Lacks - a woman who’s cells were used to further cancer research. It makes you question - is your genetic information truly YOURS? Really thought-provoking. Disturbed me as much as Sapiens did.
Kitchen Confidential: The way that the late Anthony Bourdain writes had me laughing out loud. I love how crass and real he was. Bourdain was an amazing story teller. He made something as mundane as working at a kitchen into a gripping story.
Red Queen series: I love me a good dystopian novel. I call these books potato chip reads- where you only need a 8th grade reading level, but the plot HOOKS you. There’s the superior Silver-bloods, who have magic and the inferior Red-bloods that don’t. And there’s a mixed race. Now if that ain’t a recipe for a dystopian novel, I don’t know what is.
Wild - Cheryl Strayed: What’s with all these movie books? I really appreciate books that can hold their own with one character carrying the entire plot. Okay.. I watched the movie first & I was so moved that I had to read the book & I was not disappointed.
The Hunger Games : Did I mention that I love dystopian novels?? I was late to the Hunger Games bandwagon, but a character like Katniss Everdeen is created once in a lifetime.
Only 10 books - that was SO hard. There were so many good reads in the past 10 years. As I chose a book, I would think of 5 other books that could have taken its place. Any suggestions for the next decade?
