Favorites: 2016
I know, I know it is the last day of January and I am only now sharing my faves of 2016. A little late for sure, but I have a couple of posts in the backlog and I am trying to get back on track. So here goes a final favorites of 2016:
For the year overview, I thought I would give you a top 10 of the movies and the books of 2016. I have left out Netflix and music, because I don’t know exactly what I have seen this past year so it is harder to pick. Also, I think movies and books are the most interesting things to look back on for a year.
Movies:
I put the movies in order of when I watched them, so at the top is the one I saw first in 2016. It was not too hard to pick just 10 movies, but it is impossible to put them in order of faves. You will have seen me write about most of these, so I won’t bore you with why I loved them. However, I will say that each one of these comes HIGHLY recommended and please go watch them all immediately. (Each movie is linked to their IMDb page)
- Land of Mine (Under Sandet)
- Demolition
- Highrise
- Kubo and the Two Strings
- Hell or High Water
- Tonio
- Arrival
- Nocturnal Animals
- Interstellar
- La La Land
Books:
I shared my top 5 as part of the year overview on boredtodeathbookclub.com. I wrote:
1. A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
Although it is officially a children’s book, A Monster Calls is amazingly deep, moving and a wonderful story about grief and illness of a loved one. Keep tissues near and be prepared to feel all the feels.
2. Only Ever Yours by Louise O’Neill
A bookclub pick for the YA edition, I could not even make myself go to discuss this book because it triggered a lot of insecurities. Incredibly unnerving and triggering, but I would recommend it nonetheless as it is a different type of dystopia you usually read within the YA genre.
3. Man V. Nature by Diane Cook
Also a bookclub pick (great pickings this year!), Man V. Nature is a short story collection full of slightly fantastical, sometimes dystopian, always disturbing stories. I really enjoyed (wrong word perhaps) reading these stories and often find myself thinking about some of the stories which means it is perhaps time for a reread.
4. High-Rise by J.G. Ballard
Turned into a movie this year with Tom Hiddleston, both book and movie have left me feeling queasy about the nature of men. High-rise deals with the slow decline of the humanity of people living in a high-rise, written around the time that the ideality of living in skyscrapers was starting to be called into question more and more.
5. Moby-Dick; or, The Whale by Herman Melville
Although the only reason I managed to finish this book was a 9-hour train ride along the coast of California, I am really glad I finished it. It truly is a wonderful book and Melville writes with sharp wit and some insights into humanity that are still quite accurate today.
To finish the top 10 I would like to add:
6. The Improbability of Love by Hannah Rothschild
I wrote my top 5 before I read this, otherwise it would have been bumped Moby Dick out of my top 5. Why I loved it so much you can read in my December book round-up here.
7. Sharp Objectss by Gillian Flynn
Clearly her first and not her best work, but I still love her writing style and it was interesting to see how she started. More in my review here.
8. Buffering: Unshared Tales of a Life Fully Loaded by Hannah Hart
Such a lovely, inspiring book. I also wrote about this on in my December round-up and it will come back in my non-fiction pt. 2.
9. The God Trilogy by Will Eisner
A graphic novel which drawings still haunt me in a good way. Interesting stories about a block in New York showcasing immigrant life throughout the decades and a rabbi’s conversation with god after losing his daughter.
10. THIS IS SO HARD. I can’t pick a tenth, instead I would suggest you check out my Goodreads page to see all the other books I read this past year that I loved, or didn’t, and maybe you will see a book you would like to read in there.
So those were my favorites of 2016. I can’t wait what 2017 will bring!