It’s New Year’s Day – time for reflection and putting away Christmas decorations. It has become tradition to capture my yearly list of books I’ve read from the site and archive them as a blog post with a little insight about each one. Long gone are the days I had time (or energy) to review every one as separate posts. However, if you’re on Goodreads, friend me up since I give at least a little blurb and a rating there when I finish reading. Here’s my efforts this year to become remain a well-read author.

• The Happiness Advantage, Shawn Achor (work book club) – Self-help is not my favorite genre but this one was fabulous and just what I needed at the time. It even influenced my January blogging.
• These Is My Words, Nancy E. Turner (book club)
• Lone Survivor, Marcus Luttrell – the movie was better. Rarely is this true, but this time it is.
• The Way of Kings, Brandon Sanderson – rocked my epic fantasy world like nothing else since Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time.
• Wild, Cheryl Strayed – a great read and another surprise since I rarely like memoirs
• A Prisoner of Birth, Jeffrey Archer (book club)
• Beatrysel, Johnny Worthen – one of the best books I read this year. Mostly because it was dark and unique and spoke to  me deep down in my core like nothing before it. (Caution: Not for the faint of heart!)
• Words of Radiance, Brandon Sanderson – more than hooked on this author and this series especially. I devoured it!
• In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer, Irene Gut Opdyke (book club)
• The Colony: Genesis, Michaelbrent Collings (not my favorite this year!)
• Eleanor, Johnny Worthen (ARC*) – seriously, if you haven’t read this book go get a copy right now. Kids and adults and everyone in between will love this one. Johnny won Utah’s Writer of the Year for this book and it was deserving.
• NOS4A2, Joe Hill – fabulous horror book like Stephen King used to write.
• The Circle, Dave Eggers – (work book club)
• The Tipping Point, Malcome Gladwell (work book club)
• Monster Hunter International, Larry Correia – great military fiction with a supernatural twist
• Heft, Liz Moore (book club) – one of the best we read this year.
• Copper Descent (ARC*), Angela Hartley – one of my first blog tour posts
• The Shining, Stephen King – I read this as a kid and wanted a re-read before the sequel. Not as frightening the second time around.
• Doctor Sleep, Stephen King – changed the way I look at a mundane piece of the world. Still the master!
• Second Firsts, Christina Rasmussen – (book club) – great read about dealing with loss. It was amazing to help deal with the loss of my health at the time. Little did I know I’d need it on such a deeper level later.
• ITIL Service Operation – technical manual for a certification. Not a light or very enjoyable read, but necessary. I lament all the great fiction I could have read instead!
• The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Neil Gaiman (my pick for book club) Amazing, amazing. I love Gaiman!
• Monster Hunter Vendetta, Larry Correia – guilty pleasure via Audible
• Plot and Structure, James Scott Bell – great read if you’re a writer
• Call the Midwife, Jennifer Worth (book club)
• Divergent, Veronica Roth (book club) – I wanted to hate it after seeing the movie but it was better and I didn’t.
• The Colony: Renegades, Michaelbrent Collings – got a free copy on Audible and hoped the sequel was better. It wasn’t.
• The End of Dieting, Joel Fuhrman – the book my doctor told me to read when embarking on veganism
• Suspect, Robert Crais – recommended author to study on writing action which did not disappoint
• Mitosis, Brandon Sanderson – more like a short story but I had to buy it so it counts!
• Heart of Annihilation, C.R. Asay – (book club) another blog tour visitor (written by my writing group buddy)
• The Giver, Lois Lowry – my oldest had to read it and kept talking about it and the movie was coming out so…
• How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie (book club)
• ITIL Continual Service Improvement – another technical manual and certification that took far too much time away from “real” reading. But I passed!
• The Martian, Andy Weir – best science fiction of the year that I happened to just stumble upon on Audible.
• The Fault In Our Stars, John Green – did not live up to the hype!
• Revival, Stephen King
• Insurgent, Veronica Roth
• Shadows Beneath: The Writing Excuses Anthology, Brandon Sanderson, Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, Howard Tayler – great stories and a great behind-the-scenes look on the writing process of successful authors.

I have a rule that life is too short to waste time on books I don’t like after a few chapters. This list does not include two books I put down only partially read this year. One of them being Outlander, yes the same one everyone raves about and that they made a television series about. The other was some drivel that I don’t even remember the title of. Given all the time outside of work it took me to obtain two new professional certifications this year, I got a ton of great reading in. Can’t wait to do it all again in 2015! Happy reading to all my fellow readers out there.

*ARC = Advanced Reader Copy in the publishing world. Which means I got to read it before it was available to the public. Always a fabulous thing for an impatient woman like me!