The two thrillers that I liked best last year were The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn and The Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian. I’d give a slight edge to The Woman in the Window, because I thought the psychology and motivation of the main character was more gripping. Note: All books mentioned in this email are links, so you can check out their descriptions in Amazon. (I wish I could say that they are affiliate links, so that if you bought any of the books I’d get a few cents, but I can’t, because I haven’t figured out how to set that up yet. Maybe in next year’s list of favorite books 😃.)
Here are some of the other books I read last year. To not over confuse the email with links, I’ve only included the Amazon links, because most people are familiar with where to find their descriptions and how to use the “Look Inside” feature. I’m sure most of the books would also be available in Apple, Kobo, Nook, etc.
Don Quixote, Miguel Cervantes.
How to Take Smart Notes, Sönke Ahrens
How to Write a Dynamite Scene Using the Snowflake Method, Randy Ingermanson
Keep Sharp: Build a Better Brain at Any Age, Sanjay Gupt
The Master Mind of the Self-Actualizing Person, Neil Vega
Washington Square, Henry James
A Brief History of Everything, Ken Wilber
The Neverending Story, Michael Ende
Man and his Symbols, Carl Jung
Chiron and the Healing Journey, Melanie Reinhart
My favorite book of the year? It’s a toss up between Don Quixote, Washington Square, The Neverending Story, A Brief History of Everything and Carl Jung’s Man and his Symbols.
Here are some observations on each:
How the drama of a James novel can turn on the simplest of acts. For instance, naïve and innocent Catherine standing up to her self-important father for the first time:
“‘Oh, nothing particular!'” Catherine answered, dissembling for the first time in her life.
Jung’s writing seems to pull you into a state of almost dreaming while awake. We see everything as having hidden depths and meaning. He sort of explains the process writers go through as they write. One quote resonated with me:
“There are cases in which people have dreamt the same dream from childhood into the later years of adult life. A dream . . . is usually an attempt to compensate for a particular defect in the dreamer’s attitude to life; or it may date from a traumatic moment that has left behind some specific prejudice. It may also sometimes anticipate a future event of importance.”
I’ve had such a recurring dream, and in some future post I’ll talk about it.
So, what book/books impacted you last year? What entertained you the most? To which do you thoughts keep returning.
Remember, we’re all different, which is what will make the comments fun.
