Horror Aficionados discussion

With a month left in the year, how are you doing on your 2016 reading goals?

What is the best book you've read this year? The worst?

As for me, I am behind my goal, having read 42 of 52 books so far. I am not likely to catch up. I attribute that to changes at my job and the demands of a 4 year old and 19 acres of farmland.

The worst book of the year for me was a prequel short story Harry Potter: The Prequel by J.K. Rowling. I really didn't get the story or how it was a prequel. And frankly, I can't fathom why Rowling would taint the Harry Potter brand name by releasing this sub-par story.

I think its a four-way jump ball on my favorite of the year between Headstone City by Tom Piccirilli, Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman and A Feast of Snakes by Harry Crews.

I am open to recommendations along any of those lines.

I've read 47 out of my goal of 52. I'm almost finished with Off to Be the Wizard by Scott Meyer. It's entertaining, lots of 80s-pop culture references, but I probably won't give it 5 stars. So, that will leave me 4 to read by the end of the year which is doable.

It was a good reading year. I had a goal of 75 and have read 78 books so far. I'll finish a few more before the end of the year.

Barb wrote: "I've read 47 out of my goal of 52. I'm almost finished with Off to Be the Wizard by Scott Meyer. It's entertaining, lots of 80s-pop culture references, but I probably won't give it ..."

Off to Be the Wizard looks right up my alley. Bought it! Thanks!

I'm doing great on my goal-I've read 166 books so far and my challenge was for 130.

My favorites this year include:

The graphic novels of Preacher

House of Leaves

The Sandman series by Neil Gaiman

by Robert McCammon.

by John Connolly.

To name just a few. :)

That rocks Char. Just passed my goal yesterday.

I've surpassed my goal of 25, but a few were children books. My favorite was a reread of a book when I was a kid called The Snowy Day. I had a few other good ones too. I started The Dark Tower series by SK which I am enjoying and I read the third HP book. There were a few duds too but mostly stuff I know I hate anyway so why did I read it.

I hope to get in at least three more books by the end of the year. I'm reading Red Rain by Stine, the third DT book by SK and Miracle on 34th Street (group read). I may also try to fit in The Princess Bride. We shall see.

My reading slowed down because of some life changes too. I hope to get back on track next year.

Lilyn G. (Scifi and Scary) wrote: "Goal was 250. Am at 348.

Favorite books are probably (sci-fi) Damocles, (horror/thriller) Reviver"

WOW!! That's impressive!

Ken wrote: "With a month left in the year, how are you doing on your 2016 reading goals?

What is the best book you've read this year? The worst?

As for me, I am behind my goal, having read 42 of 52 books so ..."
I've read 323 books out of 360. Last yr. I challenged myself to 500 & it about killed my eyeballs! LOL Right now I'm 6 books behind, but I have some short stories that I'll read to make sure I meet this year's challenge.

Wow, I feel like such a slacker. I set a goal of 30 books and am currently on book 26.

For the past few years I've had a goal of 50 books and all that time I never even made it to half my goal... until this year! I've done 97 books so far! To be fair, some were very short books or YA/juvenile lit, but I'm still proud that I read so many.

Favorite books... well a few of them. I favorite'd 35 books, lol.


Least favorite books...

Those were my lowest rated books. I gave The Girls one star.

I've read 91 so far with a goal of 60. My favorite of the year is of course hard to narrow down, but I have to go with The Bottoms by Joe R. Lansdale. Some honorable mentions:

Fellside and The Girl with All the Gifts by M.R. Carey.

Disappearance at Devil's Rock by Paul Tremblay

War Dances by Sherman Alexie

Sweetgirl by Travis Mulhauser

The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith

Matilda by Roald Dahl

It's been a great year of reading with some exceptional new releases that have greatly expanded my TBR pile. I love seeing the responses. Thanks for sharing, everyone!

Set my goal for 100 books and have read 159

Congrats all!

Anita wrote: "Wow, I feel like such a slacker. I set a goal of 30 books and am currently on book 26."

I don't work anymore, so don't feel bad, I have plenty of time to read. LOL I also took speed-reading courses in College, which really helps!

I set out to read 52, same goal as last year. I went over and read 78 last year. This year I'm at 108.

Best books:

Nightmare Girl by Jonathan Janz
The Death House by Sarah Pinborough

A whole pile of others I loved as well.

Worst by far was Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I only finished it because I don't like stopping and I hoped it'd have a redeeming factor since so many people adore it.

Thank you to everyone who posted about the books they enjoyed the most/favorites. I've found a couple to add to my list.

Ken wrote: "Worst by far was Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas...."

You have to be in a certain frame of mind for HST. I've loved all of his books with the exception of Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century.

If you are still of a mind, try reading Fear and Loathing in America: The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist, 1968-1976. Its non-fiction and gives you a GREAT insight into HST.

I'm doing awesome. As of today, I'm only 22 behind ;)

Great, thanks to the long summer break for uni students: I've met my goal of 100 books. Favourites were probably 'ASOIAF', which I binged this year, especially A Storm of Swords.

Good luck to those with unfinished reading challenges!

I'm at 271 of my goal of 260.

I've already surpassed my goal of 40, I am currently at 61. Next year I definitely need to boost up my goal.

I'm doing pretty well with my challenge but I've read way more graphic novels than I meant to. Next year I'll be going for longer reads.
I set a yearly goal of 200 and at the moment I'm at 194 so I should be fine to finish the year at 200 or more.

My favourite books were:

Preacher series
Written in Red
Birthdays for the Dead
The Boys series
The One and Only Ivan

My least favourite:

Swords of Sorrow vol 1
To Wake the Dead
Minimum Wage Book 1
Nemo: Heart of Ice

Kate wrote: "I'm doing pretty well with my challenge but I've read way more graphic novels than I meant to. Next year I'll be going for longer reads.
I set a yearly goal of 200 and at the moment I'm at 194 so ..."

Well done, my friend! :)

My goal was 175, and I expect to have around 225 by the end of the month. There were a lot of stand out ones, but I'll have to go back to my list to get the "top 20". ;) Jonathan Janz' Children of the Dark, The Behrg's The Creation: Let There Be Death, Jason Parent's Wrathbone, and Blake Crouch's Dark Matter are the first that come to mind.

Thanks, Char.

I'm really envious of what you've managed to read this year, such a great variety of books. :)

Kimberly wrote: "My goal was 175, and I expect to have around 225 by the end of the month. There were a lot of stand out ones, but I'll have to go back to my list to get the "top 20". ;) Jonathan Janz' [book:Childr..."

You are a reading machine, Kimberly. :D

Kate wrote: "Kimberly wrote: "My goal was 175, and I expect to have around 225 by the end of the month. There were a lot of stand out ones, but I'll have to go back to my list to get the "top 20". ;) Jonathan J..."
LOL!! It helps when I'm up half the night reading instead of sleeping.... ;)

26 out of 50 books read

My overall goal I am well over the initial number due to all the single issue comics I read (I try to read one a day to stop them building up too much).

My HA challenge has pretty much fallen to the wayside though. I lose focus on certain things over time, always have done. Next year I'm going to try and read more of my own books rather than library ones, and stop buying so many.

My goal was 101, I'm currently in the process of reading 103, 104 and 105...

I've surpassed my goal and read some amazing books.
Difficult to choose favourites but...

Ghost Story

House of Leaves

Boy's Life

The Thicket

NOS4R2

No particular order but to be honest my year's reading has been the best in a very long time. I attribute that to HA.

I saw someone in a group on FB question the amount of books his friend had read saying it was BS because no one can read that much. It ended up being like over 100 books but not unrealistic in my opinion. Heck some people can read a book a day.

jennbunny wrote: "I saw someone in a group on FB question the amount of books his friend had read saying it was BS because no one can read that much. It ended up being like over 100 books but not unrealistic in my o..."

Depending on the book, I can read 2-3 a day (paranormal romance fluff admittedly), other times it can take me 3+ months to slog through a book (usually a classic).

I set my goal to 150. Currently at 160 with (hopefully) 6 new releases left and 2 other books on the tbr to get to.

I also got over 12 classics read and almost 40 kindle books read and deleted.

I didn't get much horror in as the yearly reading challenge list was mostly either not interesting to me or I'd already read them.

Some of my favorite books (wild range of genres here) included:
, , , .

The worst were mostly kindle freebies or classics where the kindle version I had wasn't doing anything for me. But Robin Cook gets a (dis)honorable mention since 3 of his more recent books ended up in 2 star range.

I didn't set any targets this year as I had a course that I needed to complete and I didn't want the distraction of having to read x books this week to keep on track.

I haven't read as many as I wanted but I have enjoyed a lot of what I read.

My highlights have been:

The Neon Genesis Evangelion manga series.

Junji Ito's Cat Diary: Yon & Mu So funny, he's exactly like me

Boy's Life A fantastic epic story recommended by the people here. Thank you

Kai A random free Kindle book. This proves that not all free books are poor, they're all worth a read.

'Salem's Lot I've started to read through the King books again and I still love this book.

House of Leaves I didn't like this when I was reading it but thinking about it, and talking about it made if grow on me so much. Fantastic.

There have been quite a few DNF's this year. I think I've finally learned my lesson to stay away from YA books, they're just not for me.

I think the worst book was probably The Beast of Barcroft. I have a particularly sense of humour and this book just wasn't funny. It was trying so hard to be funny and straight at the same time and it really didn't work.

Well done to all of those who achieved their goals. And nevermind to all that didn't, it's enjoying what you read that counts.

Hope the last few books of 2016 are great for everyone!!

Jennifer wrote: "I didn't set any targets this year as I had a course that I needed to complete and I didn't want the distraction of having to read x books this week to keep on track.

I haven't read as many as I w..."

My exact thoughts on House of Leaves too, Jennifer!
It keeps coming back to me, particularly when I'm listening to a Spotify playlist

https://youtu.be/bbU31JLtlug

https://youtu.be/mdEuCRiW2l0

https://youtu.be/bAR-7YatJxY

There are other similarly haunting pieces of music that take me back to that book but these three really do capture it well, I think.

jennbunny wrote: "I saw someone in a group on FB question the amount of books his friend had read saying it was BS because no one can read that much. It ended up being like over 100 books but not unrealistic in my o..."

I can read 3-4 books a day as I can speed read, & short stories help. I read 500 books last year...I'll never do that again tho! LOL

Like Myst I had a dilemma with the reading challenge lists; either I had already read or did not want to read the books, so I didn't set a challenge this year.

Maybe for 2017 I will create a challenge based on my 'to read' list.