It's the end of the year so you know what that means: It's time for the mandatory end-of-year awards season where people arbitrarily express their opinions so others can yell and disagree with them. This is the sixth annual TROXELLIAN LITERATURE AWARDS! I rate all the books I've read over the past year and give them fake awards that mean nothing based on how I'm feeling on the particular day where I sit down and write my awards blog post.
Got it?
I was a little disappointed with my reading list in 2017 since I only got through 20 books in 12 months (which isn't even two books per month). In my defense, I blame Stephen King. I started reading "It" in September and it took me nearly three months to read that monstrosity since I lost interest halfway through but was too far into it to feel good about walking away (Damn you, Stephen King!). That's probably why this is the first year in a long time where I left King on the shelf. I made it a point to read more this year and I was able to make it through over thirty books this year in addition to all my writing projects.
Usually I read books based on what I'm writing at the moment, but I was editing 30 Days on a Roller Coaster earlier in the year and then working on my sequel to After the End so this year was more about reading books that stumbled into my path or catching up on classics that have escaped me for one reason or another. I'll always read a book someone (who I trust) recommends to me so I did a lot of that this year, too. I also started working in my school's library again so that introduced me to a lot of books I normally wouldn't have read, especially in the YA genre. This year's reading list contains more non-fiction than I've ever read previously. During the late summer I got really into Appalachian Trail adventure narratives so I ran through a couple of those right in a row. On the flip side, I read only one graphic novel the entire year. I seem to be enjoying reality more in my mid-life years.
I do have a new rule this year. I'm not including any books written by authors I know personally. I've found it skews my opinion on the books and it doesn't seem fair. That knocked five books off my list this year, but I figure those people don't need awards anyway because they got books published in 2018. That seems like an award in itself.
Here are the nominees in the order that I read them. I’ll post the winners on December 30th:
1. Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne (F)
2. The Disaster Artist by Tom Bissell (NF)
3. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (F)
4. Kindness for Weakness by Shawn Goodman (F)
5. The Sea Wolf by Jack London (F)
6. The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith (F)
7. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne (F)
8. Odd Men Out by Matt Betts (F)
9. Interworld by Neil Gaiman
10. Batman Eternal by James Tymion (GN)
11. Timequake by Kurt Vonnegut (F)
12. Birdy by William Wharton (F)
13. 10 Things to do Before I Die by Daniel Ehrenhaft (F)
14. Watership Down by Richard Adams (F)
15. The Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis (F)
16. Looking for Alaska by John Green (F)
17. Postmortals by Drew Magary (F)
18. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (NF)
19. Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie by Jordan Sonnenblick (F)
20. The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler (F)
21. My Appalachian Trials: Three Weddings and a Sabbatical by Steve Adams (NF)
22. My Appalachian Trials: Creaking Geezer, Hidden Flagon by Steve Adams (NF)
23. Appalachian Fail by John Desilets (NF)
24. Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver (F)
25. Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon (F)
26. Tunes for Bears to Dance to by Robert Cormier (F)
27. Black Water by Joyce Carol Oates (F)
28. Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer (NF)
29. Freaks I've Met by Donald Jans (F)
30. Main Street by Sinclair Lewis
31. Lucky by Alice Sebold (NF)
32. The Stranger by Albert Camus (F)
And there you have it! Those are the nominees for the random awards I'll be giving out on the 30th. See you then!